Friday 4 November 2011

Awesome Things!

Awesome Things!

If you click on this link The 3 As of Awesome you'll find a 7 minute TEDxToronto video by a guy named Neil Pasricha who has millions of followers on his blog called 1000awesomethings.com. During a difficult time in his life, he started this blog to discover wonderful things that make life worth living.

Listen to his presentation paying attention to the 3 awesome things.
Comment on how one or all three play a role in your life. You should refer to something he says in the video, and as well, take a look at your classmates responses and make one comment to them. Since you have 3 tasks to do you will be graded out of 3.You will have until Tuesday, November 8th to comment

14 comments:

  1. I believe that attitude play a very important role in everyone’s life, including mine. Like Neil Pasricha mentioned in the Video, “you always got two choices. One, you can swirl and twirl and gloom and doom forever. Or two, you can grieve and then face the future with newly sober eyes.” As my understanding, that means there are two attitudes in the world, one is positive; other one is negative. The positive people always feel they can be successful, they never give up easily. A positive attitude is the key to opening many doors in life. They are the persons who see the glass as half full. On the contrary, the negative people always fell they cannot be successful; they give up even without try. As my own experience, attitude affects my life in many ways. I consider myself as a positive person. Without a positive attitude, I would have never become an immigrant in Canada; without a positive attitude, I would have never become a student in BVC; without a positive attitude, I would have never know how to take care my family and myself. If I had a negative attitude, I would have given up on getting my diploma and finding myself a professional job in Canada. In short, to become a positive attitude person is very important for a successful life. Without a positive attitude, I can go nowhere.

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  2. Truly, this is the most inspiring English talk show I have ever seen, which gave me a chance to think about myself compared to what Neil Pasricha said in the video. Now, I still have the fresh memory that how challenging and difficult my ESL student life was at the first semester at BVC. The language barrier made me want to give up; even I had the thought to go back my hometown instead. One thing had changed me completely. Cynthia Shi, who works at Calgary Immigrant Women's Association, once told me how lucky I was as a new immigrant. For example, I can take free ESL courses; I can attend a lot free programs offered by libraries and churches as well; I can apply for government funding to support my family. After that conversation, I realized that l was doing something wrong. I just took these good things for granted. I wanted to quit my study because I was afraid of failure. Also, I realized that I could not change the fact which English is the first thing I must get through as a new immigrant. But one thing I can change that was my attitude towards my study. I must take control of my negative emotions. I must face my problem positively instead of complaining all the time; I must cherish what I have instead of letting the good opportunities slip from my fingers. As Neil Pasricha said, “no matter what pain hits you, choosing to move forward and move on and take baby steps into the future”. So the changed attitude has encouraged me to keep going from one semester to next semester. In my opinion, I think a positive attitude is more important than result, knowledge and skill. As the old saying goes, “Attitude is a key for everything”.

    Tracy said to Nicole: you always have a great attitude towards everything around you. You set a good example to me. Sometimes the negative attitude bothers me a lot, but after listening to the lecture and reading your comments, I think that taking a correct attitude towards everything can bring people on the right track in spite of the lack of some skills. As you said, “without positive attitude, we cannot do things successfully”.

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  3. Attitude is very much important thing when we do something. Attitude always bring the trust to others. In my culture, a person is friendly or not evaluates by observing his/her attitude. For example, if any one does not want to do anything, he/she can do it gentle way. By not doing so, any one can wins others heart by showing acceptable attitude. To me, sometimes I do lots of things for a people with showing positive attitude, but instead of showing oblige that person try to avoid me. So attitude is essential part in our life to be a good person. continue....

