Translator: Carmela Napolitano Reviewer: Denise RQ
So, a few days ago, I was texting with my dad
and he asked me, "Are you nervous? How do you feel?"
And I was like, "I'm so nervous, I'm so nervous to go up there."
And he said, "Don't worry,
just be a storyteller, not a presenter, and everything will be OK."
So that's what I'm here to do, I'm here to be a storyteller.
I'm here to tell to you my story,
really the only story I can tell right now.
And it goes something like this.
In 2012 something amazing happened.
I graduated from this University
and it was incredible, I was so excited,
I was so excited for my future
because I felt like I'd done everything right.
I was graduating with honors,
I did all the extra-curricular activities, and I did the internships,
and now I had a job.
So everything seemed really perfect.
So I started my life in the corporate world
(Laughter)
and I woke up, and I went to work, and I came home,
and I woke up, went to work, came home, woke up, went to work,
went to happy hour, came home
(Laughter)
and I was waiting for that sense of fulfillment and happiness
that everyone said it was going to happen when I did everything right.
But it didn't happen, it didn't come, and I started to wonder "Is this it?
Is this all that I'm going to do in the world?
Is this all that life has for me?"
And the really big question,
"Why am I even here? Why am I at this desk?
Why am I in this building? Why am I in the world?
What am I supposed to be doing?"
And all of these questions were all around me,
swirling around me, and I had no answers, I didn't even know where to look.
So this is a compass.
I think we all have a compass,
an internal compass that we were born with.
And it's really awesome
because it points to the north all the time.
It's constantly trying to get us there.
But something happens when we grow up.
Our families, our friends, our teachers, society,
they mess around with it, and they put what they think true north is upon us,
and so we leave the compass, and we lose it, we put it away,
and we start to look externally for guidance, and we get lost.
Well, this is where I was.
I didn't know where my compass was,
I didn't even know like what was the true north for me,
what did a fulfilling life look like.
But I wanted to find out.
It wasn't long after this that I heard this amazing talk by Elle Luna
artist and designer.
And in her talk, she quoted a man named Gurdjieff.
Now, Gurdjieff is a spiritual teacher.
One day, he asked his students,
"If a man desires to be free from prison, what is the first thing he needs to know?"
Someone raises his hand and says,
"The key, he needs to know where to find the key."
And someone else raises her hand and says,
"No, the guard, he needs to get to know the guard."
And Gurdjieff says, "No, a man who desires to escape from prison,
the first thing he needs to know is that he is in a prison.
Until he knows that, no escape is possible."
And this is where I was.
I was in a prison and I just found out,
and I wanted to be free, I wanted to know what was a true life for me,
what did it look like, what did it feel like,
what was fulfilling for me, not for anybody else.
So I wanted to find out; and so through three things--
First of all, solitude, so much solitude.
It's so easy to be connected nowadays.
Time away from friends, from family, from any type of technology.
Time to hear myself, my own thoughts.
Experiments.
Time to just be silly and have fun,
where it's not failure, it's just learning.
And lastly play, so much play.
It gets really easy to get serious when we get older,
but there is so much intelligence and play.
And so I thought about it,
when it was the last time I played, experimented, and just had fun by myself?
And it brought me back to art class, high school art class.
That was the last time I had taken an art class.
And so that was my breadcrumb, my first clue, and I followed it.
I went to the store, I bought canvas and paper, and I dug out my old paints,
and I started to paint in my room.
And when the work got really big,
I started to bring it downstairs to my parents basement,
and I turned it into a little makeshift studio,
and I shared my work on social media for the first time ever.
Eventually, I got my own studio,
and when I was ready to do something else, I played around with public art.
And so this was a public art project that we did on Michigan Avenue in Chicago.
And when really big things became easy, I turned to really small.
These are 100 portraits of a train conductor
that I met on my commute home.
It was for an Instagram project called The 100-day Project.
And so mine was 100 portraits of a train conductor;
I drew him in 100 different ways, and he has no idea these exist by the way.
(Laughter) Shh! Don't tell!
So I was playing, I was experimenting a lot,
and it was so much fun.
But there was a catch, I was exhausted.
I was still working at my corporate job.
I was going to work and then, after work, going to my studio,
and life was not sustainable anymore.
I was at a fork in the road, and I realized it, it was very clear to me
and I needed to choose.
Now, when really big choices come,
I think something comes right after it to try and help us.
And that's fear, so much fear, it just rushes towards you.
And I was like, "What if I fail?
I didn't go to art school, I don't know what I'm doing.
How am I going to explain this to my parents?
They're going to think that I'm crazy."
And I was living with them at the time,
so that was going to be an interesting conversation.
What about my bills?
I still had bills to pay, and what if art didn't pay?
And what will blank think of me,
what will co-workers think of me, friends, society, family?
There was this one sentence I came up.
And to this day, I read it when I get really scared.
And this is the sentence that quieted everything down for me
and it was, "Don't die with your gifts in your hands."
Wow. Don't die with your gifts in your hands.
How many people have died with their gifts in their hands?
How many people will die tomorrow? I don't want to be that person.
I knew that if I was going to share my art work
in a way that was really meaningful to me,
I needed to make a really hard choice.
And so I did.
I put my two weeks notice in, and I left.
I told my parents after.
(Laughter)
And so that's where I am right now.
This was actually only a few months ago.
And I live a very beautiful creative life.
And it's fun, and it's so scary.
I've no idea if it's going to work, but it's so true.
It's true for me, it's true north, and I know with every fiber of my being
that this is what I'm supposed to be doing.
But what about you? Do you feel something?
Do you feel like maybe you are made to do something else?
Do you have like a curiosity, a craving?
I don't know, is that for an activity, a place, a person maybe?
If you do, I have three things for you.
The first one: find your compass.
Where did it go? Go dig it out.
Dig it out and find out what is true north for you;
what does it look like, what does it feel like?
Learn how to read your compass again.
Second: all of this seems very scary,
it can seem like a very long, long tedious journey and sometimes it is.
But if there is one thing I've learned from any of this
is that big change happens
with simple, consistent action that comes from the heart,
that's all you need to do any of this.
It's just consistent action that comes from your heart.
And lastly: share.
Share your gift, because it's not enough to just find it,
you have to share it, you have to give it away,
and you give it away unapologetically and without any expectations.
You just give it away,
because there's someone out there that's waiting for you,
that's waiting for something that you have to give.
And you give it away because you must,
you give it away because you are made for more.
Thank you.
(Applause)