What a time to be alone! Releasing the fear of being alone. | Chidera Eggerue| TEDxMauerPark

[Music] raise your hand if you have a fear of dying alone see so many of you have raised your hand and it doesn't surprise me at all because we've all been indoctrinated with the idea that none of us are good enough you see from the moment that you're born you're taught that you must earn love you must seek validation you must wait to be chosen and you must essentially beg for permission to be yourself essentially I'm here to tell you that we're gonna scrap all that and we're going to really embrace the concept of Solitude we're going to make room for ourselves to be alone and we're going to learn to spend some of ourselves because time spent with yourself is never time wasted in a world where society teaches you that you must always have a companion and that romance and marriage is your biggest achievement that you can attain in this life that's actually a very flawed concept and you'll find that even if you are in a relationship or even if you are married you can still feel lonely the reason why it's or lonely is because you feel misunderstood it's because you aren't giving yourself enough room to learn who you are often we use our relationships of other people as a distraction from ourselves we use other people as a tool to run away from the responsibility of getting to know who we really are when nobody's looking and we often you know allow social media to become a channel through which we gain validation but it's all surface level because the question is do you like yourself or nobody's liking how do you feel about yourself when nobody is looking the thing about being alone is that your company is the greatest company that you can have but you don't know that because you're too busy trying to be the best possible friend you can be trying to be liked trying to be successful but being successful isn't just about having money it isn't just about being liked it isn't just about acquisition being successful ultimately is about feeling like you're enough about feeling that you have something valid to contribute to the conversation in instances where you are amongst groups of people and you want to you know say something or add to the conversation the thing that stops you is that feeling that you're not going to be listened to or that you're going to be ignored or that what you have to say isn't important but each and every person in this room has a story if you have a name you have a journey if you have a journey you have a perspective which means that every single person sat here today has something really really important to contribute to the larger conversation your opinion matters no matter what that opinion is no matter how you've formed that opinion it's an important opinion and you must share it it's so exciting to be alive but it's even more exciting to know that you have been given an opportunity to be here today because somebody didn't wake up this morning and someone might not wake up tonight but the fact that you're here means that you have a chance and the fact that you have a chance means that you can always start again let's talk about time because we all have this fear that time is leaving us time is running away everything's running out and we aren't going to accomplish what we want to accomplish before this deadline that we have mentally created but also the world has given us this timer that slowly counting down we're told that you know by this age you must have done this by this age you must have been married if not then you're a failure and we often see how this idea is played out in the Media when we look at women like Oprah for example who is ultra successful in what she does but yet people still ask why isn't she married the reason why people do that is because they feel like a woman is never enough until a man decides that she is and that's not okay we must make the effort to separate ourselves from who the world wants us to be and who we feel like we deserve to be now I'm not anti marriage and I'm not anti companionship but I'm anti feeling like you must use someone else to validate your existence because even if you are married you can still feel alone right so let's talk about being pretty and being likeable everyone in this room wants to be liked including myself now I'm gonna tell you a harsh truth I've had to learn to accept I loved being liked I liked being told that I'm pretty I like people gathering round to tell me that they like my outfit because I like my outfit but the thing is being liked is not the goal here because if you wrap your round your life around trying to be liked you will find that you like yourself less and less and less because instead of trying to meet your own standards you're meeting everyone else's the thing about standards is that they're man-made rules and concepts and ideas that people have formed to create a sense of safety amongst each other because remember that as human beings we have a herd mentality we do want to be long we do want to feel like we're a part of something and that's not a bad thing at all because feeling like he belongs means that you have something to offer and to contribute but we mustn't make that the priority of our existence because in the end all you have is yourself and so when it comes to beauty and when it comes to being attractive and being liked that cannot be the main thing that we build ourselves around because you're not a product you're not an item you aren't here to be consumed your body isn't here for anybody to essentially mold into their idea you have a body we lived in and it's important to understand that living as an experience should be something that's joyous but even joy itself doesn't mean a constant state of a nation joy I feel in my opinion just means a level of acceptance and understanding that each and every single event that has happened in your life has happened for a reason and that all the bad things and all the mistakes that you look back home when you're sleeping what happened five years ago and you're like I don't really wish I use a different word or when you're like I really wish that in that argument I said this and I would have totaled them it doesn't even matter really because ultimately you're a person and you're constantly shifting and changing and you're developing these new perspectives and that's so exciting like if you look back at yourself two years ago and look at the things that you used to hold as valuable and you compared the person you are to now I'm sure something has changed and that change is wonderful because who knows what else could change in your perspective as you continue to live your life this took about rejection because every single person in this room has felt rejected before rejection isn't just know you didn't get the job rejection isn't just I'm not following you back rejection you're not because you've all been there haven't you rejection also essentially is you're not good enough or something about you just doesn't create a spark within me and when you feel that feeling when you're around someone who you really want to like you it feels so exaggerated you feel like you have to earn their approval you feel like you have to work harder to be yourself so this person can be like okay maybe I do