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  4. I think Neil Pasricha speech was very impressed me. He mentioned three points which play an important role for our life. First, attitude is when you face the difficult situation, it related to a way of you're thinking or being. In the video, he gives two choices. "One is you can swirl and twirl and gloom and doom forever. Other is you can grieve then face to future with newly sober eyes." I think as the proverb goes, no one's life is easy. We need to learn how to react to failure, whether we toward the optimistic or pessimistic. The most successes people are based on when they face the failure, they learn to overcome fear and trouble and also use the optimistic attitude towards the problems. For my case, when I face the failure, at the beginning I always want to escape from my failure, I want to give up and try to find other way to achieve my goal. I think my attitude is in the middle side. Second, awareness is one attribute of emotional intelligence and an important factor in achieving success. You need to think everything you see. As we developed self awareness, we can able to make changes in the thought and interpretations our mind. It also allows us to see the control of our emotions, behaviors, and personality. Therefore we can changes as we want. I think I am a self-awareness person, every time I get something wrong, I always to think about the result and try to change my behavior, which will help me to avoid make same mistake again. In addition, according to Neil, “I think when you are authentic, you end up following your heart, and you put yourself in places and situations and in conversations that you love and that you enjoy." Also, he gives a good example, the famous football player who is tall and strong, but on the other hand, his favorite hobby is needlepoint, he shows his reality and follow his heart do what he want , also he doesn't care about other people's thinking. At the end, his pointed on our life is short and great, we never know what it will happen in the future, when we face and experience the hard time period, we need to have a great attitude to choose move forward and move on. Being authentic person, through the experience to gain and towards the new things and be satisfy yourself. I totally agree to his three points which really influenced me. We get only 100 years life, even though life has sadness, bitterness, sweetness and happiness, but we still need to move forward and enjoy our life.
    To Nicole & Tracy:
    I think both of you have more experiences than me. Certainly, when you face the trouble or problem, you have more experiences and positive attitudes to handle it. Great attitude is the important step to help people to reach the success, I believe after this lesson; we all have an idea to consider about when we are in difficult situation and how to use the optimistic attitude to solve the problems. I think this video is so great and useful.

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  5. As Neil Pasricha went through his most difficult time, his marriage went wrong, his friends disappeared, It is truly hard for average people to think about positive things. Neil was aware that he should be authentic to himself, he should hold a optimistic life. There may be many different ways for people to go over their obstacles. Some people want to get rid of trouble, so they escape the reality, they start to smoke, be addicted to alcohol, take drugs. As a result, they do not manage to solve their problems, instead, they develop many bad habits. However, the people who are aware of their problems and are authentic to themselves usually succeed in generate their trouble, those sorts of people often have a positive living attitudes. Famous music star, Amy Winehouse, would potentially have become a prominent figure which make massive contributions to the music world. However, she did not fairly faced his trouble, she did not value what she had, she was afraid of facing herself authentically, she took drugs and alcohol to escape from his family, friends, and people who are concerned about her. Finally, she ended up with a tragedy. People felt pity for her death, not because of her short-time life, but because due to her brilliant intelligence as well as her negative attitude towards her life. Steve Jobs, who was a former CEO of Apple company, was given a lot of good fames after he died. Some people indeed honored his achievements and contributions to the world, but more people admired his attitude and authenticity. He ever rode a bicycle crazily crossing a European street, after he was fired by the company founded by him, he would have intended to spend his rest life-time in a small town, whereas, he changed his mind several months later, refinding his ambition changing the world. He ultimately succeeded, a series of i-products came to our lives, his products make our lives convenient.
    When I was 7 years old, my parents went out to pursue their career, I was left with my grandparent on mother's side. I encountered a very life when the darkness came, there emerged a lot of happy images of my parents. Sometimes, I cried until the time I was tired, I would fall asleep. The days lasted several weeks, my grandparents told me you can think about in this way that your parents would bring you a lot of candies in the spring festival, so I started to change my mind and hold a positive and hopeful attitudes towards my parents' absence. I guess this is the fist time I utilized the attitude to help me out of trouble. In the junior high school, I was a totally bad guy in the first year, I smoked, treated absence of class as a meal, and helped the guys out of "trouble" by fighting another guys. Until the day I was transferred to another school, I started to developed towards good side. I met a lot of trouble in this development, I knew nearly nothing about the book and the teacher, especially master, gave me a lot of corporal punishment because of my bad behaviour in study. At that time, I determined to change the teachers' mind, let them like me as they did to other good students. I began asking questions to classmates, teachers, and making study plan for every day, finally, i got a good payback, I ranked 15th in the class, which never happened before. I am encountering the difficult in tuition, though somehow I do not need to worry about, because someone will pay for it. I must take their thoughts into consideration when making decision in my college program. I think what should do is to talk to them and then choose the suitable program, then take every efforts to accomplish it.
    Tracy and Nicole talked about how their attitudes impacted them positively then they immigrated to Canada. That is really true. It needs courage for people to touch a place where they have trouble communicating, understanding, and adapting to. They use their optimistic attitude defeat trouble, I believe that they will achieve more in the future with the help of positive attitude.

