Translator: Josephine O'Donnell Reviewer: Hélène Vernet
Good evening everyone.
In the next few minutes, we'll be going on a journey,
but before that, I'm going to start by asking you a question.
It's a question you've already heard dozen of times:
what do you want to do in life?
For those who manage to find a response,
it would be interesting to see if it's the same as the previous years.
In other words, are you always on course?
Personnaly, I never knew what I wanted to do in my life,
And sometimes it used to annoy me.
I have never had a specific dream
and therefore no clear vision of the future I wanted.
But I had passions, extra-curricular activities
that I enjoyed and that shaped my character.
For me, these activities defined me as a person in all it's complexity.
Every time I was looking for a job, none seemed to perfectly suit me.
It was as if I would have to take away a part of myself each time
to fit into that box.
It's surprising, isn't it?
Even without knowing exactly what we want,
we sometimes have to study for a long period of time.
Three years ago, I finished - wait for it -
a mechanical design engineering degree.
Mechanical design engineering,
a five year course in science, post A-levels,
all without knowing what I wanted?
It's a little paradoxical, isn't it?
In fact, it wasn't really
because I loved learning I loved learning science,
and I had time, student life was great,
but I still didn't know what will be my occupation.
I only really understood it later, during my last internship.
I remember it well: I was sitting at my desk,
and I had just received instructions from my boss.
He had asked me to come up with a mechanical system.
It was out of the blue, and it was going to take some time.
I was tired and depressed
because my only desire was to go home and do what I love:
playing music and learning photography.
I had to resign myself to the idea that that evening would be another one
where I would go home just to eat and go to bed.
At last, I realised that my job was the one I studied for,
and the one I was going to do all my life.
I was almost surprised to learn this,
despite the fact that for five years, I was supposed to train for it.
At that moment, I realised I had to break up, I had to stop.
I wanted a reassess my life and find a new direction.
It's true, when we are in working life or even students,
we are not able to think calmly.
There's always something to do, a problem to solve.
How can we know exactly what we want
if we can't even manage to think calmly?
That's when I realised I didn't need a holiday, I wanted a retreat,
(Laughing) a retreat to make a journey inward.
So I thought about going to Nepal,
the emblematic symbol of meditation,
and I was surprised to find it was possible
to go and live in a Buddhist monastery over there for little money.
In fact, all you had to do was take part in the community.
So I jumped at the opportunity.
Once on the plane, finally, I was leaving !
I was leaving France for three months,
three months of tranquillity,
three months to center myself...
The beauty upon arrival is just dazzling.
Imagine a big monastery like this
with a hundred of children inside and over thirty adults.
And when you arrive and pass through this monastery's doors,
you leave aside all day-to-day problems.
And when I say "all problems", I really mean all.
There's no need to work, to revise, to answer emails,
even planning what you have to buy to eat.
All you needed to do was to live to the rhythm of the monks,
and the sound of their bells.
I was given a bed and food; it was simple, but it was enough.
At the end of a few weeks,
I started to use my camera and capture the experiences I was living.
Every morning, we were awaken at 5:30 a.m.
by a mad monk hitting a gong in the monastery's courtyard.
We had only 15 minutes to get to the central temple and sat.
Once on our little cushions,
there was one hour of mantra chanting
during a ceremony called "Puja".
When we had finished,
I would see the monks coming out while pushing the temple's curtains
and we would see the sun starting to enter.
It was magnificent.
Every day, we ate outside, sitting on the ground.
The food was the same, safe two or three different vegetables.
After a while, I felt my tastes were starting to change.
I sensed that I was taking more time.
I was more present in what I was doing.
In fact, there was nothing to distract me such as TV or adverts.
There were just children
who were around me, were eating,
and sometimes wanted to play with me or speak to me.
With them, in three months,
I went from being a stranger, to being a pretty cool English teacher,
(Laughing) to being sometimes more of a friend and confidant.
I remember that I witnessed amazing moments of life,
such as when monks shave each others heads about once a month.
For them, it's a sign of sobriety,
of renouncement of consumer and appearance-based society.
For others,
it's also a good opportunity to have fun.
By the way, between the two, this one was kind of scoundrel.
In class, he wasn't very nice.
Sometimes I would leave the monastery and go for a walk in the countryside.
And I discovered another one, perched on top of a mountain
that was amazing too.
I was lucky because that day was also a day off for the children.
I came across a little group who were playing with sheets of paper.
We made an Airbus A380, of course,
and we threw them from the top of a small wall.
At the end of a few weeks, I felt the euphoria started to drop.
