Translator: Clotilde Bouaoud Reviewer: Queenie Lee
Four years ago, my best friend's husband called me at work.
After he had served her divorce papers,
she had driven home, taken a plastic bag and put it over her head,
and tied it at the neck.
My throat felt dense and dry as cotton, and I hated that bastard.
But I hated myself more
for how we had told each other to just keep running.
Don't think too much about it, just keep grasping for the golden ring.
That devastating moment completely changed the way
that I worked and lived and loved and parented.
It was my wake-up call.
And I promised myself that I would go from just running
to running free.
So what do I mean by running free?
I don't mean with those weird rubber toe shoes.
It's become shorthand to me for being present,
savoring the wind in my face
and enjoying the special moments as much as the milestones.
Now, I have run the distance.
The longest I've ever run was 10 years, 4 months and 13 days.
My first taste of the treadmill was a job interview.
My husband had just quit his job; my daughter was two weeks old.
We had no savings and no work visa.
So, desperate, angry and vulnerable,
I swore I'd fix it and I would never be in that situation again.
My pants wouldn't zip up,
so I had to have a top that I could pull down over my waistband.
And I brought the breast pump in an ugly blue vinyl refrigeration bag
to the interviews, just in case they ran long.
And then I brightly decried to each CEO I met
that I was ready to hit the ground running!
Then I would go home,
and gather my tiny beautiful baby girl in my arms and cry.
Those same CEOs would put my words to the test:
"Excited to hit the ground running?"
When my daughter was eight weeks old,
I took my first business trip - the first of almost 40, that year alone.
They kindly sat me in the front row with the fold-down bassinets,
and across the aisle, there was a family with a two-month-old baby.
Every time I looked over at them, I cried.
They must have thought I was completely unhinged.
(Laughs)
When I went home, my daughter wouldn't let me put her to bed at night.
I thought, "I got this."
My dad missed birthdays to take calls from patients.
This is what we do!
Damn the cost, and full speed ahead!
Besides, what if my parents get sick or my husband doesn't come home?
What if I live to be a 100?
At least I have this job and a roof over my head,
health insurance.
I have control.
And what ifs did come.
Next year, baby number two.
Third child.
Oh my god, I don't have enough hands!
Number three in intensive care with meningitis.
Three times a day up to the hospital.
Have you ever held down a newborn while they've gotten a spinal tap?
The only way out seemed to be to increase the speed on the treadmill.
So I traveled and I worked, and I ran home to put my kids to bed,
all the while reading emails on my phone,
and hoping that they would fall asleep before the 10 PM conference call.
I was there,
but I wasn't "there" there.
But life on my Facebook page, on my LinkedIn profile,
it all looked really good!
So what about running free?
What about savoring the moment?
That best friend I mentioned - we totally ran free!
At university, we pioneered the naked margarita slip and slide party!
(Laughter)
After school, we both moved to New York, rented a fabulous illegal sublet
and promptly got evicted.
She worked in a bigwig chairman's office
and I for a former White House official.
And we lived, we loved, and we dreamed about conquering the world.
Life was big and beautiful and messy.
We both moved abroad but still would speak to each other once a week.
We were each other's mirror and muse.
We both got married - she in Germany, I in Hong-Kong -
to two halves of the perfect guy.
Hers meticulous, organized, workaholic, forever optimizing their insurance.
(Laughter)
Mine thrilling to propose marriage to me at a gala dinner in front of 500 people,
which seemed like a lot until today!
(Laughter)
I used to tell her, "God, I would kill for somebody to optimize my insurance!"
We both had the kind of job that looks good on the ten:
corporate jobs, decent apartments, opportunities to travel.
We didn't talk about conquering the world.
We were talking more, recently,
about keeping our jobs and climbing the greasy pole.
We'd postpone some big dreams and new experiences,
but there is always tomorrow.
We were so busy; we didn't spend that much time with our families,
or our husbands, or our friends.
Because we used to live by the adage: You can sleep when you're dead.
When she chose to take her own life,
I realized I don't need to sleep when I am dead;
I am already asleep at the wheel.
So I left that job, that I came to love after 10 years.
And, when people would ask me where I was going,
they didn't actually believe me
when I said, "Nowhere, somewhere, anywhere!"
"I don't know."
"I am learning to run free."
I decided to create capacity for the things that mattered to me:
my husband, my family;
long walks in the hills;
ice cream with a girlfriend.
On a good day, work now fits around those things,
and it's far from perfect, but I am trying.
I reordered my personal myth,
handed down from men and women for generations,
that says: "A work ethic is more important than putting your kids to bed."
And I profoundly changed my hopes for my children.
Now courage and love and resilience
are far more precious gifts that I can give them
than mastering the piano.
So, what if we all took the opportunity
to think, consciously think about what it means to really live.
No one can afford to live the rest of their lives out of fear,
succumbing to a future that we don't even question.
We are living with the toll of unrealistic expectations:
depression, divorce, addiction, regret.
Suicides in our town for students doubled
in the first few months of this year alone.
So, I'd like for us to think about what it means,
really means to live and to make that conscious choice,
to maybe listen for the small, still voice.
Recently, I heard the small, mischievous voice of my nine-year-old son.
He said to me, "Mom, you'd better go to bed early!
You got a big day ahead!"
He didn't say it in a Western accent;
that was mine.
(Laughter)
I waited for the punchline and he said, "You got to take care of your kids."
(Laughter)
And he is right.
We all have to take care of ourselves.
So, you and you and you and you:
What are you going to do to get off the treadmill for just a moment?
To think about why and how you're running?
What are you going to do to join me to run free?
Thank you.
(Applause)