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  6. This 3As is very important in my life. I think it is easy to be the first 2As (Attitude and Awareness), but it is hard to be authentic. As Neil Pasricha said, “when you're authentic, you end up following your heart, and you put yourself in places and situations and in conversations that you love and that you enjoy. You meet people that you like talking to. You go places you've dream about”. I had to admit that to be authentic is my dream. I think most people have the same dream as me. However, dream is dream, not a realistic. For example, in the book “The Glass Castle”, the main role mother, Rose Mary, is a real authentic person. She had four kids, but she did want to take care of them. She wanted to be an artist; she spent her time on drawing and writing. She did not want to find a job to support her family. Her kids did not have enough food. Her kids need her, but she did not care them. Is it right? Can I put myself in places and situations that I love with caring my family’s feeling? I don’t think so. I need to stay at home to take care of my family; I need to go to work to support my family; I need to try my best to educate my kids. To be authentic means to be free. Do we have enough freedom? As far as I concert, I don’t have enough freedom to be authentic. When I was aware of this, I was very sad.
    To: Stephanie
    We only have 100 years to live. It is impossible to spend this 100 year on ourselves. Sometimes, we need to do something that we don’t like to do. We need to be responsible to our family, our parents, our country. We don’t have enough freedom to pursue our dream. The only thing we can do is try to be ourselves.

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  7. I real appreciate Neil Pasricha that he shared his life and gave us these wise suggestions. In his speech he said that we should have positive attitude, awareness and authenticity. These 3’As can help people overcome from bad situations and see the world in a optimistic way. Attitude is motivation for people to do anything. Like Tracy said “Attitude is the key for everything.” Also, a Chinese old saying said “attitude determines people’s life.” I have a real example that is my father. He grew up in the countryside of China. When he was in high school, he decided that he wanted to change his life and studied in university. Because of his passion and positive attitude, he attended in university and work at big city. He is the most diligent person I met and I never see he give up anything. His attitude is whatever how hard thing is, when he starts it he will do it and don’t give up. Another comment I want to post here is authenticity. It means to be real you. I like the example which was given by Neil Pasricha. An American football player named is Roosevelt Grier. He is a strong and tall guy and looks like real man, but he likes needlepoint and shared his favorite all over the world. He is brave and knows himself well. I admire his authenticity and he did things which were he wanted. Enjoy the life we live.
    To Nicole and Tracy: you are real hard working. Not only you guys study hard in school, but also you work hard in your lives. As I know immigrants all face hard and difficult time when they first came in the new country. You also support for your family and study at the same time. In my opinion, you must have strong and positive attitude when you face hard time in your immigrant period.

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  8. Awareness is needed for personal development and for respecting others as well as knowing culture. Without awareness, we cannot merge in the society. We have to look at what is goinng on around our surrounding. Otherwise, we will be deprived from others and failed to enjoy the beauty of the world. Moreover, we will not be able to contribute to our family, society, and country. On the other hand, authencity is required to to get people's love. Authencity cannot be developed within a day. It takes long time to have it. If anyone has this quality, people must trust that person. Authencity means living within honesty.
    I pesonaly believe in attitude, awareness, and authencity. Without these awsome things, no one can be a real successful person in the world.

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  10. In this world, there’s always happiness or sadness, laughing or crying, and life then death. Inevitably, everybody in this world will experience both of them. As Neil Pasricha said that he has some good and successful years and also a bad and unforgettable year. So if humans want to continue living, they have to be patient and overcome the adversities in their way. In my life, the biggest hardship was when my dear father died, because he had two roles for me, as a father and mother. How? Well, it's because my mom died when I was two years old. The day of my dad's death, I felt that my life was shattered. I cried all day long for weeks. However, my best friend told me that we have to accept every kind of pleasure and sorrow from the nature because life is just like a cycle. She made me realize that I have to have a positive attitude to continue living in this life. Not only attitude is important, awareness is also important in this life so that we can keep on enjoying the life we have. Like to be aware of the poor people and make us want to share our happiness with them. The awareness of looking at your everyday life and see the sun rise, then set and the moon shows up and make you wonder who create them. Having the sun and the moon rise and sets at the same order every day and never hit each other make you realize to ask a question… who made that in order?

