🟢Am I dying? The honest answer

I've been a critical care EMT for the past seven years in Suffolk County, New York. I've been a first responder in a number of incidents ranging from car accidents to Hurricane Sandy.
If you are like most people, death might be one of your greatest fears. Some of us will see it coming. Some of us won't. There is a little-known documented medical term called impending doom. It's almost a symptom. As a medical provider, I'm trained to respond to this symptom like any other, so when a patient having a heart attack looks at me and says, "I'm going to die today," we are trained to reevaluate the patient's condition.
Throughout my career, I have responded to a number of incidents where the patient had minutes left to live and there was nothing I could do for them. With this, I was faced with a dilemma: Do I tell the dying that they are about to face death, or do I lie to them to comfort them? Early in my career, I faced this dilemma by simply lying. I was afraid. I was afraid if I told them the truth, that they would die in terror, in fear, just grasping for those last moments of life.
That all changed with one incident. Five years ago, I responded to a motorcycle accident. The rider had suffered critical, critical injuries. As I assessed him, I realized that there was nothing that could be done for him, and like so many other cases, he looked me in the eye and asked that question: "Am I going to die?" In that moment, I decided to do something different. I decided to tell him the truth. I decided to tell him that he was going to die and that there was nothing I could do for him. His reaction shocked me to this day. He simply laid back and had a look of acceptance on his face. He was not met with that terror or fear that I thought he would be. He simply laid there, and as I looked into his eyes, I saw inner peace and acceptance. From that moment forward, I decided it was not my place to comfort the dying with my lies. Having responded to many cases since then where patients were in their last moments and there was nothing I could do for them, in almost every case, they have all had the same reaction to the truth, of inner peace and acceptance. In fact, there are three patterns I have observed in all these cases.
The first pattern always kind of shocked me. Regardless of religious belief or cultural background, there's a need for forgiveness. Whether they call it sin or they simply say they have a regret, their guilt is universal. I had once cared for an elderly gentleman who was having a massive heart attack. As I prepared myself and my equipment for his imminent cardiac arrest, I began to tell the patient of his imminent demise. He already knew by my tone of voice and body language. As I placed the defibrillator pads on his chest, prepping for what was going to happen, he looked me in the eye and said, "I wish I had spent more time with my children and grandchildren instead of being selfish with my time." Faced with imminent death, all he wanted was forgiveness.
The second pattern I observe is the need for remembrance. Whether it was to be remembered in my thoughts or their loved ones', they needed to feel that they would be living on. There's a need for immortality within the hearts and thoughts of their loved ones, myself, my crew, or anyone around. Countless times, I have had a patient look me in the eyes and say, "Will you remember me?"
The final pattern I observe always touched me the deepest, to the soul. The dying need to know that their life had meaning. They need to know that they did not waste their life on meaningless tasks.

This came to me very, very early in my career. I had responded to a call. There was a female in her late 50s severely pinned within a vehicle. She had been t-boned at a high rate of speed, critical, critical condition. As the fire department worked to remove her from the car, I climbed in to begin to render care. As we talked, she had said to me, "There was so much more I wanted to do with my life." She had felt she had not left her mark on this Earth. As we talked further, it would turn out that she was a mother of two adopted children who were both on their way to medical school. Because of her, two children had a chance they never would have had otherwise and would go on to save lives in the medical field as medical doctors. It would end up taking 45 minutes to free her from the vehicle. However, she perished prior to freeing her.
I believed what you saw in the movies: when you're in those last moments that it's strictly terror, fear. I have come to realize, regardless of the circumstance, it's generally met with peace and acceptance, that it's the littlest things, the littlest moments, the littlest things you brought into the world that give you peace in those final moments.
Thank you.

#Death #Health #Medicine

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🟢What makes muscles grow?

#Health #Public_Health #Human_Body #Health_Care #TED_Ed #Animation #Biology #Physiology #Exercise #Science #Food

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🟢What makes muscles grow?

