Translator: Masako Kigami Reviewer: Claire Ghyselen
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Mr. Nagano also asked this question in his talk.
What was your answer when you were a child?
When I was 6 years old, I answered: " I want to be a patissier".
If I were a patissier,
I thought I could eat leftovers every day.
You might have answered this question lightly in your childhood.
Now that you are grown up men and women,
how do you answer that same question?
"I want to be ..."
"I want to do ..."
"I wish to be ..."
These are questions that we always keep asking in our lives.
When we have to make an important choice in our lives,
we are vividly aware of it.
Where will you study?
Where will you work?
Will you stay in your hometown or go somewhere else?
Do you keep your current job or change your career?
When many people have to make a decision,
they ponder, dither and suffer.
And finally they make a decision.
Now I stand at a crossroad in my life.
I am one of the stray children who dither.
I study physics at a graduate school now.
What do you want to be in the future?
Which company do you want to work after graduation?
I always answer "I don't know."
Actually I haven't had a clear answer what I wanted to be since I was a child.
Anxiety and frustration make me feel so unsecure.
However, When I looked at people surrounding me, they were different.
They have a clear goal. They want to study in America.
They want to contribute to world peace.
They want to be an astronaut, and so on.
They make tremendous efforts to realize their dreams.
I'm really impressed by them.
At the same time, my anxiety and frustration have increased
because I didn't know what I wanted to be.
I seemed to be lost in a maze of my life.
So, I used Google to have a hint of how to get out of here.
(Laughter)
It has taught me anything I needed to know.
It taught me jobs, companies, societies,
doctorate courses, studying abroad and so on.
Even if I read search results on the screen,
they didn't teach me what I want to be.
So I changed my strategy.
I listened to personal experiences of various people
who made a critical choice in their life.
I listened to stories of parents, teachers and predecessors in my college,
and workers who thrive in their career.
All of them gave me some advice emphatically.
I was the same! I didn't know what to be!
"Choose a job you think it's cool."
This was completely different from advices on the Internet.
I've received warm words from people who understand my situation.
But I still haven't found what I want to be."
When I was completely lost in the maze, I was very lucky to learn about TEDxAnjo.
I talked about my presentation with TED staff after the audition.
My current fascination is physics and linguistic.
When I told them about such maniac topics very eagerly,
a staff said this to me:
"Mr. Suzuki, you put much value on studies."
Value.
I've never thought about it.
What do I put value on?
What are my own values?
Do you know what "value" is?
I interpret like this.
There are various things, people, behaviors, selections,
and ways of living and thinking.
On which of them do you put weight?
What is good? What is bad?
What is beautiful? What is ugly?
Everyone has an own subjective measure.
That is value.
If I use my own value scale,
I may get out of the maze of "what I want to be".
What do I put value on?
Looking back on my 23 years,
I asked myself four questions to learn about my values.
Let's think about your own value together.
First question.
What do you like best?
What is the most exciting thing you like to do?
What does move you?
I love physics.
I've studied it on a full scale from an university.
We can express various laws of the world into equations.
If we solve them, we can explain many phenomena.
Don't you think it's wonderful?
For example, using this simple equation of movement,
we can explain throwing a ball, roller coasters,
planets in the universe, and artificial satellites.
We can explain necessary things in our lives,
like lights, electricity and magnetism.
We can solve them with Maxwell's equation.
We can also explain a micro world,
like electrons, molecules and atoms.
They are much smaller than our world.
We can explain it with Schrödinger equations.
(Laughter)
Aren't you excited by wonderful power of physics?
(Laughter)
Second question.
What have you been interested since you were young?
I've been interested in languages.
I've studied English, Chinese, French, Russian, Arabic and sign language.
I've learned many languages.
Every language has a specific language structure.
I love to understand the way they work.
and find common ground among different languages.
I am so excited when I can suddenly understand incomprehensible letter string.
(Chinese) Wǒ xuéxí zhōngguó.
(French) J'étudie le français
(Russian) Я изучаю русский язык
(Arabic) أنا أدرس العربية
When you can read such languages,
It is fun because it can broaden your horizon.
(Laughter)
Third question.
What were the most impressive memories in your live?
I love to travel.
I traveled from Hokkaido to Okinawa in Japan.
I also visited Russia, Canada, Uzbekistan and other places,
to enjoy their culture and foods.
They are precious memories for me.
Question number 4.
What did affect most of your thinking and attitude?
For me, communication with others.
I met people who have completely different thinking and value,
and we talked a lot.
These moments allow me to look from different angles,
that I had never thought about, and to broaden my horizon more widely.
I did realize that.
So I am grateful for people around me.
Finally I reached my conclusion.
My values consist of sharing a broaden horizon.
Learning things I never imagined.
Doing things that I couldn't.
Watching things for the first time.
Visiting a place for the first time.
I simply enjoy opening my eyes to new discoveries.
I'd like to keep enjoying such feelings.
Taking a look back, I've looked for this
and selected them unconsciously.
Could I find my life mission after discovering my values?
No, I couldn't.
As I found my values, to spread my horizon,
I'd like to keep broadening my horizon
and challenging unfamiliar fields bravely
to build up my own life.
When I expressed my values, I had my big philosophy,
which affected my thinking and actions.
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Whenever I face a crossroad in my life,
I will keep asking this question.
Even if I have multiple choices
and write down advantages and disadvantages to compare them,
I might not find any answers.
There are no answers on Google
because they are not my values.
So please ponder,
listen to your hidden voice,
and express them in your own words.
I believe choices based on my values.
Every choice will become a precious experience on a page of my life.
Thank you.
(Applause)