My philosophy for a happy life | Sam Berns | TEDxMidAtlantic — Transcript

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1. 0:00Transcriber: Bob Prottas Reviewer: Ariana Bleau Lugo
2. 0:18Hello everyone.
3. 0:20I'm Sam,
4. 0:21and I just turned 17.
5. 0:24A few years ago, before my freshman year in High School,
6. 0:27I wanted to play snare drum in the Foxboro High School Marching Band,
7. 0:32and it was a dream that I just had to accomplish.
8. 0:35But each snare drum and harness
9. 0:37weighed about 40 pounds each,
10. 0:40and I have a disease called Progeria.
11. 0:42So just to give you an idea, I weigh only about 50 pounds.
12. 0:46So, logistically, I really couldn't carry a regular sized snare drum,
13. 0:51and because of this the band director assigned me to play
14. 0:55pit percussion during the halftime show.
15. 0:59Now pit percussion was fun.
16. 1:01It involved some really cool auxiliary percussion instruments,
17. 1:04like the bongos, timpani,
18. 1:08and timbales, and cowbell.
19. 1:11So it was fun,
20. 1:13but it involved no marching, and I was just so devastated.
21. 1:18However, nothing was going to stop me
22. 1:20from playing snare drum with the marching band
23. 1:23in the halftime show.
24. 1:25So my family and I worked with an engineer to design
25. 1:29a snare drum harness
26. 1:31that would be lighter, and easier for me to carry.
27. 1:35So after continuous work, we made
28. 1:39a snare drum apparatus that weighs only about 6 pounds.
29. 1:43(Applause)
30. 1:48I just want to give you some more information about Progeria.
31. 1:52It affects only about 350 kids today, worldwide.
32. 1:58So it's pretty rare,
33. 2:00and the effects of Progeria include:
34. 2:03tight skin, lack of weight gain, stunted growth,
35. 2:07and heart disease.
36. 2:09Last year my Mom and her team of scientists
37. 2:12published the first successful Progeria Treatment Study,
38. 2:16and because of this I was interviewed on NPR,
39. 2:19and John Hamilton asked me the question:
40. 2:22"What is the most important thing
41. 2:24that people should know about you?"
42. 2:26And my answer was simply that
43. 2:29I have a very happy life.
44. 2:31(Applause)
45. 2:35So even though there are many obstacles in my life,
46. 2:39with a lot of them being created by Progeria,
47. 2:42I don't want people to feel bad for me.
48. 2:45I don't think about these obstacles all the time,
49. 2:47and I'm able to overcome most of them anyway.
50. 2:51So I’m here today, to share with you my philosophy for a happy life.
51. 2:56So, for me, there are 3 aspects to this philosophy.
52. 3:00So this is a quote from the famous Ferris Bueller.
53. 3:04The first aspect to my philosophy is that
54. 3:08I’m okay with what I ultimately can’t do
55. 3:11because there is so much I can do.
56. 3:14Now people sometimes ask me questions like,
57. 3:16"Isn’t it hard living with Progeria?" or
58. 3:19"What daily challenges of Progeria do you face?"
59. 3:22And I’d like to say that, even though I have Progeria,
60. 3:26most of my time is spent thinking about things
61. 3:28that have nothing to do with Progeria at all.
62. 3:31Now this doesn’t mean that I ignore the negative aspects of these obstacles.
63. 3:36When I can’t do something like
64. 3:38run a long distance, or go on an intense roller coaster,
65. 3:42I know what I’m missing out on.
66. 3:44But instead, I choose to focus on the activities
67. 3:48that I can do through things that I’m passionate about,
68. 3:52like scouting, or music, or comic books,
69. 3:55or any of my favorite Boston sports teams.
70. 3:58Yeah, so -- (Laughter)
71. 4:01However, sometimes I need to find a different way to do something
72. 4:06by making adjustments,
73. 4:07and I want to put those things in the "can do" category.
74. 4:11Kind of like you saw with the drum earlier.
75. 4:14So here’s a clip
76. 4:16with me playing Spider-Man
77. 4:18with the Foxboro High School Marching Band
78. 4:21at halftime a couple of years ago.
79. 4:23(Video)
80. 4:26♫ Spider-Man theme song ♫
81. 5:07(Applause)
82. 5:10Thank you.
83. 5:12All right, all right, so --
84. 5:14That was pretty cool,
85. 5:16and so I was able to accomplish my dream
86. 5:19of playing snare drum with the marching band,
87. 5:22as I believe I can do for all of my dreams.
88. 5:25So hopefully, you can accomplish your dreams as well, with this outlook.
89. 5:30The next aspect to my philosophy is
90. 5:32that I surround myself with people I want to be with,
91. 5:36people of high quality.
92. 5:38I’m extremely lucky to have an amazing family,
93. 5:42who have always supported me throughout my entire life.
94. 5:46And I’m also really fortunate to have
95. 5:48a really close group of friends at school.
96. 5:51Now we’re kind of goofy, a lot of us are band geeks,
97. 5:55but we really enjoy each other’s company,
98. 5:57and we help each other out when we need to.
99. 6:00We see each other for who we are on the inside.
100. 6:04So this is us goofing off a little bit.
101. 6:06So we’re juniors in High School now,
102. 6:09and we can now mentor younger band members,
103. 6:15as a single collective unit.
104. 6:16What I love about being in a group like the band,
105. 6:19is that the music that we make together,
106. 6:22is true, is genuine, and it supersedes Progeria.
107. 6:28So I don’t have to worry about that
108. 6:29when I’m feeling so good about making music.