Muscles. We have over 600 of them. They make up between 1/3 and 1/2 of our body weight, and along with connective tissue, they bind us together, hold us up, and help us move. And whether or not body building is your hobby, muscles need your constant attention because the way you treat them on a daily basis determines whether they will wither or grow. Say you're standing in front of a door, ready to pull it open. Your brain and muscles are perfectly poised to help you achieve this goal. First, your brain sends a signal to motor neurons inside your arm. When they receive this message, they fire, causing muscles to contract and relax, which pull on the bones in your arm and generate the needed movement. The bigger the challenge becomes, the bigger the brain's signal grows, and the more motor units it rallies to help you achieve your task. But what if the door is made of solid iron? At this point, your arm muscles alone won't be able to generate enough tension to pull it open, so your brain appeals to other muscles for help. You plant your feet, tighten your belly, and tense your back, generating enough force to yank it open. Your nervous system has just leveraged the resources you already have, other muscles, to meet the demand. While all this is happening, your muscle fibers undergo another kind of cellular change. As you expose them to stress, they experience microscopic damage, which, in this context, is a good thing. In response, the injured cells release inflammatory molecules called cytokines that activate the immune system to repair the injury. This is when the muscle-building magic happens. The greater the damage to the muscle tissue, the more your body will need to repair itself. The resulting cycle of damage and repair eventually makes muscles bigger and stronger as they adapt to progressively greater demands. Since our bodies have already adapted to most everyday activities, those generally don't produce enough stress to stimulate new muscle growth. So, to build new muscle, a process called hypertrophy, our cells need to be exposed to higher workloads than they are used to. In fact, if you don't continuously expose your muscles to some resistance, they will shrink, a process known as muscular atrophy. In contrast, exposing the muscle to a high-degree of tension, especially while the muscle is lengthening, also called an eccentric contraction, generates effective conditions for new growth. However, muscles rely on more than just activity to grow. Without proper nutrition, hormones, and rest, your body would never be able to repair damaged muscle fibers. Protein in our diet preserves muscle mass by providing the building blocks for new tissue in the form of amino acids. Adequate protein intake, along with naturally occurring hormones, like insulin-like growth factor and testosterone, help shift the body into a state where tissue is repaired and grown. This vital repair process mainly occurs when we're resting, especially at night while sleeping. Gender and age affect this repair mechanism, which is why young men with more testosterone have a leg up in the muscle building game. Genetic factors also play a role in one's ability to grow muscle. Some people have more robust immune reactions to muscle damage, and are better able to repair and replace damaged muscle fibers, increasing their muscle-building potential. The body responds to the demands you place on it. If you tear your muscles up, eat right, rest and repeat, you'll create the conditions to make your muscles as big and strong as possible. It is with muscles as it is with life: Meaningful growth requires challenge and stress.

#Health #Public_Health #Human_Body #Health_care #TED_Ed #Animation #Biology #Physiology #Exercise #Science #Food

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🟢What would happen if you didn't drink water?

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🟢What would happen if you didn't drink water?

