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Neil Pasricha

TEDCRED 50+
TED Speaker

Neil Pasricha: What do you do to make your life awesome? Extended until 2016*

Join me here May 3, noon-1pm Eastern time, to talk live about what we do to make our lives awesome. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

ADMIN EDIT: Neil has asked us to keep the thread open until the year 2016 to extend the awesomeness! He (and potentially his publicist), will be checking in occasionally to answer more awesome questions throughout the week and possibly in later years.

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Topics: Live Conversation happiness
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    Colleen Steen 200+

    Mar 1 2012: Hi again Neil:>)
    I don't have to "make" my life awesome. I simply notice the awesomeness all around me. There is SO much to be grateful for that we sometimes fail to recognize and acknowledge....simple things that are sometimes taken for granted.

    Washing dishes means I have food to eat...doing laundry means I have cloths to put on my back...cleaning the house means I HAVE a house...getting out of bed in the morning means I CAN get out of bed...connecting here on TED means I have a computer, which provides the opportunity to connect with the world...I'm sitting here drinking a warm, delicious cup of coffee, with my home warmed with wood, friends have provided for me....these are all gifts that many people in our world do not have...we can go on.....and on.....and on......if we want to......it's a choice to observe the awesomeness in our lives......or not:>)

  • Heidi LeVell

    Feb 15 2012: I quiet myself and think of how blessed I am. I play the gratitude game every afternoon with my young daughters and we each pick out 3 beautiful things we've noticed before breakfast each day. My 8 year old is noticing her baby sisters laugh, the effort Mommmy put into packing her lunch, and that her sister shared wtih her. All expressions of beauty, but ones we often miss.

  • Zared Schwartz

    Feb 15 2012: The past is awesome, the present is slightly more awesome, and the future is the most awesome. Agree or disagree?

  • halil erdem

    Feb 15 2012: hi

  • David Grammer

    Jan 24 2012: Breathe. Listen. Trust.

  • dru banaszak

    Jan 12 2012: I live in the present moment,right now,this instant.I allow myself to feel love when it is offered. Not to hang on to the past nor the future.Life is what you make it. I feel it's very important to keep your mind, heart, and eyes open. Give freely, Give all the time, and most of all give from your heart. Always love,love and love some more!!

  • Eve Mantu

    Jan 1 2012: Well, I look up stuff like this. I try to meet inspiring people to light the way. I try to truly LOOK and truly SEE and truly HEAR. I try to do less things, but with greater presence and commitment. Less stuff, more intensity.
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    Umesh Nawathe

    Dec 28 2011: Whatever happens whether it is good or bad, it happens for the reason. In our regional language we say " jo hota hai acche ke liye hota hai" (whatever happens, it happens only for good). This helps me a lot to keep me look forward rather than stay back and think upon why it happened? Is it bad or good? I started to feel my life is awesome when I truly understood the meaning of this.

  • manuel ruiz-echarri

    Dec 28 2011: Fighting against my self, my defects, trying improve everyday, enjoying ordinary things, fluent communicaion with friends, enjoy working, enjoy projects, living the present with perspectives, and so and so...

  • Zared Schwartz

    Dec 22 2011: We must perceive awesomeness to make it awesome. We should be positive thinkers and make everyday a fantasy, but...this is impossible. Perhaps, we should be realistic thinkers and just accept the basic compositions of daily hassles. No, that too is impossible. We should just be passionate, realistic, and curious thinkers that understand the basic compositions of daily hassles in order to achieve a perceived control, cope with stress, decrease the chances of becoming depress, and make ever single day of our lives have meaning. Then again, does meaning of events make them have the potential to be awesome or will be because that we give them those meanings that make them awesome?

    Honestly, I am not a expert in awesomeness, Neil Pasricha, what do you think?
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    Michael Roberts 10+

    Jul 13 2011: Pulling back the flap on a tent after what sounded like a night-long rainstorm, only to find a brilliant, sunny morning.

  • Brad Wellings

    Jul 9 2011: "Awesome" is the train journey to and from work.
    - looking out of the window and reminiscing on having made such a large yet invaluable step as emigrating to Australia
    - taking the time to consolidate my thoughts before and after the days inevitable chaos; and
    - smiling at some of the more "eccentric" individuals who bless my journey with their presence
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      Neil Pasricha 50+

      TED Speaker
      Nov 8 2011: Hey Brad,
      I love "eccentric individuals", too! They really are the spice of life, aren't they? Congrats on the big move to Australia. How many people have asked if you've been to Aires Rock so far?
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    Audrey Misiano

    Jul 9 2011: Love!!! "All you need is love!"
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    shabeer km

    Jul 8 2011: anyone can make life awesome easily by knowing the purpose of life. why we are here nd after all this scrapin strugglin fornicatinjumpin up n down n we ol die afta dat?
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    Eric Dennis

    Jul 7 2011: I spread more Good Signs worldwide every day and that not only enriches my life but the lives of others. Would you like to help? Im new here :)
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    Corey Leadbeater

    Jul 5 2011: One thing is certain. There is a lot of "Awesome" out there and all of you are proof!
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    Michael Roberts 10+

    Jun 24 2011: "This conversation will close in 2017 days, 1 hours and 43 minutes, on December 31, 2016 at 12:00:00 PM."


