The Perk of Being Awesome

My favorite word happens to be the word awesome. It sums up what I want to be and how I want to feel. Plus, I just like saying it. As I was going through the inspirational talks on Ted.com, I saw the title The 3 A’s of Awesome and immediately knew that this was the speech I had to watch. Neil Pasricha, a regular guy who developed a new perception of life’s little things after going through adversity between 2008 and 2009, gave the speech. He dealt with marital issues and his wife telling him she doesn’t love him anymore, and the suicide of a close friend. What he wanted everyone to understand is that there will be good times of love and success and happiness, but there will also be those unpleasant times that we don’t want to think about.

Pasricha’s three A’s of awesome are designed to help you overcome and move on. The first one is attitude. You have two choices when it comes to a rough situation. You can wallow and succumb to circumstances or you can have a grieving period, then move on and make the best of a bad situation. The second A is for awareness. Awareness means to embrace the inner 3 year old and learn to see things as if you are seeing them for the first time. The final A, authenticity, is all about being yourself and knowing that that is good enough. Being yourself will ultimately lead to you following your hear and putting yourself in situations and around people and in places that you love.

The hardships that Pasricha experiences, combined with his commitment to fighting tough times with positivity lead to the creation of his blog, 1000 Awesome Things. Eventually the blog received so many hits that he received a Webby Award for the “Best Blog Award.” The award then lead to him receiving a book deal in which he wrote a book called The Book of Awesome (look inside on Amazon), dedicated to the same positive outlook on life. Enjoying life’s simple pleasures and taking comfort in things we tend to overlook, things like the bakery smell in the air or rain hair, and popping bubble wrap or taking an illegal nap. The book was a #1 best seller for 20 weeks.

I was truly inspired by Pasricha’s speech. I have, much like most people, experienced hard times, and when listening to him, it’s easy to put yourself in the situation and take away good advice. He used humor to engage the audience. I know I found myself laughing out loud a lot when he was talking about his parent’s culture shock in Canada and him and his friend’s big heads blocking the pictures of seals they were trying to show off. Life is all about growing yourself and staying positive (like this blog). The truth is, we aren’t on this earth for very long so now is the time enjoy every moment of life that you can. Words of advice from Neil Pasricha, “you’ll never be as young as you are right now.”