One month ago, I did my first TED Talk. As some of you know, there was a bit of a situation that arose that weekend. That aside, I'd like to thank Kym Goh for helping me bring my slides to life with his artistic talent; I'm sharing some of those photos here. We're both big kids at heart, so speaking to youths in Singapore that day was quite meaningful for me.
Even as adults, so many of us are afraid to be our own kind of weird, to be seen as different. As kids growing up and encountering rejection for the first time, we all know how hard it can be to have the courage to just be yourself – especially when others make your life harder because of it. The TED Talk's event theme was You vs You–our inner struggles, so I shared a bit about my journey as a kid who was harassed and picked on in America and how I reacted (anger mistaken for strength, actually). And what I had learned from my mistakes. Someone who hadn't seen the whole talk commented on a previous IG post, in disbelief that anyone could be struggling growing up in the US. It was a naive comment; every single one of us has our own battles with being ourselves. Any country, any one, any time.
Of course, I also felt the need to be myself and inject some weird humor into it. Out of context, but here are the questions the slides were referring to:
WOULD YOU RATHER (feel free to answer in the comments).
Would you rather: be stuck in a room with one giant spider, or chased by hundreds of flying little spiders.
Would you rather: have t-rex baby arms... or have feet for hands.
Would you rather: be reborn as a man or a woman?
Lastly, thank you Kym for being you. My relationship with you reaffirms that in being yourself, it allows you to attract or find others who are the same kind of weird as you. It's the best thing ever.
