Voices
hours to get to school.
These kids are barely making it
through high school — at a time
when many of my peers’ kids are
celebrating acceptances to upperechelon colleges. This school is
their last chance. Simply getting to school on a daily basis is
a hardship when you don’t have
any money or any food. Or anyone to motivate you to do so.
When I asked which of these
students had experienced some
adversity in their lives, all of
them raised their hands. When
I asked whether they felt these
challenges had made them a better person, they nearly all raised
their hands again.
I didn’t grow up like they did.
I’ve had a relatively privileged
life. School was easy for me. I
never had to worry about having
a family who loved me, or food to
eat, clothes or a bed. I attended
one of those top-tier colleges. I’ve
always been lucky.
But I now believe that most of
us, if we live long enough, will experience one of those unexpected
events in life that creates a seismic
shift in perspective. This happened
to me recently, and is the subject
of my TEDTalk. I was 43, about to
celebrate my first wedding anni-
STACEY
KRAMER
versary with a wonderful guy. We
had successfully negotiated a second marriage and a blending of two
families. I was the happiest and
healthiest that I had ever been.
The source of my cataclysm
is be tter revealed in the short
three-minute TEDTalk above, as
I don’t want to spoil the story
for you. I’m guessing if you’ve
made it this far into this post,
you might be willing to invest the
time to watch the video clip.
Sharing my story at TED was a
remarkable opportunity. The very
thought of being on stage gave me
sweaty heart palpitations — and
that is why I knew I had to do it. I
was so nervous the teleprompter
wouldn’t work that I bribed the AV
techs with good chocolate, hoping
they would pay extra attention to
TED and The Huffington Post are
excited to bring you TEDWeekends,
a curated weekend program that
introduces a powerful “idea worth
spreading” every Friday, anchored in
an exceptional TEDTalk. This week’s
TEDTalk is accompanied by an original
blog post from the featured speaker,
along with new op-eds, thoughts
and responses from the HuffPost
community. Watch the talk above, read
the blog post and tell us your thoughts
below. Become part of the conversation!
HUFFINGTON
03.24.13