I had the great privilege of speaking to a group of high school students today at my former high school. The organization, Drug Free Youth In Town, gathered a good amount of students and student athletes to come listen to my thoughts on living a drug free life. I have to admit there has only been two times so far in my adult life when I’ve done public speaking and felt not a single twinge of nervousness, but instead, allowed myself to fall into a sort of “zone”. It’s kinda like the feeling I used to get when I was playing football and I’d get this tunnel vision where time slows down and I am hyper aware of my surroundings. Ambient noise really doesn’t register in my consciousness, only the task at hand. When it comes to public speaking, I feel it is a lot different than acting or performing in front of the camera. At this point in the day, I’m not going to try and figure out why, all I will say is it’s different. The last two times I’ve had the chance to speak, I bared my soul and shared my deepest thoughts and life insights to my group of listeners, much like I do with this blog. With that, I found myself in the familiar space of intense focus and being very present in the moment now. Let me tell you, it felt amazing.
The last time I spoke in this capacity was for a local TED Talk audition where I discussed the divisive nature of social, political and other cultural labels we place on each other and how that keeps us from clearly seeing and sharing our common humanity. Today at Valencia High School, I tried to approach the drug free discussion from a different angle, not by not telling students, “drugs are bad mmmkay”, because let’s be honest, they’ve heard that speech a million times before. Instead, I chose to speak from my heart and wanted to try and guide them towards taking a good look at who they are as individuals and finding their passions. The message is not to avoid drugs simply because they are “bad” for you, but because you, the unique individual that you are, has a voice, a truth and talents meant to be expressed uniquely through your own life and getting trapped in a cycle of addiction limits what you can become. Not to mention, the “cool kids” in the real world are never followers, but those who are willing to passionately pursue their highest potentials in the face of ridicule, condemnation and sometimes even death. The talk lasted about fifteen minutes; fairly short, sweet and to the point.
After talking to a few of the teachers and students when the session was over, I left my old campus of course contemplating what had just transpired in that high school theatre. I walked away from the experience with my own sort of natural high, the kind I ardently advocated for in the talk. In looking back at what I was saying and how many of the students were intensely engaged with what I was saying (because I was aware of the communication between us, go back a meditation if you missed it!), I realized not only was this a tremendous opportunity for the students to open up to someone encouraging them to be themselves in this world, I realized how exciting it was for me to see a group of people interested in hearing this message. One of the things that sprang out of the moment as I was wrapping the talk up was I said, “If you do not honor your truth, who you are, your passions and your highest potentials, not only are you missing out on the opportunity to live your life, but the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience the best of who you are.”
I thought about this line over and over and I realized where I began, a talk hoping to inspire some young kids to avoid the pitfalls of substance abuse and addiction, ended with the deepest parts of me, honestly and in the moment, calling out to them to be their authentic selves and convincing them to strive for achieving their loftiest ideals. I was standing there in front of a generation of young minds behind me, in a way begging them to cut through the bull shit games society plays and be willing to chase their passions, be creative and make their own authentic mark on the world regardless of what their peers say, no matter how difficult life may seem at the moment. Because if this human experience is going to get better for us, if we are ever going to move beyond the war, the poverty, the suppression of self,the denial of our shared humanity and the complete destruction of the planet we inhabit, it is going to take an army of very real, honest and passionate people, charging ahead in every nook and cranny of the world, striving to create and announce their highest vision they hold about themselves and this reality we share.
That was quite possibly THE longest sentence I have ever written and I am not going back to edit it…I came away from the talk feeling like the world needs you now more than ever. No, not the well trained, conditioned, well manicured, face full of pretty make up you. The real you. The honest, relentlessly passionate you that knows who you are and is willing to make a mark on this world rather than let someone to tell you your place in it. I came away from the talk today feeling like the world needs me now more than ever. No, not the perpetual people pleasing, conflict avoiding, smile because it makes people feel comfortable me. The real me. The honest, relentlessly passionate me that knows who I am and is willing to make my mark on the world rather than let someone try to tell me my place in it. The world needs the real you, you, you, and you and me, to show up every single day if we are going to live an incredible life worth living and create a shared reality worth sharing.
I walked away from the assembly powerfully moved by the opportunity for myself and everyone in that theatre, to share the exchange of energy that had taken place. I can only hope those words I spoke today will resonate with just one student, hell, anyone in the room for that matter. Well, I know the speech affected someone for sure. Honestly, even if no else one connected with what I was saying, I came away from this talk energized and with the realization that I just spent fifteen very real minutes, time warp and all, expressing my passionate ideas and sharing my truth, the same call I was asking those students to answer. So it shall be, a teacher is a perpetual student.
-JB