    Ummmm......given the recent decision from TED admins to NOT have open-ended questions or threads...does THIS not qualify in almost every sense but the literal one as an open-ended discussion?
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      Corvida Raven 100+

      TED StaffHostTED AttendeeAssociate
      Jun 24 2011: Not necessarily Michael.

      As you know, the admins could have set the conversation to open-ended from the beginning. That was not a change, but a request by Neil in this cas, as a way to make this Live Chat more awesome. It was meant as a bit of a joke.
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      Mahadevan Venkatakrishnan

      Jun 30 2011: Michael,
      Probably they believed in the MAYAN theory of Dec 21, 2012!!! ;-)
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        Neil Pasricha 50+

        TED Speaker
        Nov 8 2011: Yeah, everyone, hope that's cool. When the chat was ending in TED HQ we were all feeling such a crazy buzz from the conversation that I asked if we could extend it, so that it would give me and others some inspiration when I logged back in. Reading all these great comments is doing that for me right now!
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    Michael Roberts 10+

    Jun 24 2011: What's awesome for me is to see my students 'get it'; to move from non-understanding to understanding and to see that paradigmatic shift in their knowledge base as a result as well as the resultant increase in self-confidence and self-admiration that I see in their faces and their bearing.

  • Eva M

    Jun 24 2011: LOVE makes life awesome. Love being given and shared generously: making other people laugh, bringing them joy, helping them, filling their needs, listening to their hearts, relying on them, sharing deep feelings and thoughts, taking risks by getting out of the box in the way you express love, making sure that you loose face instead of keeping your ground. It is true attention, devotion and appreciation for who they are. It is seeing the beauty and supporting the true heart of the other person. It is closeness, togetherness, cooperation, serviceful-ness and care.

    EGO destroys love and life. It makes you be self-protective, afraid to express love, thinking about how you are going to look. It will push you to think bad thoughts and do the things that are hurtful, blame others and be ashamed. It is concerned about what you are going to get and what you age going to lose. If you allow yourself to love, it will think what benefits you will reap from loving someone. It makes you overly attached, reactive, prideful, insecure, distrusting, defensive, offensive, greedy, lazy, closed-minded and closed-hearted.

    Given the above, what makes life awesome is embracing love and getting rid of ego. There is no other way to be truly happy. All the other ways to deal with boredom, lack of energy, depression, dissatisfaction and unfulfillment are bound to fail. They are designed by ego and its desire to get what it selfishly wants. It is not the way. A person gets involved in various therapies trying to avoid pain or indulges in various forms of consumption in the pursuit of pleasure, but it is just making things worse. Within, the heart is still aching. Without loving and being loved, it will never be satisfied.
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      Joe Delsen 20+

      Jul 1 2011: Hello there Eva, Love indeed conquers all but as we look at the world today, the power of love seems to be the forgotten solution. Is it because many people does not know what true love is?

      We have to the power to be amazing within our own lives but wouldn't it more amazing if apply our amazing powers to right our world and make it an amazing global home? http://Bit.Ly/KeyPower

      • Eva M

        Jul 5 2011: Hi Joe!

        Nice to see your post. Usually people don't respond to the words about love and ego. It probably is to intimidating to them.

        I think you are right. Most of the people don't have enough discernment about what is of love and what is of ego, AND they have a lot of ideas about love. They mistake love with smiley face, and consoling collusion that says "it is all good" about the ego in the other. They associate love with hurt, not seeing clearly enough that it was ego which was hurtful in their relationships. Love would not do harm to their heart. Love would care for the true heart and soul of the other, that can live only in truth.

        Nowadays the noble teaching "Love thy neighbor as thyself" got replaced with "You have to love yourself first". Every sane person would feel offended by someone putting "loving oneself" before loving YOU. "Loving oneself first" doesn't have anything to do with real love. It is an idea that keeps people from loving for real.

        The second paragraph of your post I cannot relate to. It sounds like a slogan for a political campaign, designed just to advertise your blog.