Water is virtually everywhere, from soil moisture and ice caps, to the cells inside our own bodies. Depending on factors like location, fat index, age, and sex, the average human is between 55-60% water. At birth, human babies are even wetter. Being 75% water, they are swimmingly similar to fish. But their water composition drops to 65% by their first birthday. So what role does water play in our bodies, and how much do we actually need to drink to stay healthy? The H20 in our bodies works to cushion and lubricate joints, regulate temperature, and to nourish the brain and spinal cord. Water isn't only in our blood. An adult's brain and heart are almost three quarters water. That's roughly equivalent to the amount of moisture in a banana. Lungs are more similar to an apple at 83%. And even seemingly dry human bones are 31% water. If we are essentially made of water, and surrounded by water, why do we still need to drink so much? Well, each day we lose two to three liters through our sweat, urine, and bowel movements, and even just from breathing. While these functions are essential to our survival, we need to compensate for the fluid loss. Maintaining a balanced water level is essential to avoid dehydration or over-hydration, both of which can have devastating effects on overall health. At first detection of low water levels, sensory receptors in the brain's hypothalamus signal the release of antidiuretic hormone. When it reached the kidneys, it creates aquaporins, special channels that enable blood to absorb and retain more water, leading to concentrated, dark urine. Increased dehydration can cause notable drops in energy, mood, skin moisture, and blood pressure, as well as signs of cognitive impairment. A dehydrated brain works harder to accomplish the same amount as a normal brain, and it even temporarily shrinks because of its lack of water. Over-hydration, or hyponatremia, is usually caused by overconsumption of water in a short amount of time. Athletes are often the victims of over-hydration because of complications in regulating water levels in extreme physical conditions. Whereas the dehydrated brain amps up the production of antidiuretic hormone, the over-hydrated brain slows, or even stops, releasing it into the blood. Sodium electrolytes in the body become diluted, causing cells to swell. In severe cases, the kidneys can't keep up with the resulting volumes of dilute urine. Water intoxication then occurs, possibly causing headache, vomiting, and, in rare instances, seizures or death. But that's a pretty extreme situation. On a normal, day-to-day basis, maintaining a well-hydrated system is easy to manage for those of us fortunate enough to have access to clean drinking water. For a long time, conventional wisdom said that we should drink eight glasses a day. That estimate has since been fine-tuned. Now, the consensus is that the amount of water we need to imbibe depends largely on our weight and environment. The recommended daily intake varies from between 2.5-3.7 liters of water for men, and about 2-2.7 liters for women, a range that is pushed up or down if we are healthy, active, old, or overheating. While water is the healthiest hydrator, other beverages, even those with caffeine like coffee or tea, replenish fluids as well. And water within food makes up about a fifth of our daily H20 intake. Fruits and vegetables like strawberries, cucumbers, and even broccoli are over 90% water, and can supplement liquid intake while providing valuable nutrients and fiber. Drinking well might also have various long-term benefits. Studies have shown that optimal hydration can lower the chance of stroke, help manage diabetes, and potentially reduce the risk of certain types of cancer. No matter what, getting the right amount of liquid makes a world of difference in how you'll feel, think, and function day to day.

#Health #Public_Health #Water #TED_Ed #Animation #Biology #Physiology #Human_Body #Science

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❄️چه کاپشنی بپوشیم که برای هوای فنلاند مناسب باشه؟
این ویدیو رو حتما ببین
👇👇

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🟢Why should you listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons?

#TED_Ed #Music #History #Brain #Animation #World_Cultures #Culture

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🟢Why should you listen to Vivaldi's Four Seasons?

Light, bright, and cheerful. It's some of the most familiar of all early 18th century music. It's been featured in uncounted films and television commercials, but what is it and why does it sound that way?
This is the opening of "Spring" from "The Four Seasons," by Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi. "The Four Seasons" are famous in part because they are a delight to the ear. However, even more notable is the fact that they have stories to tell. At the time of their publication in Amsterdam in 1725, they were accompanied by poems describing exactly what feature of that season Vivaldi intended to capture in musical terms. In providing specific plot content for instrumental music, Vivaldi was generations ahead of his time.
If one were to read the poems simultaneously to hearing the music, one would find the poetic scenes synchronizing nicely with the musical imagery. We are told that the birds welcome spring with happy song, and here they are doing exactly that. Soon, however, a thunderstorm breaks out. Not only is there musical thunder and lightning, there are also more birds, wet, frightened, and unhappy.
In "Summer," the turtle dove sings her name "tortorella" in Italian, before a hail storm flattens the fields. "Autumn" brings eager hunters dashing out in pursuit of their prey.
The "Winter" concerto begins with teeth chattering in the cold before one takes refuge by a crackling fire. Then it's back out into the storm where there'll be slips and falls on the ice. In these first weeks of winter, the old year is coming to a close, and so does Vivaldi's musical exploration of the seasons.
Not until the early 19th century would such expressive instrumental program music, as it was known, become popular. By then, larger, more varied ensembles were the rule with woodwinds, brass, and percussion to help tell the tale. But Vivaldi pulled it off with just one violin, strings, and a harpsichord. Unlike his contemporary Bach, Vivaldi wasn't much interested in complicated fugues. He preferred to offer readily accessible entertainment to his listeners with melodies that pop back up later in a piece to remind us of where we've been. So the first movement of the "Spring" concerto begins with a theme for spring and ends with it, too, slightly varied from when it was last heard.
It was an inspired way to attract listeners, and Vivaldi, considered one of the most electrifying violinists of the early 18th century, understood the value of attracting audiences. Such concerts might feature himself as the star violinist. Others presented the young musicians of the Pietà, a Venetian girls' school where Vivaldi was Director of Music. Most of the students were orphans. Music training was intended not only as social skills suitable for young ladies but also as potential careers for those who might fail to make good marriages.
Even in the composer's own time, Vivaldi's music served as diversion for all, not just for the wealthy aristocrats. 300 years later, it's an approach that still works, and Vivaldi's music still sounds like trotting horses on the move.

