Transcriber: Charlotte Coveney Reviewer: Tanya Cushman
How do we get 7 billion people to connect with one another on an emotional level?
I want you to keep this question in mind
as I will come back to it later in the speech.
As humans, it is a biological need to be able to interact with one another.
And through these connections,
we become more open-minded and knowledgeable.
We have the capacity to learn new languages,
the opportunity to try new foods
and the ability to experience new environments -
all through the power of connection.
The problem is we're not taking full advantage of these opportunities
as a species,
and this is mainly due to long-held prejudices
and its main problem, a lack of empathy.
I feel that recently we have seen
a decrease in the amount of appreciation for each other and our differences.
There is a lot of prejudice all around the world.
Every day, people are being judged
for reasons of race, religion, gender, love and nationality -
just to name a few.
It's important for us to discuss this issue
because prejudice in these many forms
has the ability to affect many different types of people.
And now it is time that action needs to be taken
to correct this situation.
I believe that empathy is what we need to solve this problem.
Empathy is the capacity to understand
or feel what another person is experiencing
from within the other person's frame of reference.
Let me repeat that for you.
Empathy is the capacity to understand
or feel what another person is experiencing
from within the other person's frame of reference.
What does that mean exactly?
Well, it's the ability to place yourself in someone else's position.
Let me tell you a story about two classmates of mine.
Let's call them Clark Kent and Diana Patrick.
One day, Diana is pushed into the pool because of Clark, and her foot got cold.
A few minutes later,
Clark confessed to me
that he felt really bad for pushing Diana into the water.
When I was deciding what I could say to make Clark feel better,
I actually experienced the same sadness and regret
that he had felt,
even though I wasn't in the exact same situation that he was in.
That connection is what I feel that we need to develop
if we're going to end the problem of prejudice.
Empathy is important because it can make you a more understanding person
and improve your relationships
and can create human bonds.
George Orwell, a famous novelist who wrote the book "1984,"
was from a very privileged background.
Until one day,
he started noticing the people around him that were disadvantaged.
So he therefore decided to do an experiment
in which he went around East London to Paris
and lived among the poorest people.
He did this from the late 1920s through the early 1930s.
He would go out, sometimes a few days at a time,
other times an entire week.
After the experiment, he was forever changed.
He had literally placed himself in someone else's position
and experienced life through their perspective.
As a result, he became a more compassionate person,
had more trust towards strangers,
and even developed new friendships.
He actually wrote a book about it, called "Down and Out in Paris and London."
We don't have to do the exact same thing that George Orwell did,
but we can, from time to time,
take a minute and try to meet and understand new people.
You'd be surprised to find out
that you may have more in common than you thought.
In the second half of grade five,
I was a little awkward when it came to meeting new people.
So in the second half of grade five,
the teacher told us there was going to be a new person in our class, a girl.
So when I found out about this,
I was kind of interested in who this person would be.
So let's call this girl Beyoncé.
(Laughter)
So the day that Beyoncé came to class,
it was kind of awkward for every one of us as well.
A few days later, I had to do a project with some of my classmates,
and Beyoncé happened to be one of them.
When we were working together, I found out that we had a lot in common.
We both liked to be silly and make jokes
even though she was from a different country.
To this day, she's still one of my best friends.
These type of empathic experiments are what make us human.
Another thing that's helping spread empathy
is social media.
Think of the different places that you can go online
to find like-minded individuals.
It can make us feel as if we're part of an extended family,
formed by many different types of people.
In websites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,
you can go on these websites and follow people that inspire you.
And you get to send information around the world and inspire people too.
Prejudice is a major problem
that has many diverse ways it negatively affects society.
Every day, we prejudge each other by gender, race and religion.
Gender, race and religion and other forms of prejudice
have been going on for a while now.
It still exists to this day.
It is important for us to understand this issue
because prejudice in these many forms
has the ability to affect many different types of people.
We all have this urge to wake up and look at this world
and the problems that are going on.
We have to know what's going on in our communities
and send a message all around the world that everyone should be treated fairly.
We need people to discuss these issues and to confront them,
to not be afraid to have the difficult conversations
with people that they might not know very well or understand.
[Prejudice] should be something of the past.
The only way to make sure that it is is we have to make a commitment to it.
Remember the question I had at the beginning of the speech?
How do we get 7 billion people to connect with one another
on an emotional level?
Well, do you have any suggestions that can inspire people?
I have said some suggestions in this speech
and maybe you have something to add with it.
I'd like to say that all of us
have the ability to use that idea to change the world.
I hope that we can get this world to wake up.
It has been asleep for too long.
Thank you everyone.
(Applause)