        I looked into your blog though, and I liked that you wish to be a friend to everyone. I am up for that. I would be a friend to you, if you wish. Just write me an email, and we can talk more.
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          Joe Delsen 20+

          Jul 6 2011: Dear friend Eva! the link is my description of what real love is and it is the premise of my blog that love is the key in transforming our world, similar to what you noted that love makes our life awesome. I do wish to discuss the concept of ego as the reason for our weaknesses, hence the reason also for making our life unamzing. How would you relate it in my description of real love? (If you wish or if you have a long answer, you can send me your reply on my email in my blog)

      • Eva M

        Jul 9 2011: Hi Joe!
        I read your blog. I appreciate your good intentions there. And I wrote you a response with what I think needs revision.
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      Frans Kellner 50+

      TED Translator
      Mar 1 2012: Beautiful Eva, your text deserves a fancy frame to be read by everybody that has a question about why the world is as it is and what can be done about this.
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    Salim Solaiman 50+

    Jun 24 2011: As my children jumps in joy in front of me I feel awesome.
    As my friends , colleagues, neighbours extend their compassionate hand I feel awsome.
    As I hear birds singing, flowers blooming , breeze passing through bushes making wonderful music I feel awesome.
    As I see people from one part of the globe crying for the misery of other part whom they never knew and will never meet , I feel awesome.
    As I read a great poetry or a piece literary work I feel awesome.
    Life is really awesome if one want to make it so, there are plenty of reasons around ..... just need to look for.... nothing comes automatically to make one's life awesome.

  • Ayaz Muhammed

    Jun 20 2011: My Life's Already awesome !!!! I Have My Mom,Dad,Sisters,Brothers And Friends Thats Enough For A Person's Life To Be Awesome!!!! Ask Those Who Dnt Have Any Of Them!!!!!
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    Mahadevan Venkatakrishnan

    Jun 20 2011: I am meeting up with my "benchmates" in school, whom I haven't met after 1988, 23 long years!!!! I cannot hide my excitement. I think it is awesome we are meeting soon.

  • ishan Vyas 20+

    Associate
    May 19 2011: It’s important to be happy in order to make your life awesome. I have always felt awesome in my life, cause I take things positively. People ask me this a lot of time, that "We think god loves you way more than us" but the fact is when you look at things positively, people tend to come closer to you then if you have negative attitude. A key to success is positive attitude. For example, once my little cousin tried to throw a big stone on the road, and without realising how heavy it was he threw it and it landed on my leg giving me 15 stiches on my leg. My mom started crying and cussing, while I told her that thank god it was just 15 stiches, what if I had to cut the whole leg. She started smiling and said yes "Thank god". Another thing to feel awesome is to accept and digest your own mistakes. When you learn to digest your own mistakes, you tend to make improvement in yourself. The key to digest and accept your mistake is to "Listen". The key to feeling awesome is to have positive attitude and accept and digest your own mistake by listening and make improvement in yourself.

  • Mahesh Gokhale

    May 19 2011: Follow my heart, speak out my mind; have great laugh; spend time with friends; smile to strangers and spend time with small kids, read a great book; listen to music; drive my bike real fast to feel the wind in my face; get pumped up when exercising.

    I think anything genuine, not pretentious makes life awesome and that for me is everyday
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    Liliandr Liliandr

    May 19 2011: Living awesome life is the question of feeling inner satisfaction and comfort! Sometimes dear person beside you is all you need to feel the depth of life )) But in other moments I need smth more - like travelling to another country and meeting new people ))) it depends, like everything in this biiiig biiig world!

    This is the list of things that are irreplacable:
    * my favourite job where all my coworkers are funny and they can't live a min without joking and bla bla :)))))) sometimes i feel i'm not having a workday but seating in front rows of comedy show
    *my pupils that are little kids and there's nothing better than listening to their excuses why they haven't read this or that. at such moments THEY are real actors, they are living through their roles. If I had an Oscar they would be my winners :))))
    *reading!! I can't live a day without reading even several pages of a book. By the way the last book that impressed me was MAGUS by John Fowles.
    .... to be contined :)

  • Mark Aguirre

    May 19 2011: Every morning, I do something that uses all 5 of my senses to remind me of how appreciative I am of them.

    On a given day, I would:
    1) sight- look at facebook pictures, read news online
    2) smell- make breakfast
    3) hear- listen to music in medium volume, listen to news
    4) taste- eat my breakfast (typically garlic fried rice, eggs, and spam- I'm Filipino)
    5) touch- stretch my muscles before a swim

    These remind me how awesome it is to use my body to take in the most that the world offers.
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    Kate Thomson

    May 16 2011: What do I do to make my life awesome? I take classes @ Chicago Botanic Gardens; I read books on whatever topics interest me, lately Buddhism; I'm learning how to do 3D garden design; stay connected with family & friends, wherever they may be. Most importantly, I try to keep an open mind, be aware, practice compassion & empathy and learn, learn, learn. I try to tread lightly and not leave footprints.
    This is an awesome experiment. It will be interesting to follow this thread to its conclusion!
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