Step By Step | Emma Hujet | TEDxDePereMiddleSchool
logical systems throughout our lives like everything happens for a reason or everything has a message but how many of us have ever really tried to find the messages in our life I'm not innocent it took me until about last month to make sense of anything I'm about to tell you and maybe that's because I didn't think much of it or maybe that's because finding a lesson in your life is harder than you would think I learned something that I'm going to carry with me every day of my life and hopefully I can get you see the meaning in it too when I first thought about I wanted to write this speech I thought it would be a good idea to talk about a personal time of my life and as a lesson what better way to teach you about the messages in your life than to tell you a real true event the beauty of writing about a personal time in your life is that you naturally present yourself as a real person you show your human side your vulnerability I'm going to talk to you about my dad and specifically what happened which - a year ago I was watching TV the other day and I started thinking a lot of the shows that people used to watch things like icarly or victorious they're all about students around our age going through situations at home or with their friends that really affects their lives but all those things are going on they don't actually talk about them having to deal with those issues at school they don't show them actually having to switch gears from whatever drama is going on to now having to worry about school related subjects I was thinking about this because in the last year I've been through a lot that didn't have a whole lot to do with school yet at the same time it had every to do with school I remember very clearly the day that I had to start dealing with the fact that my dad is an alcoholic I remember it because I am math test the same day have you ever seen a person go through delirium tremens that's what happens when you suddenly stop drinking you shake uncontrollably and I watched my dad shake so bad that you couldn't even stick his tongue out of his mouth and I walked into school after everything that had happened that morning and I could not understand how I was supposed to worry about how you multiply how am I supposed to concentrate on this test when I have to go home and face all the adult problems I remember standing in my kitchen next to my brother with my dad in front of us he'd been staying with us the last few days even though my parents are divorced and my mom was giving him two options he could either agree to go to we have that day or he could call a cab and kiss goodbye because he was never going to see us again he called me at that day all because what he was dealing with his alcoholism made me feel the bus like he was choosing it rather than us Katie McCoy Turek and suddenly loved my fat slab of food didn't seem so important and suddenly all I cared about was trying to make it look like I did not just been crying I once heard someone say you don't realize how hard it is to be strong and to being strong it's your only option and I never really thought about the significance of that hope to letting at the time it felt like the world was falling down around me everything was going wrong have known what to do about it I'd always rely on a stable at home life and how all of that was in turmoil I don't my dad drank but it got to the point where sometimes I would turn honeydew's and vodka bottles when I went to his house but now he was staying with us and I didn't have a way to get away from it all well wow I was so caught up in everything everybody else with lives just kept going just by looking at me in the hallway no one could tell us what burden I was going through you have no clue what someone might be dealing with just by looking at them no clue people always tell you that the things that happen to you happen for a reason but it isn't until you were truly face-to-face with life shaking experiences that you understand the ways that things affect you sure everything happens for a reason everything has a message that we're trusted to carry over into our lives but no one ever told us how hard it would be to find the positivity in that message the silver lining if you will throughout the whole process of dealing with my father's alcoholism I learned that you should be nice to everybody because you have no idea what adults they're like there's that girl with us and a kind in the middle of class last week and everybody was picking on her for crying over whatever did it ever cross your mind that maybe she has bigger problems that was most likely the last straw so it looks to you like an overreaction to her might be the end of the line there are real issues facing so many students every day and it doesn't even have to be an alcoholic parent it could be someone abusive or maybe a family member dying or they're being bullied and we could have it happen food things are so much bigger than what should Rand you're wearing today over 7,000 people every year become homeless and 40% of those people are children 11 percent of the people in the Brown County area live in poverty we walk around and a very protected environment here in Northeast in Wisconsin we are increased with things like pain violence in school but we've had people with home leads every day that have all sorts of challenges that we don't know about so here I was dealing with my father got the hose and the tailspin that it put in my family and I realized that all I wanted that day was someone to be nice to me after a kid tripped me on the hall all the way the English no one stopped out and pick up my books KS costs us nothing it's literally the easiest thing we can do it's easier than cutting someone down or avoiding someone at the lunch table we've all seen videos and articles about people putting kindness into action I don't most of us see those things I think oh yeah that sounds like a great idea like a school in California it was a lunch crew and their mission is to never let anyone sit alone that video circulated social media and I'm sure a lot of us thought thought it was great but how many of us actually those thoughts we had been watching that into action I'm not talking about setting up some elaborate kindness your best school but I mean don't get me wrong that would be pretty cool too we'd all like to think that were nice and we're caring and were the best versions of ourselves that we can be but how many of us have ever stopped to really think about how nice they are have you ever tried going a day without saying anything like it is I decided there would be no point in me standing up here think about how the world can cool and we can put an end to that because let's face it that's pretty cheesy I decided to put actions behind my work I went one day without saying anything negative whatsoever one day that doesn't sound too bad right he'd be surprised how many times you catch yourself being negative even just ranting about that teacher that seems have their minds that I'm making you fail we're all built up of negative thoughts and believe it or not it might be hard for some of us to add positive fuel to that fire that shouldn't stop you life is a complicated compilation of highs and lows but I've thrown at us in a variety of different ways the struggle is trying to figure out how to overcome those obstacles to reach the goals and dreams that we have set aside for ourselves every time you do or say something nice you're not only making someone else success a little bit easier but you're making things easier on yourself I'm not telling you about my personal experience with animosities that you'll feel pity for me I don't need paid I'm telling you this so that you understand that even the little things that you do can make someone's day there are going to be some of you listening to this we don't care one bit about what I have to say and I understand that I only ask that you hear me out what you do and say every day has some sort of impact on the people around you just by me saying that you're not going to have this sudden aha moment right here right now you're not going to suddenly understand all the importance and what I'm telling you maybe you don't hit you a two o'clock in the morning next week or maybe you won't understand what I'm telling you until year from now it took me a year to make sense of any of this and now look I'm sharing my message with you so I maybe I you know I made the difference today I don't know what you're dealing with right now I don't know if you feel like the world is crumbling down around you or if you feel like the work here on top of the world I do know one thing though whatever is happening to you or to the people around me it has meaning it has potential and it has a lesson just waiting to be discovered negative thoughts will be the death of our society as we know it so until ordinary people like us start to change that we're never going to change you'd be surprised how much a compliment and live someone spirit's kindness is something that we could talk starting at a very young age but how many of us have actually taken that word into consideration assclown by the kid in the hall yesterday and who knows what that stopped them from going home and killing himself we've been shielded for so long from the fact that bad things happen and there's no stopping that and once we get out of the real world there's going to be no one there to stop those things from slapping us in the face but no matter who you are or where you are it's your job as a community member to help people around you right we're in this together let's get through this step by step [Applause]