The Art of Impatience | Carter Adair | TEDxSaintFrancisHS

[Music] people that know me best know that i'm an impatient person you probably have an idea of who i am now from that sentence alone you could assume i'd be the guy blaring his horn in a line of traffic or i'd be the person annoyed at a long line in a store because for most people impatience is thought of as a negative trait for a long time i thought this too but there are many benefits to impatience if it wasn't from patients i wouldn't have self-published my first novel at 10 years old when i was a little kid i loved stories i couldn't help thinking about the characters and themes long after i'd finished reading the book or watching the movie when i was eight years old in second grade my teacher and class had read aloud time this was one of my favorite parts of the day i always looked forward to what was going to happen next in the story because of this i decided i wanted to be a storyteller when i grew up but then one day i thought well why can't i just be one now so that day i rushed home ready to write a book i could barely get through the door before i started writing i grabbed a few pieces of paper stapled them together and began to write in the end it turned out like this it's called daring boy in the quest for the golden guy even though it wasn't professionally made i was still proud nonetheless this was the start of my impatience and soon enough i would learn all the benefits of it one day my mom heard that local writers were gathering at this bookstore in san carlos called the reading bug they were hosting an event for people like me to come and share their writing when my mom asked me if i wanted to go i immediately said yes what i should have known was that i was going to be the only kid there when when the night of the event arrived the writers sat down in front of an audience to read their books the room wasn't that big but the size of all the adults made it feel huge i remember the guy next to me was reading his poetry he talked about the moon's reflections in a pond and how shadows danced along the horizon and then it was my turn and i said my book's called daring boy unlike what i thought no one laughed at me or anything when i finished they clap for me just like they did for everyone else but something just didn't sit right with me i think they only clapped because i was a cute kid but i didn't want to be cute i wanted to be good so over the next few years i turned this into this it took me till the end of fourth grade but eventually i turned a few staple pieces of paper into a 168-page novel at the same time my mom and i found out that you could self-publish books for free through amazon through this new discovery we were able to put my book and all the ones after on amazon i remember the day i held my first book in my hands words can't describe how amazing that feels and i wouldn't have held my book that day if i hadn't worked hard for it because i found out that learning to persevere is the first benefit of impatience i help my self-published book that day because i chose to i did the work and persevered to get there but for me that was only the beginning a few months later i decided to go into town and sell my books by the movie theater i set up a stand and waited for the prophets to roll in very strangely the prophets didn't roll in at all i made one sale that day and was given five bucks from some guy who i'm pretty sure just felt sorry for me i don't know if it was the cardboard sign that turned people off or what but no one was buying i sat there all day and watched as people walked past my stand and didn't look over it was a weird experience but in the end i knew i had to be brave another way i tried to promote my book was by reading in our school's library once a week at my school our class would go to the library and the librarian would read us a book one day i decided to ask her if i could read my book to some of her classes amazingly she said yes so a few days later with my p teacher's permission i rushed out of class and ran over to the library after about a week i ended up reading my book to at least eight classes it was weird at first but like anything you get used to it after a while during these two parts of my life i learned the second benefit of impatience i learned how to be brave i always thought of myself as a talkative person but i never thought i could get up in front of people and do something like this like most people when i put myself in front of people i get nervous they could think i'm a fool they could think my books are terrible but it doesn't matter if you love what you do you have to put yourself out there you have to be brave so using my newfound bravery i wrote two more books i wrote battle in fifth grade and the wrath of the super bully at the end of sixth grade just like daring boy i continued to read these books in the library and sell them as well and it was during this time that i discovered the third benefit of impatience one day a kid's parent from my school texted my mom she said that her son didn't like to read he always avoided it and had trouble with reading in school when the mom was coming home from work one day she found her son reading on the couch he was reading my book daring boy the same book that ma made a man at a movie theater feel sorry for me was the one he chose to read parents of other kids parents of other kids told my mom and i similar stories i never thought i could make an impact on someone like that it made me realize that there was a point to what i was doing after all it also made me realize that if i was impatient enough i could inspire others to do the same so at the end of seventh grade i wrote my most recent book to date this time it was a picture book by the end of a long week i wrote and drew all the pictures i also went back to the library and read it and sold it as well but the biggest event i did was go back to the reading bug this time they allowed me to have my own event for family friends and anyone else to come when the night of the event came i was ready as i sat in my chair i saw people i knew waiting to hear from me i felt like the biggest person in the room these people weren't there to hear poetry from some guy they weren't there to hear about an autobiography written by some other lady either they were there for me so after an employee introduced me i opened up my book and read my book's called the waiting man i said my story starts with a man waiting on a stump people occasionally walk by him and ask for his help but he refuses he's waiting for an opportunity of a lifetime as the story goes on these people begin to live their lives around him they fall in love start families even create successful businesses but he doesn't notice he continues to wait and he keeps waiting until finally he dies there once was a man a waiting man waiting but nothing happened in that moment i had the audience right there with me they cared about what i was saying and when they clapped for me at the end they didn't clap because i was a cute kid they clapped because i was good impatience was the reason i read my book that day it taught me how to persevere how to be brave and it even gave me a chance to touch other people's lives so that's why i'm impatient that's why i wanted to be here as a freshman to tell you my story so that maybe you can decide to be impatient too thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 542

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: English, Life, Passion, Storytelling, TEDxTalks, Writing, Youth

Id: MExce6FI7dU

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 27 2021