Starting Over | Stephany Zoo | TEDxSuzhouWomen
[Music] [Applause] so my story starts as many do in college I just moved to New York City and just found a new apartment that I loved after looking from apartment to apartment to marment I finally found one that was in my budget and was beautiful too there was just one small problem there was a small leak in the ceiling but I was so excited that I had an apartment so who cared except that very small leak turned into a slightly bigger leak that turned into one day I woke up covered in water I looked up and my entire ceiling had caved in all the things that I had put everywhere the night before were just covered in water I could not think about how my day was going to get any worse you know I had just moved to a new city at a new apartment at a new job that's right my new job that I was already late for so I scrambled to find some clothing that wasn't wet called them my landlord and hop that it was going to get somewhat fixed and then made the long Trek from Midtown New York City City to Inner City New York New Jersey where I was working for a covenant house which is a home of shelter for youth now every day at covenant House starts with a sharing session and as soon as these girls started sharing their stories I started crying my mother stole from me to buy drugs my boyfriend beat me because I burned dinner now I come from a middle class well-adjusted family and I never heard stories like this let alone net people who live lives like this I couldn't help but just ball my eyes out now the woman who led that session I'm a bright magnanimous woman named Mama Gwen she came over held my hands really tightly and looked into my eyes just held me while I cried finally after the girl left I asked Mama Gwen why are you holding my hands when all the girls clearly need you so much more than I do and she said look around you look at these girls the most that they can ever do is claw themselves out of the holes that they've dug themselves into but that's it look at you look at your backgr look at where you came from you can do so much more you can not only become a new person yourself but you can help others become new people too when these boys and girls enter covenant house they are not the things that happen to them they are not their circumstances instead they are their Bright Beautiful new Futures they come from backgrounds of being drug addicts prostitutes gang members they've lied cheated stolen and some have even murdered but when they enter through those doors when they build go to their resume building classes or get legal aid or go to group therapy all they see is the new Futures that they can be not these sad tragic and even shameful pasts from which they came now I kept what Mama Gwen said with me for a very long time but I didn't understand what it really meant until something excruciating happened to me later that year when I tried to break up with my verbally and emotionally abusive boyfriend in a fit of rage he locked me in his room for 5 hours when I was finally able to escape I had three broken ribs a concussion and enough emotional trauma that would take years of therapy to undo I had no choice but to call the police when a crime is committed there's an offender and there's a victim victim was a mentality that was forced upon me day in and day out it's what the courts called me it's what my school reports referred to me as victim and for two long years almost weekly I was forced to repeat my story of victimization from Judge to jury from lawyer to prosecutor then finally one one day my Dina students called me in and told me that the legal case was finally over and that the school had made the decision as well because the incident had happened on campus this was an academic case as well he told me normally we don't tell other students the results of our disciplinary board but since you're obviously intimately involved here are the results he slid a piece of paper across the table to me I stared at that piece of paper for very long time it was so white so blank so clean anything could have been written on the back of that piece of paper I picked up the piece of paper I ripped it up and I walked out that day I let go of the word victim I let go of the identity that I had held on so long to on one side of the piece of paper was the Hideous horrible past that I had dealt with for the past 3 years but the other side the white side the clean Slide the blank slide that was my future that was a side that I could already see didn't matter what was on the other side and that day I became a new me now a very weird thing happened over the next couple of weeks on one hand I wanted to get rid of those really bad memories of being a victim but on the other side I'd gotten so used to being a victim that I didn't know who I was you know I I hung on to being a victim like you hang on to being a mother or being a singer if I wasn't a victim then what was I identity is a very weird thing as a teenager we all struggled with it as an adult we're a little bit more comfortable with it but none of us have really figured it out psychiatrists talk about nature or nurture it may be an oversimplification but in Buddhism ego and identity is the root of all suffering the things that make us who we are names our jobs s our memories we're fiercely attached to them this is who we think we are the things the clothes that we put on that make us look the way we do the books that we read that make us think the way we do the houses that we live in that make us live the way we do they are integral part of the fixed identities that we've created for ourselves so today I challenge you I challenge you to let go of your identities I challenge you to let go of your conflicts and your Comforts of your fears of your