like you a little but what's dangerous about that is that you end up trying to become that person's idea of what they think is beautiful beautiful but then as human beings our ideas are constantly shifting and changing and standards are constantly taking new forms if we look at beauty standards as an example yet again this time five years ago or even ten years ago looking like someone who's popular on Instagram was never the standard because those apps didn't even exists at the time but now there's a whole new BT standard that people are chasing so you find that if you try to wrap yourself around other people's ideas of perfect you will be trapped in a void because it's like a game but the game is rigged there is no right way to be a human because even when you do morph into what these people tell you is perfect or is likable someone will still be like I mean she's cute but and that Bart really does sting because again nobody wants to be criticized but the thing is I am learning every single day that being wrong and all those really really irritating mistakes that I can't get out of my mind that I have made that place that space is where the best of me has come from I can't remember a time where I learnt anything from being right I can't remember a time where I learnt anything from being told that I was pretty or that I was nice but I've learnt so many things from being rejected by people who I thought I cared about and why that rejection taught me a lesson it's because it taught me that that person hasn't even spent enough time of their self to know how much they care about their self so why do I want to be loved by someone who barely even loves their self and that's what brings me back to the point of noting anybody ever ultimately does is because of you as human beings as people we think what we can do is if we overthink the situation and try and try and try to figure out what we could have done differently or if we make the unnecessary effort to try to understand how that person's mind works then we'll be like a heart I figured out the thing and if I attack that thing or if I change myself in order to be better for that thing then that person will love me that person will like me but you'll find that this person doesn't even know what they want the problem with people who don't know what they want is that you will never be enough for them and that in itself is sad a difficult reality to grasp everybody wants to be someone's idea of perfect everybody wants to be someone's ver1 but my 23 trips around the Sun has taught me that you will have you will have multiple the ones there will be so many people who enter your life and they will feel like a soulmate it's okay to have more than one soul mate I think it's cool and it's better to have more than one soul mate but again Society which is you know very hetero centric teaches us that no you must have one person in your life who matters to you and everybody else must be loved a little bit less but I don't think I believe in that I think I believe in gathering as many experiences as I can that's what I believe in and that's what really really works for me because the more I allow myself to be vulnerable and close to people the more I feel like I'm learning more about myself but then how that reverb how that works when we reversed it is that the more you learn about yourselves the more you can understand other people and why they are the way they are you can understand why they think how they think if you learn to understand how traumatic events work you can actually be able to reason with the fact that that person is responding because they're in fight or flight mode and sometimes love scares people away so feeling like you're alone isn't necessarily a bad thing for me I'm really really learning that my company is amazing and when you feel like your company is amazing when you reach that point where you're like I really love being me like I really love existing in this body like oh I like her it means that when you meet a person who you gravitate towards and that person gravitates towards you the reason why they want to be around you is because they like how you feel about yourself so they feel more drawn to someone who likes their self and they feel like they want to like their self like you like yourself that was quite a tongue twister but I know you know what I mean liking yourself is really important sometimes I feel like it's it's more necessary to make yourself than to love yourself because liking yourself is essentially being like hmm I know I'm a mess but I want to be the best possible mess I can be because everybody essentially is going to be messy forever nobody is going to be perfect but if you try to be a good mess then we're getting somewhere aren't we and that's what I'm trying to do I'm trying to be the best mess I'm trying to be like mm-hmm my hair's a bit tangled but I like this hairstyle you know my shoes are a bit type I like these shoes one of the diamante bits on my dress is falling off but I like this dress so it's about balancing between imperfection and it's an understanding that regardless of how I show up I'm enough because I said so and that is not up for debate so let's talk about this I'm I'm really really fascinated by death I think death is the most exciting thing and the reason why is because the reason why it up is really fascinating guys the reason why death is really exciting and fascinating for me is because it means that if you know you're going to die why would you not do the thing that you want to do why would you not feel like you deserve to be here why would you not feel like your experience is a reward why would you not feel like chasing that thing that's been calling you and this isn't to say quit your job and run away this is to say I'm here I've lived there are millions of selves in my body right now that I worked really really hard to keep me here and I must honor that and I must make room for my existence and allow myself to learn and be wrong and shift and grow and just be a person and just be wrong as much as I can so I'm learning that it's better to be wrong now and right later don't think I'm right now and end up being wrong much later but also it's about understanding that regardless of how pretty people think you are regardless of how nice people think your handbags are or how great they think your branding is ultimately when you die what's going to matter is your character what's going to matter is how you made people feel the perspective you had the room you made for other people because I've never come across a tombstone that said oh my gosh her shoe game was [Music] what I have seen on people's tombstones was they were loved by many they were beautiful they had a very kind spirit and that's what I aspire to leave behind so before I leave you I have a challenge for you each and every one of you I challenge you to choose yourself even when it hurts choose yourself even when you're tired choose yourself and even when you feel like giving up choose yourself thank you [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 485,552

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Life, Feminism, Personal growth, Self improvement

Id: babcNWX64yM

Length: 16min 43sec (1003 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 19 2018