And I discovered boredom.
Boredom is, for human, a hostile feeling
that they learned to outsmart with many different strategies.
The most famous, you know it well,
it is your smartphone.
Put it aside just for a few minutes, and boredom comes back each time.
I remember spending hours in my bedroom, lying on my bed in silence.
I was experiencing boredom.
I looked at the ceiling, and there was nothing to look at, and yet...
and yet I looked at it closely.
After a while, I discovered myself.
I saw many things happening inside me, things that moved.
We hear a lot of things when it's silent.
I discovered that I had tinnitus.
But after a quick search on the internet, I learnt that everyone has it.
We're just not aware of it because we're not listening to it.
After a while, I felt more in touch with myself.
I felt I could rethink the direction my life would take.
I had the guts to ask myself once again the famous question asked earlier
but by adding a new parameter,
a parameter that changes everything.
I said to myself, "Joffrey, what would you really want to do in your life
if you had no chance of failing?"
It takes a lot of time to respond such a question.
Personally, I had to break all the mental barriers
I had constructed and that defined me.
In eight years, I got slowly used to the idea of becoming an engineer.
When these barriers are broken and we truly ask ourselves
truthfully what occupation we want,
we finally start to think.
We no longer search through the prism of our studies, we go further.
We think like children
who have not been shaped by their surroundings.
We think like children who were not said,
"You're good at this but bad at that".
After a while, I felt I was coming with an answer.
And now it fits in one sentence:
"I wish to live
by always spending enough time
to the development of what I am passionate about."
I wish to live by always giving myself enough time
to work on what I am passionate about.
I did not talk about photography, maybe one day I'll get tired of it,
but even so, I wanted to give myself the time to try.
You know, it's this little time
that allows you to go from amateurism to being a professional.
In the end, it was necessary to go back, work, save money
because real life continues to go forward at a crazy speed.
I had just signed up an open-ended contract as an engineer,
but it was okay because I finally had my goal.
I had my motive.
I had my driving force.
I knew that to have entrepreneurial freedom and freedom to move,
I needed to emancipate myself from wage-labor.
But before, I had to learn.
It continued like this for a year and a half,
1.5 year of subway-work-sleep routine.
And I assure you that after three months in a monastery,
experiencing Paris' subway is not really nice.
And after a while, I started to feel depressed.
When I looked around me,
everyone seemed quite satisfied with their job.
When I was considering leaving mine, what was I thinking?
Payed holidays, extra days off, job security, they're not that bad.
(Laughing)
I also felt social pressure weighing down on me
when I compared jobs said to be "rewarding" like engineering,
with others like photography.
I was told, "Hey, you didn't do all this for nothing!
You don't feel good, ok, but don't worry, You will get better tomorrow, come on!"
My favourite, you know it?
"Five-year studies to be an engineer, and you end up as a photographer?
You know, kids!"
(Laughter)
We've all heard that; well, I have anyway.
At first, it affected me, but later, it was lost on me.
One day, I felt ready, so I left.
I have now been a photographer for over a year,
self-employed and working for myself.
And I was able to make a decent living this year.
I developed new skills in the Web, in computer graphics, engineering,
and when I have time, I leave.
I lose myself in different countries.
Here, for example, it was in Kirghistan. a country impossible to pronounce,
and no one knows how to spell it.
There, I discovered the nomadic culture and especially hospitality.
They welcomed us, and gave us food and drink.
They had nothing.
Sometimes, I don't go to remote countries but to cities as well.
Like here. in Kathmandu, where I came across a woman.
We smiled at each other
because when I carry my backpack and feel good,
the camera around my neck,
I feel in the right place at the right time.
I feel in this special short moment where I think,
"Wow! I'm happy.
It's here that I should be."
So at last, I understood and I had the proof
that we should trust ourselves, nurture our creativity,
and never stop learning.
I realised that everything I did for eight years was coherent,
but it took me eight years to see it,
eight years to understand that even engineering
is helping me today in my job as a photographer.
Actually, it's only when we step back far enough
that we can see the whole picture.
I'm convinced that we all love many things outside of our main job,
and that it's vital to maintain our curiosity.
And If we let ourselves do plenty of what we love,
if we keep on doing this day after day,
nurturing this little flame of curiosity and passion,
then little by little and without judgement,
one day, we turn around,
and we finally understand the consistency in our actions.
And then, all we have to do is turn off this notorious autopilot,
to start to make a change.
And now, I'd like to ask you again one last question this evening:
what would you really want to make of your life
if there was no chance of failing?
Thank you.
(Applause)