#TED_Ed #Music #History #Brain #Animation #World_Cultures #Culture

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🟢How much land does it take to power?

#TED_Ed #Education #Animation #Electricity #Climate_Change #Sustainability #Energy #Technology #Solar #Solar_Energy #Wind_Energy #Invention #Innovation

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🟢How much land does it take to power?

No matter how we make electricity, it takes up space. Electricity from coal requires mines, and plants to burn it and convert the heat into electricity. Nuclear power takes uranium mines, facilities to refine the uranium, a reactor, and a place to store the spent fuel safely. Renewable energy needs wind turbines or solar panels.
How much space depends on the power source. Say you wanted to power a 10-watt light bulb with fossil fuels like coal. Fossil fuels can produce up to 2,000 watts per square meter, so it would only take a credit card-sized chunk of land to power the light bulb. With nuclear power, you might only need an area about the size of the palms of your hands. With solar power, you’d need at least 0.3 square meters of land— twice the size of a cafeteria tray. Wind power would take roughly 7 square meters— about half the size of a parking space— to power the bulb.
When you consider the space needed to power cities, countries, and the whole world, it adds up fast. Today, the world uses 3 trillion watts of electricity. To power the entire world with only fossil fuels, you’d need at least about 1,200 square kilometers of space— roughly the area of Grand Bahama island. With nuclear energy, you’d need almost four times as much space at a minimum— roughly 4,000 square kilometers, a little less than the area of Delaware. With solar, you’d need at least 95,000 square kilometers, approximately the area of South Korea. With wind power, you’d need two million— about the area of Mexico.
For each power source, there’s variability in how much power it can generate per square meter, but these numbers give us a general sense of the space needed. Of course, building energy infrastructure in a desert, a rainforest, a town, or even in the ocean are completely different prospects. And energy sources monopolize the space they occupy to very different extents. Take wind power. Wind turbines need to be spread out— sometimes half a kilometer apart— so that the turbulence from one turbine doesn’t reduce the efficiency of the others. So, much of the land needed to generate wind power is still available for other uses.
But the baseline amount of space still matters, because cities and other densely populated areas have high electricity demands, and space near them is often limited. Our current power infrastructure works best when electricity is generated where and when it’s needed, rather than being stored or sent across long distances.
Still, space demands are only part of the equation. As of 2020, 2/3 of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. Every year, electricity generation is responsible for about 27% of the more than 50 billion tons of greenhouse gases we add to the atmosphere, accelerating climate change and all its harms. So although fossil fuels require the least space of our existing technologies, we can’t continue to rely on them.
Cost is another consideration. Nuclear plants don’t emit greenhouse gases and don’t require much space, but they’re way more expensive to build than solar panels or wind turbines, and have waste to deal with. Renewables have almost no marginal costs— unlike with plants powered by fossil fuels, you don’t need to keep purchasing fuel to generate electricity. But you do need lots of wind and sunlight, which are more available in some places than others.
No single approach will be the best option to power the entire world while eliminating harmful greenhouse gas emissions. For some places, nuclear power might be the best option for replacing fossil fuels. Others, like the U.S., have the natural resources to get most or all of their electricity from renewables. And across the board, we should be working to make our power sources better: safer in the case of nuclear, and easier to store and transport in the case of renewables.

