My philosophy for a happy life, Sam Berns TED x Mid Atlantic
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| My philosophy for a happy life, Sam Berns TED x Mid Atlantic |
Transcriber: Sm Masum Reviewer: Ariana Bleau Lugo Hello everyone. I'm Sam, and I just
turned 17. A few years ago, before my freshman year in High School, I wanted to
play snare drum in the Foxboro High School Marching Band, and it was a dream
that I just had to accomplish. But each snare drum and harness weighed about 40
pounds each, and I have a disease called Progeria. So just to give you an idea,
I weigh only about 50 pounds. So, logistically,
I really couldn't carry a
regular-sized snare drum, and because of this, the band director assigned me to
play pit percussion during the halftime show. Now pit percussion was fun. It
involved some really cool auxiliary percussion instruments, like the bongos,
timpani, and timbales, and cowbell. So it was fun, but it involved no marching,
and I was just so devastated. However, nothing was going to stop me from
playing snare drum with the marching band in the halftime show.
So my family
and I worked with an engineer to design a snare drum harness that would be
lighter, and easier for me to carry. So after continuous work, we made a snare
drum apparatus that weighs only about 6 pounds. (Applause) I just want to give
you some more information about Progeria. It affects only about350 kids today,
worldwide. So it's pretty rare, and the effects of Progeria include tight skin,
lack of weight gain, stunted growth, and heart disease. Last year my Mom and
her team of scientists published the first successfulProgeria Treatment Study,
and because of this I was interviewed on NPR, and John Hamilton asked me the
question: "What is the most important thing that people should know about
you?" And my answer was simply that I have a very happy life. (Applause)
So even though there are many obstacles in my life, with a lot of them being
created by Progeria, I don't want people to feel bad for me.
I don't think
about these obstacles all the time, and I'm able to overcome most of them
anyway. So I’m here today, to share with you my philosophy for a happy life.
So, for me, there are 3 aspects of this philosophy. So this is a quote from the
famous Ferris Bueller. The first aspect of my philosophy is that I’m okay with
what I ultimately can’t do because there is so much I can do. Now people
sometimes ask me questions like, "Isn’t it hard living with
Progeria?" or "What daily challenges of Progeria do you face?"
And I’d like to say that, even though I have Progeria, most of my time is spent
thinking about things that have nothing to do with Progeria at all. Now, this
doesn’t mean that I ignore the negative aspects of these obstacles. When I
can’t do something like run a long-distance or go on an intense roller coaster,
I know what I’m missing out on. But instead,I choose to focus on the activities
that I can do through things that I’m passionate about, like scouting, or
music, or comic books, or any of my favorite Boston sports teams. Yeah, so
--(Laughter)
However, sometimes I need to find a different way to do something
by making adjustments, and I want to put those things in the "can do"
category. Kind of like you saw with the drum earlier. So here’s a clip with me
playing Spider-Man with the Foxboro High School Marching Band at halftime a
couple of years ago. (Video) Spider-Man
theme song (Applause) Thank you. All
right, all right, so -- That was pretty cool, and so I was able to accomplish
my dream of playing snare drum with the marching band, as I believe I can do
for all of my dreams. So hopefully, you can accomplish your dreams as well,
with this outlook. The next aspect to my philosophy is that I surround myself
with people I want to be with, people of high quality. I’m extremely lucky to
have an amazing family, who have always supported me throughout my entire life.
And I’m also really fortunate to have a really close group of friends at
school. Now we’re kind of goofy, a lot of us are band geeks, but we really
enjoy each other’s company, and we help each other out when we need to. We see
each other for who we are on the inside. So this is us goofing off a little
bit. So we’re juniors in High School now, and we can now mentor younger band
members, as a single collective unit. What I love about being in a group like a
band, is that the music that we make together, is true, is genuine, and it
supersedes Progeria. So I don’t have to worry about that when I’m feeling so
good about making music. But even having made a documentary, going on TV a
couple of times, I feel like I’m at my highest point when I’m with the people
that surround me every day. They provide the real positive influences in my
life, as I hope I can provide a positive influence in theirs as well.
(Applause) Thank you. So the bottom line here, is that I hope you appreciate
and love your family, love your friends, for you guys, love you Bro’s and
acknowledge your mentors, and your community because they are a very real
aspect of everyday life, they can make a truly significant, positive impact.
The third aspect of the philosophy is, Keep moving forward. Here’s a quote by a
man you may know, named Walt Disney, and it’s one of my favorite quotes. I
always try to have something to look forward to. Something to strive for to
make my life richer. It doesn’t have to be big. It could be anything from
looking forward to the next comic book to come out, or going on a large family
vacation, or hanging out with my friends, to going to the next high school
football game. However, all of these things keep me focused, and know that
there's a bright future ahead, and may get me through some difficult times that
I may be having. Now, this mentality includes staying in a forward-thinking
state of mind. I try hard not to waste energy feeling badly for myself, because
when I do, I get stuck in a paradox, where there’s no room for any happiness or
any other emotion. Now, it’s not that I ignore when I’m feeling bad, I kind of
accept it, I let it in so that I can acknowledge it, and do what I need to do
to move past it. When I was younger, I wanted to be an engineer.
I wanted to be
an inventor, who would the catapult the world into a better future. Maybe this
came from my love of Legos, and the freedom of expression that I felt when I
was building with them. And this was also derived from my family and my
mentors, who always make me feel whole,and good about myself. Now today my
ambitions have changed a little bit, I’d like to go into the field of Biology,
maybe cell biology, or genetics, or biochemistry, or really anything. This is a
friend of mine, who I look up to, Francis Collins, the director of the NIH, and
this is us at TEDMED last year, chatting away. I feel that no matter what I
choose to become, I believe that I can change the world. And as I’m striving to
change the world,I will be happy. About four years ago, HBO began to film a
documentary about my family and called “Life According to Sam”. That was a
pretty great experience, but it was also four years ago. And like anyone, my
views on many things have changed, and hopefully matured, like my potential
career choice. However, some things have stayed the same throughout that time.
Like my mentality, and philosophy towards life. So I would like to show you a
clip of my younger self from the film, that I feel embodies that philosophy.
(Video) I know more about it genetically. So it’s less of an embodiment now.
It
used to be like this thing that prevents me from doing all this stuff, which
causes other kids to die, which causes everybody to be stressed, and now it's a
protein that is abnormal, which weakens the structure of cells. So, and it
takes a burden off of me because now I don’t have to think about Progeria as an
entity. Okay, pretty good, huh? (Applause) Thank you. So, as you can see I’ve
been thinking this way for many years. But I’d never really had to apply all of
these aspects of my philosophy to the test at one time, until last January. I
was pretty sick, I had a chest cold, and I was in the hospital for a few days,
and I was secluded from all of the aspects of my life that I felt made me, me,
that kind of gave me my identity. But knowing that I was going to get better,
and looking forward to a time that I would feel good again, helped me to keep
moving forward.
And sometimes I had to be brave, and it wasn’t always easy.
Sometimes I faltered, I had bad days, but I realized that being brave isn't
supposed to be easy. And for me, I feel it’s the key way to keep moving
forward. So, all in all, I don’t waste energy feeling bad for myself. I
surround myself with people that I want to be with, and I keep moving forward.
So with this philosophy, I hope that all of you, regardless of your obstacles,
can have a very happy life as well. Oh, wait, hang on a second, one more piece
of advice –- (Laughter) Never miss a party if you can help it. My school’s
homecoming dance is tomorrow night, and I will be there. Thank you very much.
(Applause)
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