Finding Myself At TEDxHouston

I was nervous when filling out my application to attend my first TEDx event.  As I looked at the the extensive questionnaire I tried to think of some clever answers to give, something that would surely “wow” the application board into letting me attend. You see, I wanted in badly!  I love TED and everything it stands for and the fact that a TEDx event was happening in my very backyard was thrilling to say the least.  So instead of being witty and clever with my application, I went a different direction.  I went with my heart.

I wanted to write the answers to those short essays and have them be truthful, real, honest, transparent and most importantly a reflection of me.  I didn’t make a rough draft, I gave myself no more than an hour, and I quickly typed as fast as my brain could  process what my heart was feeling.  I read it over once for spelling and quickly hit “send” before I could go back and “ruin” it with flowery language, overdone punctuation or even a rewrite.

I got in.  As myself.

This Saturday I attended TEDxHouston and was overwhelmed, for it was unlike any conference I have ever attended.  The details of the day, from the different programs jackets that made an image if put together with 5 others, down to the tdescriptive words pulled from our applications and placed on our name tags, it was all just perfect.  My words: “education, believe, kindness”

Our emcee for the day, KUHF’s Chirs Johnson, opened the conference with some rather profound advice that really set the tone for the day.  He said, “listen like the plane is going down” and that is what we did.  Each of the 500 attendees sat on the edge of their seats hanging on the words of each of the speakers as they spoke for their 18 mins. My favorite part, as I looked over the audience there was not a laptop or a phone in sight.  No one was worried about checking e-mails or sending out a tweet.  Everyone was just listening…

I couldn’t even try to go over all the speakers and tell you what they all had to say.  I know this because I  tried to do that with my parents today and failed miserably.  Instead I just sounded like a 10 year old kid hopped up on pixie sticks as I tried to tell them every detail and the excitement that I felt while sitting in that theatre.

I walked out of TEDxHouston yesterday excited, filled with ideas, and ready to tackle something, anything.

Solve world hunger? Yup!

Bring peace in the Middle East?  Bring it on!

Save the rain forest?  Let’s do this!

Sadly though, you wake up the next morning with a strong reality check. ” Hey!  You have a day job, you have bills to pay….you can’t go save the whales today…”

As much as I would like to ignore that voice, I have to be as honest with myself, as I was on my application,  I can’t solve world hunger today, but I can do something after work.  I can go read to children at the library, I can mentor, I can go help give dogs bathes at the animals shelter so they look nice to go out for adoption day, I can buy local produce and even eat in locally owned restaurants.  I can make a difference in someone elses life right here in Houston.

As we left yesterday we were given this thought from another TEDster and fabulous conductor, Benjamin Zander, whom I’ve featured on C&B before.  He asks “Who am I being?  Who am I being that I am causing this reaction in someone else? Who am I being?”….my goal at the end of the day is to  proudly say none other than… myself.