Last Monday I heard one of the
most inspiring and motivating Ted Talks ever. It was entitled The Three Things
I Learned While My plane Crashed (http://www.ted.com/talks/ric_elias.html)
The protagonist and teller of the story, Rick Elias, was brief but concise in
his speech describing the three things he learned in that traumatic experience.
First, the fact that it all changes in an instant; second, that we must reject all
negative energy; and third, we have to be the best parent we can.
Even though Rick’s speech seems to
be full of commonplaces and clichés, it can be said that he has indeed been
given a gift, one that allowed him to see into the future and have the
opportunity to come back. Is it possible to learn from this kind of words? Or
we just have to go through extreme experiences to see their real meaning?
Although not all of us have been
through such an extremely intense event as an imminent plane crash, we all have
had to deal with challenging events at some point of our lives. An accident, a
surgery or a final exam, a relationship that failed or even a pessimistic
relative who criticises everything we do can be examples of them. And, even
though it sounds as a cliché, those situations have taught us something, and we
wouldn’t know everything we know now if we hadn’t lived them. Moreover, we
wouldn’t be the persons we are now. It is such a pity we don’t realize at the
exact moment, but after we have managed to succeed (or not).
From my personal experience I can
say that life gives us new chances to do what we weren’t able to do before. The
chances are that we will encounter difficult situations or moments of
uncertainty, but our reactions and actions to face them, are what later will
build our personality. But for what we have lived, we wouldn’t be able to grasp
their full significance.
In addition, I would like to say
that more than being a good parent, I think what is important is being a good
person, and the rest will come along.
