Philosophy For A Happy Life | Sam Berns | Motivational Video
what is the most important thing that people should know about you my answer was simply that I have a very happy life I’m Sam and I just turned 17 and I have a disease called progeria so just to give you an idea I weigh about only 50 pounds it affects only about 350 kids today worldwide 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 three aspects to this philosophy the first aspect to my philosophy is that I’m okay with what I ultimately can’t do because there’s so much that I can do now people sometimes ask me questions like isn’t it hard living with progeria or what daily challenges are 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 I choose to focus on the activities and you for things that I’m passionate about like scouting or music or comic books or any of my favorite Boston sports tape so 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 next aspect to my philosophy is that I surround myself with people that 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 down to 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 and 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 the band is that the music that we make together is true it’s 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 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 that I can provide positive influence in theirs as well so the bottom line here is that I hope that you appreciate love your family love your friends for you guys love your bros and acknowledge your mentors and your community because they are very real aspect of everyday life they can make a truly significant positive impact so the third aspect to the philosophy is keep moving forward I always try to have something to look forward to something to strive for to make my life richer 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 go to the next high school football team 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 and I may be having now this mentality includes staying in a forward-thinking state flow I try hard not to waste energy feeling badly for everything because what I do I get stuck in a paradox where there’s no room for many happiness or any other emotion now it’s not that I ignore what I’m feeling badly I kind of accepted I let it in but I can not 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 would 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 these 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 biochemistry or really anything and this is a friend of mine 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 me called life according to Sam now it was a pretty great experience but it was also four years ago and like any one my views on many things have changed and hopefully matured like my potential career choice however some some things have stayed the same throughout that time like my mentality and philosophy towards life as you can see I’ve been thinking this way for many years but I’ve 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 but and I was secluded from all 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 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’ve 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 sec one more piece of advice 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]
