Transcriber: Eriko Tsukamoto Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Just about everyone knows how it feels to be lonely.
We get lonely for all sorts of reasons -
some are obvious, but some can be surprising.
15 years ago, I landed one of the best classical music jobs in the world:
principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
I'd worked my whole life for this,
spending thousands upon thousands of hours over decades in the practice room
ever since I was a little girl.
Winning that job was the musical equivalent of winning Olympic gold,
and I know that I'm speaking today from a place of privilege.
However, the reality of my professional life is complicated,
and the truth is that I often feel lonely, isolated and disconnected.
When I landed that job, I suddenly became what social scientists call an "only."
Top positions in the best American orchestras are mostly held by men.
12 of the 13 other principal players in my orchestra are men,
and I'm often the only woman in the room.
In fact, I am the only female principal flutist
in the top tier of orchestras in the entire country.
I hadn't thought much about being an only before I landed my dream job,
but suddenly, it became my reality.
I'm just one kind of only though;
onlys come in all forms.
Maybe you're the only person of color in your office.
Maybe you're the only first-generation college student
in your freshman class.
Or maybe you're the only childless couple in your congregation.
We onlys by definition don't fit in, we stick out.
And because we stick out, we feel scrutinized
and we feel we have to meet a higher standard.
We have to be better, and we have to do it alone,
without the ease of community and the comfort of belonging.
Because of this, our lives are often infused
with the persistent ache of isolation and loneliness.
Being an only in my profession is challenging.
It's my job to make what I do look easy,
but I have to be both technically brilliant
and pour my heart and soul into every performance.
I have to bat a thousand and move you to tears.
I put everything out there on that stage.
As a performer, I'm constantly judged
by critics, the audience and colleagues.
If I play a wrong note, it's obvious and embarrassing,
and everyone knows.
But what can be crushing
and keep me up at night and make me question myself
are the judgments about my personal artistic voice.
You might consider my expressive choices to be exquisite and beautiful,
but someone else will think they're mediocre and boring.
They'll think I'm mediocre and boring.
This kind of subjective judgement
can make performing artists feel fragile and exposed.
And we do this night after night, week after week.
It takes a lifetime of discipline to maintain our standard of excellence,
and a certain kind of bravery
to get up there on that stage and bare our souls.
My colleagues and I are all exposed and fragile,
but as an only,
I've felt more scrutinized and more alone.
As a woman in my position, I didn't fit in, I stuck out.
So to protect myself, I developed armor.
I liked to call it really good boundaries.
You, though, might have called me
uptight,
rigid.
It's true, I have tried to be flawless, impeccable, unflappable.
And I've worked hard to never show any vulnerability.
I didn't want to seem weak, especially as a woman.
Over the years, I've kept my distance
and built a big wall of privacy to protect myself.
And although that wall felt protective and comforting,
it also isolated me and intensified my loneliness.
And then, about a year ago,
I filed and successfully mediated
an equal-pay lawsuit against my orchestra.
It was the first and so far the only one of its kind in my industry.
And after that,
I felt like even more of an only.
Until recently, I thought my loneliness just came with the job.
There's almost no turnover in these top orchestra positions,
and I was pretty sure I was going to be an only for a long time.
I thought I knew how to cope, and I didn't see that change was possible.
I also thought that my struggles would be hard for others to relate to,
given my unique position in this unusual industry.
And I continued to believe
that any crack in that shield of privacy would make me weaker.
After my lawsuit settled and the news coverage died down,
I expected to return to life as usual,
to my world-class orchestra,
my walls of privacy,
and to the loneliness of my onlyness.
But I was wrong.
That lawsuit burst open my world in a completely unexpected way.
In these past few months, I've heard from all sorts of people
who've tried to make change in their workplaces.
They are teachers and healthcare workers and bankers.
They were inspired by my lawsuit and wanted to connect.
I thought we would not relate much to each other,
and my instinct was to retreat back behind those walls.
But I was startled by how much we had in common
and how deeply comforting it felt to get to know them.
It turns out that many of them are onlys too,
and they felt like kindred spirits.