#TED_Ed #Education #Animation #Electricity #Climate_Change #Sustainability #Energy #Technology #Solar #Solar_Energy #Wind_Energy #Invention #Innovation

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🟢Smart solutions to decarbonize buildings

#Environment #Science #Sustainability #Business #Pollution #Women_In_Business #Countdown

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🟢Smart solutions to decarbonize buildings

We spend something like 90 percent of our whole life indoors. It's everything from your own home to companies and factories. We get married in those places, our children are born, some great scientist invents a cure for disease in those buildings. But buildings are some bad news for the climate.
[In the Green: The Business of Climate Action]
[Presented by TED Countdown and The Climate Pledge]
[Katie McGinty Company: Johnson Controls]
Buildings contribute about 40 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. They represent the biggest growing piece of electricity consumption and demand in the world. We're not cracking this climate change challenge unless we decarbonize those buildings.
When you look at a building, there are key aspects of it that enable it to run. It’s the heating and cooling; it’s the lighting; it's all of our appliances. All of those things together add up to a very significant energy load and a big cost. That's what we can go after. Replace the old HVAC. Get rid of the old incandescent lights and add the new LEDs. Put in those windows that have high efficiency. That's where digital smarts come in, where you can add sensors in a building that say, “Hey, nobody’s in this part of the building, so let's ratchet back that air conditioning that’s otherwise blasting.” And don't worry about the upfront cost. Why? Because upgrading will generate savings that now can be used to finance the project in the first place. You're cutting 20, 40, 80 percent of that energy bill.
When organizations begin to look at this journey toward sustainability and net-zero, a whole lot of unexpected promise comes to the fore. The head of a public housing authority, for example, just wanted to cut some costs, but get into the effort. And here's what came to life. That the new community solar garden became green energy efficiency tech jobs for the local community. And that translated into something else: a sense of empowerment, ownership, engagement by that community, and effort to bring cost down lifted the entire community up.
We're at a turning point where piecemeal action is catalyzing whole communities to take action like never before, and they can do it on the basis of the tangible examples that prove the point that climate action is actually not only good for the environment, but it cuts costs and it creates jobs at the same time.
You know, buildings are pretty important in our lives. Buildings aren't just bricks and mortar. With technology and partnership, we can change those buildings into flexible, agile assets, and it is bringing us the opportunity to tackle big issues like climate change.

#Environment #Science #Sustainability #Business #Pollution #Women_In_Business #Countdown

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🟢The Surprising Effects Of Pregnancy

#TED_Ed #Animation #Pregnancy #Education #Women #Science #Human_Body #Medical_Research #Biology #Brain

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🟢The Surprising Effects Of Pregnancy