109. 6:33But even having made a documentary,
110. 6:36going on TV a couple of times,
111. 6:38I feel like I’m at my highest point
112. 6:41when I’m with the people that surround me every day.
113. 6:45They provide the real positive influences in my life,
114. 6:49as I hope I can provide a positive influence in theirs as well.
115. 6:54(Applause)
116. 6:58Thank you.
117. 6:59So the bottom line here,
118. 7:01is that I hope you appreciate and love your family,
119. 7:05love your friends, for you guys, love you Bro’s
120. 7:08and acknowledge your mentors,
121. 7:11and your community,
122. 7:13because they are a very real aspect of everyday life,
123. 7:16they can make a truly significant, positive impact.
124. 7:20The third aspect to the philosophy is,
125. 7:23Keep moving forward.
126. 7:25Here’s a quote by a man you may know, named Walt Disney,
127. 7:29and it’s one of my favorite quotes.
128. 7:31I always try to have something to look forward to.
129. 7:34Something to strive for to make my life richer.
130. 7:37It doesn’t have to be big.
131. 7:38It could be anything from
132. 7:41looking forward to the next comic book to come out,
133. 7:43or going on a large family vacation,
134. 7:46or hanging out with my friends,
135. 7:48to going to the next High School football game.
136. 7:51However, all of these things keep me focused,
137. 7:55and know that there’s a bright future ahead,
138. 7:57and may get me through some difficult times that I may be having.
139. 8:02Now this mentality includes staying in a forward thinking state of mind.
140. 8:07I try hard not to waste energy feeling badly for myself,
141. 8:11because when I do, I get stuck in a paradox,
142. 8:14where there’s no room for any happiness or any other emotion.
143. 8:19Now, it’s not that I ignore when I’m feeling badly,
144. 8:23I kind of accept it,
145. 8:24I let it in, so that I can acknowledge it,
146. 8:28and do what I need to do to move past it.
147. 8:31When I was younger, I wanted to be an engineer.
148. 8:35I wanted to be an inventor,
149. 8:37who would catapult the world into a better future.
150. 8:40Maybe this came from my love of Legos,
151. 8:42and the freedom of expression that I felt
152. 8:44when I was building with them.
153. 8:47And this was also derived from my family and my mentors,
154. 8:53who always make me feel whole, and good about myself.
155. 8:57Now today my ambitions have changed a little bit,
156. 9:01I’d like to go into the field of Biology,
157. 9:03maybe cell biology, or genetics,
158. 9:07or biochemistry, or really anything.
159. 9:12This is a friend of mine, who I look up to,
160. 9:15Francis Collins, the director of the NIH,
161. 9:19and this is us at TEDMED last year, chatting away.
162. 9:22I feel that no matter what I choose to become,
163. 9:26I believe that I can change the world.
164. 9:29And as I’m striving to change the world, I will be happy.
165. 9:34About four years ago,
166. 9:36HBO began to film a documentary
167. 9:39about my family and me called “Life According to Sam”.
168. 9:42That was a pretty great experience, but it was also four years ago.
169. 9:46And like anyone, my views on many things have changed,
170. 9:49and hopefully matured, like my potential career choice.
171. 9:54However, some things have stayed the same throughout that time.
172. 9:58Like my mentality, and philosophy towards life.
173. 10:02So I would like to show you
174. 10:04a clip of my younger self from the film,
175. 10:07that I feel embodies that philosophy.
176. 10:11(Video)
177. 10:12I know more about it genetically.
178. 10:16So it’s less of an embodiment now.
179. 10:19It used to be like
180. 10:21this thing that prevents me from doing all this stuff,
181. 10:24that causes other kids to die,
182. 10:26that causes everybody to be stressed,
183. 10:29and now it’s a protein that is abnormal,
184. 10:35that weakens the structure of cells.
185. 10:40So,
186. 10:42and it takes a burden off of me because now
187. 10:45I don’t have to think about
188. 10:48Progeria as an entity.
189. 10:55Okay, pretty good, huh?
190. 10:57(Applause)
191. 11:01Thank you.
192. 11:02So, as you can see I’ve been thinking this way for many years.
193. 11:05But I’d never really had to apply all of these aspects of my philosophy
194. 11:10to the test at one time, until last January.
195. 11:14I was pretty sick, I had a chest cold, and I was in the hospital for a few days,
196. 11:19and I was secluded from all of the aspects of my life that I felt
197. 11:23made me, me,
198. 11:25that kind of gave me my identity.
199. 11:27But knowing that I was going to get better,
200. 11:31and looking forward to a time that I would feel good again,
201. 11:34helped me to keep moving forward.
202. 11:36And sometimes I had to be brave,
203. 11:39and it wasn’t always easy.
204. 11:41Sometimes I faltered,
205. 11:42I had bad days,
206. 11:44but I realized that being brave isn’t supposed to be easy.
207. 11:47And for me, I feel it’s the key way to keep moving forward.
208. 11:51So, all in all,
209. 11:54I don’t waste energy feeling bad for myself.
210. 11:57I surround myself with people that I want to be with,
211. 12:01and I keep moving forward.
212. 12:03So with this philosophy, I hope that all of you,
213. 12:06regardless of your obstacles,
214. 12:08can have a very happy life as well.
215. 12:11Oh, wait, hang on a second,
216. 12:13one more piece of advice –-
217. 12:15(Laughter)
218. 12:17Never miss a party if you can help it.
219. 12:19My school’s homecoming dance is tomorrow night,
220. 12:22and I will be there.
221. 12:24Thank you very much.
222. 12:25(Applause)