Tanzia Haq brings you five TED talks to watch if you’re feeling down and need a small burst of inspiration to keep yourself motivated.
- Amanda Palmer
Alt-rock legend Amanda Palmer asks the audience to seek the humanity in the realm of digital capitalism. Her suggestion: don’t make people pay for music, let them. The artist draws comparison between her days as a street performer making connections with people, to making meaningful relationships with fans over the sharing of digital content. The biggest takeaway from this talk is, don’t force your patrons to pay, just ask.
- Tom Rivett-Carnac
Political strategist Tom Rivett-Carnac gives his TED talk about climate action in the woods in 2020. His message is: When faced with enormous challenges, we tend to downplay our significance in tackling it, in order to preserve our minds from the distress of facing something that looks to be beyond our control. Rivett-Carnac’s suggestion is to adopt a ‘stubborn optimism’ mindset to confront the crises that come our way, to ensure the solutions to these crises are sustainable into the future.
- Noeline Kirabo
Social entrepreneur Noeline Kirabo asks what all millennials have asked themselves at some point: do we drop a cushy job to pursue a passion or not jeopardize comfort by averting a risk that may not yield rewards? Kirabo describes her experience of leaving a lucrative, hard-earned career at 30 to start an organization that helped others find careers they are passionate about.
- Johanna Figueira
In these times of protest, pandemic and miscommunication breaking societies apart across the world, activist Johanna Figueira doubles down on the importance of freedom of speech and the tech used to magnify that speech to reach those who need to hear you. Figueira describes her work with Code for Venezuela — a platform that gathers technologists to address Venezuela’s needs for information and medical supplies — and shares ideas for how it could be used as a model to help other communities in need.
- Werner Reich
Holocaust survivor Werner Reich describes his time in the extermination camps of Poland during the Holocaust and the small acts of kindness that inspired his lifelong lean towards compassion. His biggest lesson: “It isn’t the value or the size of a gift that truly matters, it is how you hold it in your heart.” He suggests to the audience that when kindness comes into your life at the right time, you carry it with you for the rest of your life as hope.