And I realized that with just a little imagination,
I could look outside my orchestra world, step out of that isolation
and find common ground with people
I never would have dreamed of connecting with before.
And I saw that my walls had imprisoned me
rather than protected me.
I used to watch those incredible women's soccer players
fight for their rights
and wished that I could be part of an organized team like that,
united by their excellence and what they're up against.
Now, when I feel like I need a team,
I remember to think creatively
and to look for common ground where I couldn't see it before,
and I remind myself that it's okay that I'm different from the rest.
This new team that I've found is diverse and interesting,
and we're united by our shared experiences fighting hard for change.
Our differences make us stronger.
This new team pushes me,
challenges me way outside my comfort zone
and helps me see the world in a new way -
and they get how hard it is to try and go it alone.
Learning to use my imagination in this way
has been liberating and exhilarating.
It was a truly unexpected gift of that lawsuit.
And then I received another gift.
One evening, this past summer,
a group of young professional musicians asked to get together to talk.
Before we met, I had made some assumptions.
I'd assumed that my loneliness was rare.
I knew that my isolation was due to my position at the very top of my field
and to that armor that I had developed to try to cope with being an only.
I assumed that these young professionals,
fluent in social media and still early in their careers,
felt part of a strong community.
But I was wrong.
They, too, were lonely,
unsure who was on their team.
They felt isolated,
navigating the challenges they faced in the performing arts.
That evening, they shared some painful stories
and asked deep and probing questions,
questions without easy answers or simple solutions.
And it became clear that they didn't need to hear
from that polished, public version of me,
they needed the real me.
And so I dropped my armor and tried to speak honestly
about my failures and insecurities and challenges and vulnerabilities.
And this felt surprisingly good.
By the time we said goodnight,
the energy in that group had shifted from hesitancy to courage,
and I could feel how powerful it is
when I don't just lead from a distance
but truly in community with those who look up to me.
Later, one of those young musicians said to me
that she and her friends hadn't expected that we would have so much in common.
Until that night, they had had no idea
that in many important ways I was no different from them,
no better or braver or more confident.
They had put me on a pedestal,
and I had fortified it with my walls of privacy.
My choice to remain guarded and safe behind those walls
hadn't served me ...
or them.
That night was a lesson in one of those paradoxes
that's intriguing to think about but hard to practice.
Vulnerability leads to strength.
I thought that I had understood the value of embracing vulnerability,
but that deeply satisfying conversation with those young professionals
was what helped me finally get it.
I felt the connection between vulnerability and power
in my mind and my heart,
not as an intellectual concept but as a lived truth.
It's still scary for me to do,
but when I drop my defenses and show my real self,
I now see that I'm tapping into a new kind of power,
a shared power.
It's the power of connection, of vulnerability, of honesty.
This power energizes and multiplies
and is the inverse of the relentless fatigue of loneliness.
I can afford to be generous with this power
and to show the messy complex truths of my experiences.
In doing this, I'm not only lifting up and empowering others,
but I'm drawing strength from them and enriching my own life.
So many of us have big dreams,
but we are weighed down and exhausted by our loneliness.
Learning to harness this new kind of power
can help us thrive and give us the energy to pursue those dreams.
One day, I want to look around me and see true equality
and diversity,
and far fewer onlys.
Your dream will be something else entirely
and just as inspiring,
and I recognize that power and access to power
can look very different for different people,
depending on your privilege,
but accomplishing any kind of big dream
requires sustained and powerful advocacy.
When I was isolated and disconnected in my onlyness,
I was just a single, lonely voice.
Today though, when I sit in my chair in the orchestra,
I'm not only an only.
And I'm not anymore such a lonely only.
So for those of you out there who feel alone,
join me in exploring past the boundaries
of what we might think constitutes common ground.
Imagination can help us find community and power
in unexpected places.
Reach out to people in different stages of their careers
and different phases of their lives,
and find the strength to be vulnerable with them.
You will draw strength from them and they from you.
We all have the power to create our own unique and vibrant communities.
These kinds of communities may not be obvious or ready-made,
but together, we're building them,
and they're strong.
Thank you.
(Applause)