The TED Assignment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The TED Assignment - Research Paper Example In this essay I will discuss a few of the videos and how they believe one should lead their lives. The first video I saw was by Amy Purdy who lost her legs due to bacterial meningitis. At that time, she was devastated and wondered how she was going to fulfil her dream of traveling the world and of snowboarding. But then she realized that she had an option to take her life in the direction she wanted to take. So she accepted the fact that she doesn’t have real legs anymore and will have to bear with the artificial ones. She imagined herself to keep walking, helping people and snowboarding again. And this is the life she chose. She became creative about the artificial legs and customized them according to her needs. She failed, slipped, fell many times, but she would not let go of hope that easily. This was when she understood one of the most important life’s lessons: Obstacles do only two things to you-make you stop or force you to be creative. (Purdy, 2011) Her story tells you that one has two options when faced by a real tragedy: you can whine, be depressed, let go of hope and life or look right into the eyes of the world and follow your dreams irrespective of how many obstacles lay in front of you. These obstacles might stop you from doing something the way normally people do, but they also help you to imagine and discover new ways of following your dreams, living life to the fullest and being happy. Another speaker at Ted, Shawn Achor, a researcher and teacher of positive psychology talks about the formula of happiness. He argues that we always talk about what average people think, believe and do. We research on people and we generalize them as average people. He believes that â€Å"if we study what is merely average, we will remain average†. Furthermore he talks about the general perception of life and happiness. He argues that our happiness is mostly characterized by