This is interesting, thanks for sharing. I'm not sure if I have seen his speech that went viral.
Anyway, I do have some comments about what he said. He has valid points but I don't totally agree with all of them.
His comment about the participation trophies is so true. I played softball for like 6 years when I was little. Our team basically won 1 game a year and we were given those. It's sad that I found myself getting used to the trophy. At least for that. Didn't get one in another local competition (not sports related) kind of thing I did for 2 years. I don't remember how I felt about that.
The point about the phone thing at meetings and at outings, I'm part guilty. I see that in other coworkers at meetings. My phone stays in my pocket or my purse for the most part if I'm with people that I want to be with. I look forward to just having conversations and hanging out in person. My phone is the last thing on my mind. However if it's something I don't want to do, or I am not around familiar people, I'm totally on my phone and yes with the social media. I try to pause it though.
The point about the stresses of life is true. I'll rather not get into it deeply but my parents undermined my emotions a lot. It messed with me that on tv I would see children talk to their parents about what happened at school when it comes to the bad things and when I would tell my mom what happened, her reaction was always "why are you crying about that?" There was no trying to understand me. So I stopped. To this day, I only talk to her about certain things. Never anything emotional.
Fortunately, I had my sister and I talked to her a lot about stuff until she went away to college. Then I felt far away from her and I didn't want to disturb her so I didn't call when going through middle school (we are 6 years apart) and high school stuff. I also made a few best friends too, which was nice until they literally moved away and I was back to square one.
He is right on the point of suicide. I have been around that block 2 times in my life. Notably, these were also times I felt away from my sister too. In regards to relationships, there's a point there. I see it too. He is on the money about friends. I feel like most of my friends are that way. They are a good time but I can't talk to any of them about anything I'm struggling with. For me, I find that I desire a deeper friendship more than I desire a romantic relationship. I have tried with some of them and not much comes out of it. Not even about patience, they just aren't as interested in doing that with me. Some of them do it with each other though. They are decent people though, which is why I still bother to do things with them but I don't expect much anymore.
In regards to work, I can't relate at all or agree. I like acknowledgement but not for the basic stuff. I like my job. It's a great launch pad. Indifferent about the impact thing though personally. Friends have left jobs because of the work environment and less about making an impact.
He is on about the social media thing though. I can't use Facebook anymore for that reason. I start comparing and using energy wondering why someone didn't reply to my post or status even though I reply to theirs. It's very unhealthy for me. Even decreasing the friends list doesn't make that go away. On the others I use, which are Twitter and Instagram, this doesn't happen at all.
To be fair, I do feel some kind of way when I reply to someone on Twitter and they don't acknowledge it but they acknowledge other people who replied after me but fortunately I don't follow many people like that. On Instagram, I'm more of a viewer than a poster. It is nice when people like when I occasionally post but I don't expect it in the way I expect replies on Twitter.
Sorry for the really long post. I didn't expect it to be so long.
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