Muscles and joints shift and jostle. The heart’s pounding rhythm speeds up. Blood roars through arteries and veins. Over the course of a pregnancy, every organ in the body changes. Ignited by a range of hormones, these changes begin as soon as pregnancy begins.
Just days after fertilization, the embryo implants in the lining of the uterus. Because its DNA doesn’t exactly match the mother’s, the immune system should theoretically recognize it as an invader, attack, and destroy it, like it would bacteria or other harmful microbes. That’s the challenge: the mother’s immune system needs to protect both her and the fetus, but can’t act as it usually does. What happens is not as simple as decreasing the immune response. Instead, it’s a complex interaction we’re just beginning to understand, involving many different types of immune cells— some of which seem to protect the fetus from attack by other immune cells. The body also creates an antibacterial plug made of mucus on the cervix, which keeps germs away and stays sealed until labor.
As a pregnancy progresses, the uterus expands upward and outward with the growing fetus. To make room, hormones called progesterone and relaxin signal muscles to loosen. The muscles that propel food and waste through the digestive tract also loosen, which makes them sluggish, causing constipation as passage through the tract slows down. Loosened muscles at the top of the stomach might allow acid to escape into the esophagus and throat, causing heartburn and reflux. These changes can worsen morning sickness, which is caused in part by hormone HCG— and can also happen at other times of day.
As the uterus grows, it pushes on the diaphragm, the muscle that expands and contracts the chest with each breath. This limits the diaphragm’s range. To compensate, the hormone progesterone acts as a respiratory stimulant, making the pregnant woman breathe faster so both she and the baby can both get enough oxygen with less lung capacity. This all may leave the pregnant woman feeling short of breath.
Meanwhile, the kidneys make more erythropoietin, a hormone that increases red blood cell production. The kidneys also keep extra water and salt rather than filtering it out into urine to build up the volume of the blood. A pregnant woman’s blood volume increases by 50% or more. But it’s also a bit diluted, because it only has 25% more red blood cells. Usually, the body makes blood cells using iron from our food. But during pregnancy, the fetus is also building its own blood supply from nutrients in the mother’s food— leaving less iron and other nutrients for the mother.
The heart has to work extra hard to pump all this blood through the body and placenta. A pregnant woman’s heart rate increases, but we don’t fully understand how blood pressure changes in a healthy pregnancy— an important area of research, because some of the most serious complications are related to the heart and blood pressure. The expanding uterus may press on veins— causing fluid buildup in the legs and feet. If it presses on a large vein called the inferior vena cava, it might interfere with blood returning to the heart, causing a dizzying drop in blood pressure after standing for too long.
Some of these changes start to reverse even before birth. Shortly before delivery, the fetus drops down, decreasing the pressure on the diaphragm and allowing the pregnant woman to take deeper breaths. During labor and birth, much of the extra fluid in the body is lost when the water breaks. The uterus shrinks back down in the weeks after birth.
Like the rest of the body, pregnancy affects the brain— but its effects here are some of the least understood. Recent studies show differences in brain scans after pregnancy and early parenting, and suggest that these changes are adaptive.

#TED_Ed #Animation #Pregnancy #Education #Women #Science #Human_Body #Medical_Research #Biology #Brain

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🇫🇮اگه دوست داری بدونی تحصیل دکترا در فنلاند چطوریه این ویدیو رو حتما ببین👇👇

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❄️میخوای بدونی در هوای منفی ۱۰ درجه در فنلاند چطوری رو یخ و برف راه میرن این ویدیو رو حتما ببین👇👇

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🟢Success, failure and the drive to keep creating

#Creativity #Success #Writing #Personal_Growth

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🟢Success, failure and the drive to keep creating

So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.
The taller one, who is like up here, she comes marching up to me, and she goes, "Honey, I gotta ask you something. You got something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately?"
And I said, "Yes, I did."
And she smacks her friend and she goes, "See, I told you, I said, that's that girl. That's that girl who wrote that book based on that movie." (Laughter)
So that's who I am. And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person, because that whole "Eat, Pray, Love" thing was a huge break for me. But it also left me in a really tricky position moving forward as an author trying to figure out how in the world I was ever going to write a book again that would ever please anybody, because I knew well in advance that all of those people who had adored "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it wasn't going to be "Eat, Pray, Love," and all of those people who had hated "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it would provide evidence that I still lived. So I knew that I had no way to win, and knowing that I had no way to win made me seriously consider for a while just quitting the game and moving to the country to raise corgis. But if I had done that, if I had given up writing, I would have lost my beloved vocation, so I knew that the task was that I had to find some way to gin up the inspiration to write the next book regardless of its inevitable negative outcome. In other words, I had to find a way to make sure that my creativity survived its own success. And I did, in the end, find that inspiration, but I found it in the most unlikely and unexpected place. I found it in lessons that I had learned earlier in life about how creativity can survive its own failure.
So just to back up and explain, the only thing I have ever wanted to be for my whole life was a writer. I wrote all through childhood, all through adolescence, by the time I was a teenager I was sending my very bad stories to The New Yorker, hoping to be discovered. After college, I got a job as a diner waitress, kept working, kept writing, kept trying really hard to get published, and failing at it. I failed at getting published for almost six years. So for almost six years, every single day, I had nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. And it was devastating every single time, and every single time, I had to ask myself if I should just quit while I was behind and give up and spare myself this pain. But then I would find my resolve, and always in the same way, by saying, "I'm not going to quit, I'm going home."
And you have to understand that for me, going home did not mean returning to my family's farm. For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego, which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that's how I pushed through it.
But the weird thing is that 20 years later, during the crazy ride of "Eat, Pray, Love," I found myself identifying all over again with that unpublished young diner waitress who I used to be, thinking about her constantly, and feeling like I was her again, which made no rational sense whatsoever because our lives could not have been more different. She had failed constantly. I had succeeded beyond my wildest expectation. We had nothing in common. Why did I suddenly feel like I was her all over again?

