Annotated captions of Jane Fonda: Life's third act in English
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00:00 00:02 |
There have been many revolutions |
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over the last century, |
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but perhaps none as significant |
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00:06 00:09 |
as the longevity revolution. |
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00:09 00:11 |
We are living on average today |
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00:11 00:14 |
34 years longer than our great-grandparents did. |
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00:14 00:16 |
Think about that. |
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00:16 00:19 |
That's an entire second adult lifetime |
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00:19 00:21 |
that's been added to our lifespan. |
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00:21 00:23 |
And yet, for the most part, |
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00:23 00:26 |
our culture has not come to terms with what this means. |
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00:26 00:29 |
We're still living with the old paradigm |
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00:29 00:31 |
of age as an arch. |
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00:31 00:33 |
That's the metaphor, the old metaphor. |
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00:33 00:35 |
You're born, you peak at midlife |
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00:35 00:37 |
and decline into decrepitude. |
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00:37 00:39 |
(Laughter) |
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00:39 00:41 |
Age as pathology. |
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00:41 00:43 |
But many people today -- |
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00:43 00:46 |
philosophers, artists, doctors, scientists -- |
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00:46 00:49 |
are taking a new look at what I call the third act, |
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00:49 00:52 |
the last three decades of life. |
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00:52 00:57 |
They realize that this is actually a developmental stage of life |
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00:57 00:59 |
with its own significance -- |
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00:59 01:02 |
as different from midlife |
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01:02 01:05 |
as adolescence is from childhood. |
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01:05 01:08 |
And they are asking -- we should all be asking -- |
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01:08 01:11 |
how do we use this time? |
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01:11 01:13 |
How do we live it successfully? |
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01:13 01:15 |
What is the appropriate new metaphor |
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01:15 01:17 |
for aging? |
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01:17 01:20 |
I've spent the last year researching and writing about this subject. |
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01:20 01:22 |
And I have come to find |
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01:22 01:26 |
that a more appropriate metaphor for aging |
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01:26 01:28 |
is a staircase -- |
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01:28 01:32 |
the upward ascension of the human spirit, |
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01:32 01:34 |
bringing us into wisdom, wholeness |
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01:34 01:36 |
and authenticity. |
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01:36 01:38 |
Age not at all as pathology; |
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01:38 01:40 |
age as potential. |
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01:40 01:42 |
And guess what? |
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01:42 01:44 |
This potential is not for the lucky few. |
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01:44 01:46 |
It turns out, |
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01:46 01:48 |
most people over 50 |
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01:48 01:50 |
feel better, are less stressed, |
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01:50 01:52 |
are less hostile, less anxious. |
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01:52 01:54 |
We tend to see commonalities |
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01:54 01:56 |
more than differences. |
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01:56 01:58 |
Some of the studies even say |
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01:58 02:00 |
we're happier. |
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02:00 02:02 |
This is not what I expected, trust me. |
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02:02 02:05 |
I come from a long line of depressives. |
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02:05 02:07 |
As I was approaching my late 40s, |
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02:07 02:09 |
when I would wake up in the morning |
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02:09 02:11 |
my first six thoughts would all be negative. |
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02:11 02:13 |
And I got scared. |
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02:13 02:15 |
I thought, oh my gosh. |
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02:15 02:17 |
I'm going to become a crotchety old lady. |
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02:17 02:21 |
But now that I am actually smack-dab in the middle of my own third act, |
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02:21 02:24 |
I realize I've never been happier. |
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02:24 02:28 |
I have such a powerful feeling of well-being. |
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02:29 02:31 |
And I've discovered |
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02:31 02:33 |
that when you're inside oldness, |
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02:33 02:35 |
as opposed to looking at it from the outside, |
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02:35 02:37 |
fear subsides. |
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02:37 02:39 |
You realize, you're still yourself -- |
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02:39 02:41 |
maybe even more so. |
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02:41 02:45 |
Picasso once said, "It takes a long time to become young." |
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02:45 02:47 |
(Laughter) |
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02:47 02:49 |
I don't want to romanticize aging. |
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02:49 02:51 |
Obviously, there's no guarantee |
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02:51 02:53 |
that it can be a time of fruition and growth. |
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02:53 02:55 |
Some of it is a matter of luck. |
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02:55 02:58 |
Some of it, obviously, is genetic. |
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02:58 03:00 |
One third of it, in fact, is genetic. |
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03:00 03:03 |
And there isn't much we can do about that. |
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03:03 03:05 |
But that means that two-thirds |
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03:05 03:07 |
of how well we do in the third act, |
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03:07 03:10 |
we can do something about. |
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03:10 03:13 |
We're going to discuss what we can do |
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03:13 03:16 |
to make these added years really successful |
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03:16 03:19 |
and use them to make a difference. |
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03:19 03:21 |
Now let me say something about the staircase, |
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03:21 03:25 |
