The Power of Looking Back Zachary Li TEDxYouth ArchesPoint

hi literally everything around us is the result of the human spirit to develop to improve and to accumulate but this spirit is crushing we become locked in race to the top and yet the fact that the race can never be won never stops us from spending our entire lives running it and our horizon may be infinitely far away and yet we remain fixated on that and think we forget that every single race has two parts not only does it have the part in front of us of how far to the finish line there's also part behind us of how far we've come from the start and so today i'm here to tell you that think we should spend more time looking behind us and being in appreciating how far we've come but think this is best explained through some context so now let's enter the wonderful world of high school debate debate is competition at its core it's it pits two sides against each other and it declares winner and loser and like other competitive events there are rounds after in sports we call these playoffs in debate we call them elimination rounds and at tournaments in order to qualify for elimination rounds which are the goal of every single tournament you want to get as far into the elimination rounds or the playoffs as you want or as you can in order to qualify for these rounds you have to have positive winning record that is more wins than losses and so where do come in over two years and now ten degree tournaments in nine of those i've come one win short of being able to qualify for those elimination rounds or eight times in row if it helps i'm basically the dallas cowboys go to theory and on paper but in reality disappointing but even as kept beating myself up about this never realized the bigger picture some people never made it this far for whatever reason and 50 win rate is still better than 40 or 30 or 20 and if me today met me from one year or even two years ago don't think the younger me would believe how far i've come perhaps we should put this into some even and we should put this into even further context few weeks ago attended tournament and walked away with three wins and three losses again 50 and needed four wins in order to continue disappointing and to make matters worse lost two rounds in which if i'd won either of them could have gone through so was pretty angry by this but again never saw the bigger picture here because this tournament was national level tournament and it was my first national level tournament and to imagine that via at tournament with this much prestige and be able to walk away with three wins was something that don't think didn't think was possible few months or even few weeks ago even if don't have the trophy to show for it i've grown so much in debating communicating being social and being team player that it would be disgrace to disregard all that in favor of material validation and so think for the first time can finally say that i'm proud not because of how far went but because of how far i've come but think maybe more relatable connection is great even if you were in school yesterday or 20 years ago grades you've probably all heard about the kid who complains about getting 99 on his test or assignment or whatever disclaimer used to be that kid but but why are we mad at them and that's rhetorical question but we don't feel mad at athletes for trying to go 0.01 seconds faster or for companies to make their products one cent cheaper and they complain about that about how expensive or slow they are all the time but no one's annoyed at them why is that it's because the kid with the 99 isn't looking back the kid that with the 99 is only looking at the one percent of his grade or his or her grade they're missing an entire 99 by only looking forward and we're annoyed because they're not even acknowledging it and we're annoyed that they're just ignoring 99 that that's how much they progressed and so think that's really the root of the problem here so how do we really solve this what can we really do think it's simple think it's just really simple and we can just do things like change our mindset that can make us much happier optimistic and less stressed and it really is as simple as changing our mindset whenever we're encountered whenever we encounter failure just take moment to look back and appreciate how far we've come we might be fired from our jobs and while hope that would never happen we should whenever we're met with this failure we should first take inventory and be appreciative of what skills we did learn of what relationships we cultivated of of what we've accomplished in this job and then with that all in mind then strive forward perhaps we don't get that score on that test or that performance report that we wanted firstly we should be appreciative of the scores and the points that we did get of what we did show and that that we did know and then with that in mind strive for think personally this is something that's really helped me it's made me lot more thankful for my current progress and it might have even saved me and sometimes and really think that this is lesson that we should all learn well it's great to challenge yourself and aim to be the best sometimes we should take some time just to look back because being at the top and staying at the top is impossible honestly it's catch-22 there's no way for us to escape there's no way for us to succeed in the end so we should change our mindsets and understand that there's whole bigger picture behind us but the point of this talk isn't just to say that we should stop becoming better if anything we should both look back and strive forward together instead it's my hope that in the words of technoblade that we'll look back at where we started and be amazed at how far we've come and grow and that's just really the essence of it think we should all just be proud of how far we've come and as end this speech want to just say thank you to honea for inspiring me to give this speech in the first place because without her and the rest of the capella debate team many of whom are on this very same stage right now don't think ever would have looked back at the bigger picture and can only imagine how much worse off would be without it thank you you