Transcriber: Cahyarini Hariga Reviewer: Annet Johnson
How’s everyone doing?
Good.
Does someone recognize this gaming controller?
A few, simple buttons placed on a rectangle.
This video game console came out in 1986 nationwide.
What about this one?
A similar concept with a few, you know, minor adjustments.
This came out just a few short years later.
Now, what about all of these?
Do you notice a pattern between all of these controllers?
As the years have passed, video game controllers have just gotten more complex.
They’ve continued to evolve just as the games have.
Video games, nowadays, are so lifelike,
so much so you can play, literally, in virtual reality.
The storylines, the graphics, the consoles,
everything has continued to change as time passes.
My brother and I used to play a lot of video games growing up,
all different kinds of games:
simulation games, sports games, racing games;
you name it, we were probably playing it.
Can you guys think back to a video game that you enjoyed playing?
Maybe from your childhood, high school, college?
Or maybe it’s a game that you recently found?
Wherever that thought took you in your life,
I can almost guarantee one thing.
You can probably remember that incredible feeling
of beating a really difficult level;
that level you had to play over and over and over again
before you were able to beat it.
My brother and I tried hours on end to unlock new levels.
We would take turns learning from each other's mistakes,
and sometimes we would look up cheat codes when we didn't know how to do it.
Sometimes we even tried switching seats to bring new perspective
or energy to what we were doing.
You know, looking back, it’s pretty incredible
the dedication we had to these games.
We would sit and focus for hours, days, even weeks,
trying to beat these levels.
Little did we know at the time,
that these games would become a fundamental life lesson for us.
Sometimes I think to myself, “What if my life is an actual video game?”
What if we are all part of one large simulation
and we are each the respective character of a player?
So in my simulation, I would be the chosen character of my player.
My player chooses my outfits in the morning,
they pick my meals, they teach me new skills, they send me off to work,
and hopefully one day they’ll even choose a life partner for me.
As I make these small decisions,
these small decisions help to dictate what level of the game
I could potentially move to next.
But to get to these small decisions, you have to hit the start button.
Once the game is in play mode, the objective is always the same:
it’s to win.
So when you’re winning at life
that looks very different from person to person
and, of course, it should be.
For me, winning at life is about happiness,
it’s about learning, exploring, it’s about love.
For me, it’s been about saying yes.
Saying yes to any opportunity has given me a chance
to live a life that’s pretty different than those around me.
Pretty obviously, it’s allowed me to see opportunities or experience things
that I wouldn’t have seen had I said no.
These small decisions have really helped shape my life.
As I go through each of my levels,
I focus and practice and learn and try to get better each day,
because we’re all just putting in the work to try and get to that next level.
About three years ago, I received a casting email about a matchmaking show
that followed millennials of Indian descent on their quest for love.
Although I was super excited, my first thought wasn’t immediately yes,
it was doubt.
“There’s probably a lot of people applying to this, why would they choose me?
What’s going to happen?
Am I going to have to get married really soon?
Uhmm ...
But, also, who even cares about my dating life?
Also, I’m Guyanese from Guyana in South America, nowhere near India.
And yeah, I'm part of the diaspora,
but I’m pretty sure the show’s not going to be called diaspora matchmaking.”
And so despite this great internal debate I was having,
I probably could have looked at this little nuance on the application
and was like, you know, I probably shouldn’t do this.
So I went back and forth, and despite that great debate,
my player decided that it was time to submit that application.
And so by some stroke of luck, I made it through to the final round
and was cast on season one and two of the show.
I didn’t know it at the time,
but these decisions would change the trajectory of this level of my life.
Dealing with and having to explain my identity
was something I had come across numerous times throughout my life.
But in this moment, it was that I realized showing up as my whole self,
regardless of how different I was than those around me,
was the thing that made my character so special and unique.
And if I had learned anything from my younger self,
it was to have the courage to try and try again when you’re working towards a goal.
Because even if it doesn’t work out, at least you can say you tried.
So I thank my player for pressing start button on that application,
because without it I probably wouldn’t be here sharing my story with you today.
So similar to video games and gaming consoles,
life becomes a little bit more complex, unfortunately, as time passes.
We don’t always have to know how to beat every level,
and we might not be the best right off the bat.
But, if you stay focused on the end goal and put in those hours of work,
those hours turn into days and those days turn into weeks,
and sometimes before you know it, you might be playing on expert level.
Sometimes if you look at your goal from a different perspective, shift your seat,
that could be the one small change that you were hoping for.
And when adversity rears its ugly head,
think back to your younger self and have the courage to try and try again.
But before we can get anywhere, we have to press the start button.
Thank you.
(Applause & cheers)