I Eat Stress for Breakfast | Carrie Zuckerman | TEDxYouth@MVHS
[Applause] I'm applying for a TED talk technically I should have already applied considering I've had weeks and it's currently four hours until the deadline great i sat down and proceeded to stare blankly at the screen for a minimum of ten minutes and then intro procrastinator perfectionist fashion I get halfway through a sentence and then spend another 15 minutes on the source calm looking for the exact word ignoring everything that is not immediately involved in my ultimately unobtainable pursuit of perfection this cycle continues until a minute until the deadline and at 11:59 and 17 seconds I submit the word application known to humankind and yet somehow I seem to be stand-in here anyway square very freshly memorized hopefully sufficiently we'll see how it goes like I said you see I may be a bit of a procrastinator but depending on how well the rest of this goes um it works for me it's an integral part of who I am of my personality and it's not something that I'm likely to change even if I seem stressed or tired or burned out I get my work done I'm not failing my classes but thriving in them I eat stress for breakfast occasionally this gives people the impression that I'm constantly productive but spoiler alert I'm gone 75% of the time I'm not working on the thing that I should be working on instead I'm watching YouTube videos or studying the physics all the while thinking about how I really need to be working on that English and saying and this is a big part of it my brain does not shut up occasionally those around me will see the physical manifestations of my perfectionism and procrastination and though express their concern for my well-being but the thing is stress and general satisfaction of life are not mutually exclusive contrary to popular belief I can be both stressed and content contrary to popular belief I can be both stressed and content the things that cause me stress that drive my sense of perfectionism and procrastination are things that I deem important like TED Talks in school and are ultimately things that I enjoy and derive satisfaction from if I didn't then I wouldn't be stressed about it oh no I'm not saying that this method works for everyone or that it's the best way of doing things obviously but there are undoubtedly better methods of productivity in my own case there are undoubtedly better methods what activity to abide by about what I don't want to do is stand up here and preach some mythical solution that I don't have or that I don't believe in I am too deeply in the middle of this mind set to effectively share some way out or to know if it's even necessary I lack the clarity of distance for the moment for me this works and I know that I can't be the only one who functions in this way sure there are the motivational proverb espousing Benjamin Franklin's who work will get healthy amounts of sleep and work in tightly walks of productivity this is the norm the social ideal but the issue is is that not all brains normal people can function in this manner on the other side there are the Thomas Edison's the Mozart's who barely sleep and devote all of their days and nights to working on their respective livelihoods and then of course there's the procrastinators boasting lines such as DaVinci who took 13 17 years one of those two amounts of years pretty sure it was 17 to complete his masterpiece the Mona Lisa and Frank Lloyd Wright who in two hours completed the first planning drawing of one of his most famous meets of architecture following waters after assuring his client that oh yes of course he had definitely already started on that project you see products you see procrastination does not inevitably lead to failure in my own case my perfectionism drives my procrastination it drives me to success it compels me to stay up an extra hour or two or six to work until the last possible second improving and changing and perfecting whatever it is that I may be working on everything humanly possible and yet it also keeps me from starting if it's not perfect the first time it seems pointless if nothing else it's inefficient and the only real solution to this mindset is to sit down metaphorically superglue myself to the desk chair and do it just like many of the great minds of our history today's high school students share the same mindset of perfection many of today's high school students share the same mindset of perfectionism and procrastination and the tribulations associated with it they're told that they must balance taking all the Larry AP courses finishing their homework on time participating in extracurriculars and at the same time eating their breakfast getting to bed on time and of course flossing their teeth the point is there is no one right way to be productive even if it means finishing your TEDx application at 11:59 and 17 seconds thank [Applause]