    Nicole I really agree with you. Without having a positive attitude we would not be here enjoying our lives and experiencing new things. If you have a negative attitude you would easily give up, be frustrated and pessimistic easily and even making a decision to end your one, and only, life by your own hands.

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  11. I like some points of the Neil Pasricha speech. As he mentions, “Having a great attitude it’s no matter how difficult it is, no matter what pain hits you, choosing to move, forward and move on and take baby steps into future.” This is all about me; I think I have a positive attitude. During all my life I always try to never give up. Even more, I support all the people surrounding me. I think that without a positive attitude life can be difficult. We can see how many difficulties everybody faces during their lives. For instance, new immigrants, who have a lot of problems after arriving to Canada, that difficulties with language, and communications which are not affordable without a positive attitude. Another point is about awareness. The speaker told us about feelings, which also I have for my kids and also memory from my childhood. I really enjoy my son’s curiosity. He wants to know everything. Sometimes we go to the Cinema and watch a kid’s movie or a cartoon together. He always asks me questions throughout the movie and what will be next. Sometimes, I don’t know how to answer some of his questions and so we think about the answer together. Our Kids are a big part of us. We lived kind of the same life as our kids do.
    I agree with Quin. We have to spend our life not just for ourselves, but for other people too. Most people have their kids, parents, grandparents and relatives. We have to be responsible for all of them.

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  12. I was struggling to get sufficient score in the IELTS test before I came to Canada. Until I took the test 2 times, my overall score was enough. However, always one of four part(Reading, Listening, Writing and Speaking) was a problem, which means only one part lacked just 0.5 point. I was getting rushed and depressed. I wanted to give up to enter a college in Canada just in 3 months since I came and go back to Korea. Then I just forgot about the IELTS, and everyday met a friend who is a Canadian female and talked, talked, talked ! After that I decided to take the last test. Eventually, I got a high score. In my opinion, after I became to enjoy speaking English and more interested, my ability would be improved. If people are suffering and struggling from bad situations, they need to enjoy their situation. Then, they will no longer fail. We need an attitude to enjoy a variety of conditions to overcome a tough time.

    To Tracy
    You had a tough time in the past. Throughout the experience you could improve yourself. I agree with your view. Attitude is more important in our lives, but it is not easy to maintain and remember my first intention. That's why you made a good decision that you got advice from someone and you took a look at yourself, and then you achieved many things!

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  13. To Stephanie:
    I agree with all your points except the one “we can changes as we want”. In my opinion, developing self-awareness can help us change our behavior but not always as we want.

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  14. Neil Pasricha presentation about “The 3 A's of awesome” is a very interesting and touchy speech. It is also very thought provocative, it made me think about myself, past, present and future. After, I concluded that I have the right attitude. It is mine attitude that brings us here in Canada. It is also my attitude that made me to start the school instead of blaming someone when I was fired. Moreover, is the attitude that makes me to enjoy the things around. I also agree that awareness as well as attitude make our life awesome because we are glad for small things that we have and we want to improve them to be even better. For example, “The Glass Castle” as Quin mentioned it, when I read that book I remember and understood that we are lucky that we have enough food, water, electricity and heat. I use “I remember” because we know that, but during the years, we get so used to have it that we forgot it and take it as granted. We forgot that someone it is not so lucky. Therefore, the proper attitude and awareness make as stronger and more decided in our way through the life. “Life is too short to live it bad” proverb.

    Quin
    You said that you could not have the freedom you need to be authentic to concentrate on yourself. However, I think that after few years when you will look back at these moments you will just smile. Because we remember usually only the good things, you will remember how you started a new life in Canada, meet many good friends and did not completely enjoyed the terrifying cry of your baby-son in the middle of the night. This time will never repeat and just our attitude can change our memories. Enjoy the moment :)

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