which may seem like an odd metaphor for seniors |
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03:25 03:28 |
given the fact that many seniors are challenged by stairs. |
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03:28 03:30 |
(Laughter) |
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03:30 03:33 |
Myself included. |
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03:33 03:35 |
As you may know, |
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03:35 03:38 |
the entire world operates on a universal law: |
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03:38 03:42 |
entropy, the second law of thermodynamics. |
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03:42 03:45 |
Entropy means that everything in the world, everything, |
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03:45 03:47 |
is in a state of decline and decay, |
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03:47 03:49 |
the arch. |
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03:49 03:52 |
There's only one exception to this universal law, |
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03:52 03:54 |
and that is the human spirit, |
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which can continue to evolve upwards -- |
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the staircase -- |
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03:59 04:01 |
bringing us into wholeness, |
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authenticity and wisdom. |
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04:04 04:06 |
And here's an example of what I mean. |
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04:06 04:08 |
This upward ascension |
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04:08 04:12 |
can happen even in the face of extreme physical challenges. |
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04:12 04:14 |
About three years ago, |
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04:14 04:16 |
I read an article in the New York Times. |
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04:16 04:18 |
It was about a man named Neil Selinger -- |
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04:18 04:21 |
57 years old, a retired lawyer -- |
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04:21 04:24 |
who had joined the writers group at Sarah Lawrence |
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where he found his writer's voice. |
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04:27 04:29 |
Two years later, |
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04:29 04:32 |
he was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. |
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04:32 04:35 |
It's a terrible disease. It's fatal. |
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04:35 04:39 |
It wastes the body, but the mind remains intact. |
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04:39 04:42 |
In this article, Mr. Selinger wrote the following |
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to describe what was happening to him. |
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04:45 04:48 |
And I quote, |
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04:48 04:50 |
"As my muscles weakened, |
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04:50 04:53 |
my writing became stronger. |
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04:53 04:56 |
As I slowly lost my speech, |
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04:56 04:59 |
I gained my voice. |
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04:59 05:01 |
As I diminished, I grew. |
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05:01 05:03 |
As I lost so much, |
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05:03 05:07 |
I finally started to find myself." |
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05:07 05:09 |
Neil Selinger, to me, |
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05:09 05:12 |
is the embodiment of mounting the staircase |
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05:12 05:15 |
in his third act. |
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05:15 05:17 |
Now we're all born with spirit, all of us, |
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05:17 05:20 |
but sometimes it gets tamped down |
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05:20 05:22 |
beneath the challenges of life, |
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05:22 05:25 |
violence, abuse, neglect. |
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05:25 05:27 |
Perhaps our parents suffered from depression. |
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05:27 05:29 |
Perhaps they weren't able to love us |
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05:29 05:33 |
beyond how we performed in the world. |
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05:33 05:35 |
Perhaps we still suffer |
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from a psychic pain, a wound. |
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05:37 05:41 |
Perhaps we feel that many of our relationships have not had closure. |
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And so we can feel unfinished. |
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05:45 05:48 |
Perhaps the task of the third act |
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is to finish up the task of finishing ourselves. |
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05:53 05:57 |
For me, it began as I was approaching my third act, |
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05:57 05:59 |
my 60th birthday. |
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05:59 06:01 |
How was I supposed to live it? |
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06:01 06:04 |
What was I supposed to accomplish in this final act? |
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06:04 06:08 |
And I realized that, in order to know where I was going, |
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06:08 06:10 |
I had to know where I'd been. |
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06:10 06:12 |
And so I went back |
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and I studied my first two acts, |
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06:14 06:17 |
trying to see who I was then, |
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06:17 06:19 |
who I really was -- |
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not who my parents or other people told me I was, |
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06:22 06:24 |
or treated me like I was. |
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But who was I? Who were my parents -- |
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not as parents, but as people? |
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Who were my grandparents? |
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06:31 06:33 |
How did they treat my parents? |
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06:33 06:36 |
These kinds of things. |
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06:36 06:39 |
I discovered a couple of years later |
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06:39 06:42 |
that this process that I had gone through |
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06:42 06:44 |
is called by psychologists |
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06:44 06:46 |
"doing a life review." |
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And they say it can give new significance |
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and clarity and meaning |
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to a person's life. |
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06:52 06:55 |
You may discover, as I did, |
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06:55 06:58 |
that a lot of things that you used to think were your fault, |
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06:58 07:01 |
a lot of things you used to think about yourself, |
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07:01 07:04 |
really had nothing to do with you. |
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07:04 07:07 |
It wasn't your fault; you're just fine. |
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07:07 07:09 |
And you're able to go back |
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07:09 07:11 |
and forgive them |