memories of your friends and even your loved ones I challenge you to choose a new you I challenge you to disregard what people have told you you're supposed to be or what you should be I challenge you to let go of the identity that you first created for your parents and then for your husband and now for your children humor me if you were to wake up tomorrow and you had no memory at all what would you do who would you be now I know what you'll tell me you'll say Stephanie this is not real life this is all hypothetical in this hypothetical world I can be whatever whoever but in the real world I have responsibilities I have a husband who's married to the wife that is me I have children who are dependent on the mother that is me I have a boss us who hired an employee who is me I can't just let these things go of course not but letting go is not a matter of abandoning your responsibilities letting go is about a mentality of renewal take what the founder of Steve Jobs take take what the founder of Apple Steve Jobs said at that time he was responsible for 1.8 8.1 billion doll in revenue and 80,000 employees but he still got fired from his own job he said the heaviness of success was suddenly replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again unsure about everything it freed me for the most one of the most creative periods of my life now letting go of who you are of the things you've known felt comfortable with and even love takes a lot of Courage but like sleeve jobs it's not always your choice exactly a month ago my business partner who was supposed to do this Ted talk with me left me her boyfriend of two years the three companies that we had built together to go to LA to start something new despite the irresponsibility of the way she left she had the courage to say that Shanghai was not giving her what she wanted anymore to go look for something else she was she ran an agency here in Shanghai but now runs a nonprofit back in La she was not held back by her past in becoming something new in the blank page of her future now you know all the things that you have been but there are many things you haven't been yet and while I'm young I too have had many professional reincarnations first I worked the snobbiest of fashion firms and then the most humble of Charities and finally at the fastest growing startups but now that I have let my business partner go I'm also letting go the entrepreneurial inside of me but now I have the option of working in any industry any position any company but you know what so do you while I'm sad that she is has left I'm really happy by the way that you prompted me to find something new if you wait until the time is right you will be waiting your entire life of course it's easy as a young person to say I'm going to let go and start a new but it's much harder as an older person when you're a mother or a grandmother but let me tell you the story of my grandmother she was the third oldest of eight siblings born in Ying her parents became very very ill when she was 9 years old but her family was too poor to afford a doctor and so when she P when they passed away their children didn't even know what they died from my grandmother and her brothers and Si sisters were given to reluctant family members who would take them in in the midst of all that chaos her youngest sister was given away and her youngest brother died of denty with no money she bounc around from family member to family member and finally at the age of 13 she entered a book Factory she was lucky enough to meet a young man through some friends at the book factory and by the age of 19 was married already by the age of 21 she had her first child but after her second child she became too frail and she had to have two abortions at that time my grandfather was also called away to military service she was left with two young children and only 33 R&B a month on a discipl stent she lived that way for 9 years her health got progressively worse but it wasn't until she was 50 years old that she was able to get surgery for all these ailments when my parents moved to the US now you can only imagine what kind of person what kind of identity this may bring poor uneducated orphan disenfranchised and even victim but my grandmother did not think that way no when I was very young and I started to learn English I would drag my big books home and she would sit down with me and painly go through all of these worksheets with me and I asked her grandma why are you helping me with this when there's so many other people available and she said because I want to learn English too I want to learn English too she didn't care that she had a third grade reading and writing level in Chinese she asked herself if I could wake up tomorrow and be anything I wanted to be what would I be and her answer was English speaker she was 55 at the time takes a lot of courage to want decide that you want to be bilingual at 55 later on I asked her why she had so much courage and she said yes she had seen a lot of unfairness in her life she yes it hadn't been easy but the one thing that was always fair was time the next hour is the same for any of you it's the same for a convict or a victim for a billionaire CEO or my grandmother the funny thing about time is that you cannot wait wasted in advance you cannot say my next 3 years are ruined because future time is currently Untouchable you cannot change the past you cannot change who you've been but you can change who the new you is going to be a lot of people say that not knowing the future is really terrifying for me I cannot think of a greater gift than newness in every moment the next minute the next hour next day are ready for you who is new you that will see the next the new second the new hour and even the new decade thank [Applause] you