An Idea Worth Spreading

**I want to start off with a quick note. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about the changeable nature of this blog, so if you don't like it, tell me. I want to know.**

So. Now to begin. I have spent part of my day watching Ted talks. I'll agree that maybe this is not the best use of my time, but I'm on vacation, so I get to do whatever I please. Normally, I'll start one Ted talk, and get through maybe half of it before I get so bored I have to stop. A lot of them are crap, but occasionally, you come across really good ones, ones that really stick with you and captivate you. I happened upon two of them, back to back.

http://blog.ted.com/2012/01/04/lifes-third-act-jane-fonda-on-ted-com/

http://www.ted.com/talks/nigel_marsh_how_to_make_work_life_balance_work.html

I wanted to just briefly share both of these, and share with you what they made me think about. I've only ever posted three Ted Talks online (ones that I like), these being two of them. Sometimes, there is an idea that if actually embodied, could make a whole a lot of difference to a whole lot of people. Maybe that is a little vague. Here's a good example (that is similarly vague): I have once heard it described that the world would be a much happier place if people worked to live, instead of lived to work. Smart and catchy!

So now. To the Ted talks. The first one was given by Jane Fonda. If you really want to see what she said, well, take the 11 minutes and watch the presentation! I'm not doing all of the hard work for you. But she talked about how life is not the arc that most people think it is, namely that you progress up until your middle age, peak, and then start to decline. Rather, life is more of a stair case, and we get better with age. She also mentioned something else, which I thought was interesting. About 1/3 of your senior years status is determined by genes, which obviously you can't do anything about. But that means that you have control over 2/3 of your quality of life as you age. 2/3. 66.66%. That is a lot. It's not true that when you are old, your life is over. My own mother shamed me in wall balls the other day in the gym. My mother. Talk about a wake up call. She told me she has been using 12lbs, where as I have only been using 8lb. Believe me, I have not even touched the 8lb ball since then. It's interesting to think that the patterns we learn from our parents, about how to deal with life, and how to be successful, haunt us until our death beds. Some of those patterns are good, and some are destructive. It's easy to just say that it is inevitable that we will become old and decrepit and then die. It is much, much harder to actually fight to have a different life, to change yourself, especially when you are stuck in your ways.

Depression runs in my family. It's not a secret, and I am not ashamed of it. I was depressed for a long time, even though I wouldn't admit it. I was depressed, and angry at the world, and completely unable to help myself. It's really not a matter of blame, namely saying that it was my fault I was depressed, or it was my parents fault for not helping me. That is not the case at all. Blaming someone, even if it is yourself, won't fix the problem. It will probably just create more resentment and anger and make it worse. The reality is that there is a problem, and you need to fix it. For many things, like depression and anger, your brain learns certain ways to react, and eventually, the neural pathways are stuck, and it is hard to change them. Notice I said hard, not impossible. For depression especially, people say that if you have been seriously depressed for a long time, or twice for shorter amounts of time, no amount of therapy is going to help you, only anti depressants, because your brain has learned how to be depressed, and will not abandon those neural pathways. It's a struggle to learn new ones. It's not comfortable by any standards, but sometimes it is the right thing to do. It's easy to say that you don't have to be held down by what other people's ignorance tell you. It's easy to say that you are free to live your life the way you want, and damnit, if you want to pick up 400lbs when you are 60, well then, pick up 400lbs when you are 60!

The second Ted talk about balancing work and life felt particularly relevant to me. It has been a big source of stress in my life that all I want to do is enjoy myself, live life to the fullest until I die, and yet, I am going to sign over my soul to Medical School. Not much balance in your life when you are a med student. That is probably my biggest resistance to going to medical school. So what do you do about that? I don't have the answer. But that guy sure makes a compelling case to not live to work.

I know this posting was a little more serious. I am in a much more serious mood today. I don't think you can joke about everything all the time. Sometime, there are some things that require honestly and truth. Wisdom doesn't come from being older. Age is completely arbitrary. Look at George W Bush. You certainly wouldn't call him wise, but he is much older than most of us. So take a look at yourself. Go on. Take a second to think about what you do in life. How do you react when someone yells at you? Do you get mad easily? What happens when you are upset? Are you able to feel happiness? Now is as good a time as any to change the things you want to change about yourself. I know I am.