Best Ted Talks I Watched in 2020
When pandemic actually gives you time to learn how to live.
I have gone through a hard emotional event since the beginning the pandemic crisis, which left me being heartbroken, lost and pretty hopeless for a while. Since then, I have been rigorously learning, keeping myself intellectually occupied and trying to get some clarity of how I should go forward with my life.
Having been listened to Ted talks every single day, I learned a great deal of interesting ideas about relationships, career and life in general. That is what I want to share with you in this post, hopefully it will be helpful for you too.
1. Your relationship with yourself determines your relationships with others
Ted talk: The person you really need to marry — Tracy McMillan.
We all want to improve ourselves, as no one is a perfect human being. The catch is, if you keep having only negative thoughts about yourself, others will eventually end up believing them — and treating you accordingly. Don’t blame them for their lack of conscience, it is pure psychology (and they might not even aware of it). In a romantic relationship, being confident and certain about your self-worth is not only something that makes you attractive as a person, but a necessity for your own happiness.
Many of us do give ourselves less credit for what we deserve, and set ourselves up for an unhappy relationship. How? Because the moment you know you can’t ignore the fact that your value and self-worth is undermined, it is already late. On the contrary, if you really know your value, starting right from a first date, you will be paying more attention to how the other person is making you feel, rather than worrying about whether they like you or not. It’s not about being selfish, but about having self-compassion and being true to yourself. At the end of the day, if you don’t respect your own value and self-worth, no one will. In addition, if you are not happy in a relationship because you don’t get what you really deserve, your partner will eventually suffer too.
In other words, you need to love yourself the way you want someone to love you. Keep in mind that whatever you believe about yourself will be self-fulfilled.
2. To achieve anything: Break your goals into their simplest form and make marginal adjustment to your routine
Ted talk: How to achieve your most ambitious goals — Stephen Duneier
This is one of the Ted talks that I find myself listening to again and again, just to remind me that everything is possible with a small step at a time. If you set a goal to read 50 books a year, it may sound very overwhelming. Most of us do not read a book every month, let alone a book a week. However, if we break it down to reading 3 pages a day, down to one paragraph, down to one word at a time, that would seem much more doable. What matters is whether you take the action or not. Imagine after a long day of work, lying on your couch, instead of flicking through your Facebook you will put your phone down, reach out for a book and start reading. One word at a time.
This is a powerful idea — it would work for literally any area of your life. I recently set a goal for myself to make one small painting everyday for at least three months. Every evening, I will sit down and paint something. I’m two weeks into my own challenge and finding it not as tough as I always thought. I thought I wouldn’t have time, but you really have as much time as you stretch it. My skills also improve significantly along the way. To give myself some extra motivation, I told all my friends and family about this goal, and commit myself to posting a new painting everyday on my Instagram so everyone would know if I fail to do it. Everyday I keep reminding myself that it’s OK if my painting doesn’t turn out to be a masterpiece, but I just need to keep doing it everyday.
3. Let Death Be What Takes Us, Not the Lack of Imagination
Ted talk: What really matters at the end of life — BJ Miller
As I grow further into my adulthood, I think more about death. What it means to be dead. What it means to be living. This Ted talk is an amazing demonstration of how a catastrophic event in someone’s life has brought about so much clarity about what it means to be living. It brought me to tears.
A lot of us pass through our life just like being blindfolded. We shut down our own sensations, emotions and inner voices. We allow ourselves to take the space as big as our own feet in the world. We are scared of getting out of our comfort zone, of failing, of getting ourselves embarrassed, of taking more of the space that the world has for us. I think the lack of imagination does not only disappoint the dying, but also lessens very much the life experience of the living.
I keep reminding myself to make a good use of the endless possibilities that the world gives me, of the good health when I still have it. And, do something good with it for myself and for others.
We suffer more from imagination than from reality.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca
4. Want to Be More Healthy, Successful, Happy? Make People Crack up More Often
Ted talk: The Skill of Humor — Andrew Tarvin
If you are looking for some good educational laughs, this is for you! Humor is one of the most important factors in building relationships, at work or in your personal life. If you have worked at a corporate, you probably have noticed that the colleagues that have good sense of humor are usually deemed to be more likeable, approachable, and they are more likely to be promoted! For romantic partners, humor is what brings fun and strengthens the relationship. There is no hard and fast rule to become more funny, but just like any other skills, you can certainly learn to improve your humor with some conscious practice.
5. Understand why you procrastinate
Ted talk: Inside the mind of a master procrastinator — Tim Urban
If you are someone who procrastinate a lot, you may wonder what is the thinking pattern that that makes you procrastinate again and again. This Ted talk by Tim Urban (the author of Wait But Why blog) will guide you through the mind of a master procrastinator. You will understand yourself so much more and learn to recognize your “Instant-gratification monkey” before you give up to your procrastination.
Enjoy learning!