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and forgive yourself. |
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07:13 07:16 |
You're able to free yourself |
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07:16 07:18 |
from your past. |
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07:18 07:20 |
You can work to change |
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07:20 07:22 |
your relationship to your past. |
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07:22 07:24 |
Now while I was writing about this, |
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07:24 07:27 |
I came upon a book called "Man's Search for Meaning" |
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07:27 07:29 |
by Viktor Frankl. |
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07:29 07:32 |
Viktor Frankl was a German psychiatrist |
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07:32 07:35 |
who'd spent five years in a Nazi concentration camp. |
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07:35 07:38 |
And he wrote that, while he was in the camp, |
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07:38 07:42 |
he could tell, should they ever be released, |
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07:42 07:44 |
which of the people would be okay |
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07:44 07:46 |
and which would not. |
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07:46 07:51 |
And he wrote this: |
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07:51 07:54 |
"Everything you have in life can be taken from you |
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07:54 07:56 |
except one thing, |
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your freedom to choose |
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07:58 08:00 |
how you will respond |
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to the situation. |
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08:02 08:04 |
This is what determines |
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08:04 08:06 |
the quality of the life we've lived -- |
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08:06 08:08 |
not whether we've been rich or poor, |
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08:08 08:10 |
famous or unknown, |
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08:10 08:12 |
healthy or suffering. |
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08:12 08:15 |
What determines our quality of life |
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08:15 08:18 |
is how we relate to these realities, |
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08:18 08:20 |
what kind of meaning we assign them, |
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08:20 08:23 |
what kind of attitude we cling to about them, |
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08:23 08:27 |
what state of mind we allow them to trigger." |
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08:27 08:30 |
Perhaps the central purpose of the third act |
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08:30 08:34 |
is to go back and to try, if appropriate, |
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08:34 08:36 |
to change our relationship |
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08:36 08:38 |
to the past. |
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08:38 08:41 |
It turns out that cognitive research shows |
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08:41 08:43 |
when we are able to do this, |
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it manifests neurologically -- |
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08:46 08:49 |
neural pathways are created in the brain. |
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08:49 08:51 |
You see, if you have, over time, |
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08:51 08:54 |
reacted negatively to past events and people, |
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08:54 08:57 |
neural pathways are laid down |
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08:57 09:00 |
by chemical and electrical signals that are sent through the brain. |
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09:00 09:03 |
And over time, these neural pathways become hardwired, |
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09:03 09:05 |
they become the norm -- |
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09:05 09:07 |
even if it's bad for us |
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09:07 09:10 |
because it causes us stress and anxiety. |
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09:10 09:12 |
If however, |
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09:12 09:16 |
we can go back and alter our relationship, |
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09:16 09:18 |
re-vision our relationship |
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09:18 09:20 |
to past people and events, |
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09:20 09:22 |
neural pathways can change. |
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09:22 09:24 |
And if we can maintain |
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09:24 09:27 |
the more positive feelings about the past, |
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09:27 09:29 |
that becomes the new norm. |
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09:29 09:32 |
It's like resetting a thermostat. |
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09:32 09:35 |
It's not having experiences |
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09:35 09:38 |
that make us wise, |
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09:38 09:42 |
it's reflecting on the experiences that we've had |
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09:42 09:44 |
that makes us wise -- |
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09:44 09:46 |
and that helps us become whole, |
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09:46 09:48 |
brings wisdom and authenticity. |
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09:48 09:52 |
It helps us become what we might have been. |
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09:52 09:54 |
Women start off whole, don't we? |
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09:54 09:57 |
I mean, as girls, we start off feisty -- "Yeah, who says?" |
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09:57 09:59 |
We have agency. |
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09:59 10:01 |
We are the subjects of our own lives. |
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10:01 10:03 |
But very often, |
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10:03 10:06 |
many, if not most of us, when we hit puberty, |
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10:06 10:09 |
we start worrying about fitting in and being popular. |
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10:09 10:13 |
And we become the subjects and objects of other people's lives. |
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10:13 10:16 |
But now, in our third acts, |
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10:16 10:18 |
it may be possible |
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10:18 10:21 |
for us to circle back to where we started |
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10:21 10:23 |
and know it for the first time. |
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10:23 10:26 |
And if we can do that, |
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10:26 10:29 |
it will not just be for ourselves. |
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Older women |
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10:31 10:33 |
are the largest demographic in the world. |
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10:33 10:36 |
If we can go back and redefine ourselves |
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10:36 10:38 |
and become whole, |
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10:38 10:43 |
this will create a cultural shift in the world, |
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10:43 10:46 |
and it will give an example to younger generations |
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10:46 10:49 |
so that they can reconceive their own lifespan. |
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10:49 10:51 |
Thank you very much. |
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10:51 10:58 |
(Applause) |