And it was only when I was trying to unthread that that I finally began to comprehend the strange and unlikely psychological connection in our lives between the way we experience great failure and the way we experience great success. So think of it like this: For most of your life, you live out your existence here in the middle of the chain of human experience where everything is normal and reassuring and regular, but failure catapults you abruptly way out over here into the blinding darkness of disappointment. Success catapults you just as abruptly but just as far way out over here into the equally blinding glare of fame and recognition and praise. And one of these fates is objectively seen by the world as bad, and the other one is objectively seen by the world as good, but your subconscious is completely incapable of discerning the difference between bad and good. The only thing that it is capable of feeling is the absolute value of this emotional equation, the exact distance that you have been flung from yourself. And there's a real equal danger in both cases of getting lost out there in the hinterlands of the psyche.
But in both cases, it turns out that there is also the same remedy for self-restoration, and that is that you have got to find your way back home again as swiftly and smoothly as you can, and if you're wondering what your home is, here's a hint: Your home is whatever in this world you love more than you love yourself. So that might be creativity, it might be family, it might be invention, adventure, faith, service, it might be raising corgis, I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies with such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.
For me, that home has always been writing. So after the weird, disorienting success that I went through with "Eat, Pray, Love," I realized that all I had to do was exactly the same thing that I used to have to do all the time when I was an equally disoriented failure. I had to get my ass back to work, and that's what I did, and that's how, in 2010, I was able to publish the dreaded follow-up to "Eat, Pray, Love." And you know what happened with that book? It bombed, and I was fine. Actually, I kind of felt bulletproof, because I knew that I had broken the spell and I had found my way back home to writing for the sheer devotion of it. And I stayed in my home of writing after that, and I wrote another book that just came out last year and that one was really beautifully received, which is very nice, but not my point. My point is that I'm writing another one now, and I'll write another book after that and another and another and another and many of them will fail, and some of them might succeed, but I will always be safe from the random hurricanes of outcome as long as I never forget where I rightfully live.
Look, I don't know where you rightfully live, but I know that there's something in this world that you love more than you love yourself. Something worthy, by the way, so addiction and infatuation don't count, because we all know that those are not safe places to live. Right? The only trick is that you've got to identify the best, worthiest thing that you love most, and then build your house right on top of it and don't budge from it. And if you should someday, somehow get vaulted out of your home by either great failure or great success, then your job is to fight your way back to that home the only way that it has ever been done, by putting your head down and performing with diligence and devotion and respect and reverence whatever the task is that love is calling forth from you next. You just do that, and keep doing that again and again and again, and I can absolutely promise you, from long personal experience in every direction, I can assure you that it's all going to be okay. Thank you.

#Creativity #Success #Writing #Personal_Growth

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🟢The woman who stared at the sun

#Women #Science #Education #History #Astronomy #TED_Ed #Animation #Sun

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