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  • - When you pity people who are sick,

  • you take away their power.

  • I am sick, I will probably always be sick,

  • and yet I am 100% content and happy with my life.

  • (audience clapping and cheering)

  • A 100%.

  • I have something called cystic fibrosis,

  • but I'm actually not here

  • to depress you all about cystic fibrosis.

  • I'm actually here to talk about how do we change

  • the way that we treat sick people.

  • How do we stop pitying them and we start empowering them?

  • The way that our society works, we teach sick people

  • that when they are sick, somehow, someway,

  • they cannot be as happy as normal healthy people.

  • We teach them that their happiness,

  • their contentment in life,

  • their joy in life is tied to how healthy they are.

  • I remember I was around seven or eight years old

  • and I was flipping through this magazine

  • and there's this really beautiful picture

  • of this artist in their New York loft apartment.

  • And I'm sitting there and I look around my hospital room

  • and I'm like, I wish I was there.

  • And I had more, I was like, but I'm stuck in the hospital.

  • And I thought, well, there's a Target right down the street

  • that has some twinkle lights and some throw pillows

  • and I have a room.

  • I have furniture.

  • Why don't I make something out of this room?

  • Why don't I deck it out?

  • So me and my nanny decided

  • to completely redo the hospital room

  • and I don't mean just put some pictures on the wall,

  • I mean like completely redo the room.

  • We were moving around the furniture, I was sweating,

  • my machines were beeping, the nurses were coming in,

  • like what are you doing, you're crazy.

  • And by the end, we had completely transformed the room.

  • And nurses and doctors from all over the hospital

  • came in to see it.

  • And so every time I ended up going into the hospital,

  • I would deck out my hospital room.

  • I started realizing, people who are sick

  • and nurses and doctors as well,

  • everyone in the medical community,

  • everyone in the healthcare community,

  • had been so stuck in this notion

  • that a hospital room is this cold, sterile white place

  • where we go to be sick and that that's all that it can be.

  • And we get so stuck in that

  • that we can not see the possibility,

  • we can't see what we can make out of it,

  • we don't see what we can do with it.

  • I started realizing that our lives in a way are like this.

  • Our lives are like empty hospital rooms.

  • We get so stuck in the idea that,

  • oh, it's supposed to be good or bad.

  • If we're sick then it's cold and it's sterile.

  • And we just have to live with it like that.

  • We don't let ourself realize, we don't let ourself see

  • we can make that hospital room beautiful.

  • We can make our lives into a piece of art.

  • We all have the ability, we all have that capability

  • as human beings to turn these empty hospital rooms,

  • to turn these lives into something really beautiful.

  • We look at people who are sick and we pity them.

  • Because we believe that their sickness means

  • their life has to be inherently less joyous

  • than everyone else's.

  • Life is not gonna stop unfolding itself to you

  • just because you're sick.

  • Or just because your life isn't

  • how you think it's supposed to be.

  • There's still going to be beauty.

  • And I can honestly say,

  • a majority of the happiest moments in my life

  • have been when I am sick in the hospital, honestly.

  • And think about the implications of that.

  • Because I have lived the kind of life

  • that all of you spend your entire lives running from.

  • I've been sick and dying my entire life.

  • And yet, I am so proud of my life.

  • What does that say?

  • No really, what does that say about the way

  • we're all living our lives?

  • We're waiting to be healthy.

  • We're waiting to be wealthy.

  • We're waiting to find our passion.

  • We're waiting to find our true love

  • before we actually start living.

  • Instead of looking at everything that we have,

  • looking at all the pain, looking at all the sadness,

  • looking at all the beauty and making something with that.

  • That's how innovation happens.

  • Innovation doesn't happen because there's some person

  • who's in a great circumstance and everything's going well

  • and they just get on a role

  • and they make something for the world.

  • Innovation happens, art happens because of suffering.

  • And when we clamp down to that suffering,

  • when we teach people who are sick,

  • when you teach a little seven year old me

  • that because I'm sick,

  • I don't have anything to give to the world,

  • I don't have anything to create.

  • So I want to encourage you all,

  • next time you meet someone who's suffering

  • and who's in pain, instead of shutting down,

  • instead of pitying them, why don't you think,

  • I bet their life is so beautiful.

  • Really look at them and think,

  • I bet their life is so complex.

  • We all get to be a part of this giant human epic story.

  • We get to part of human history.

  • We get to add to it.

  • We have something to give.

  • And we realize it's what we're creating that matters.

  • It's what we're adding to this beautiful story that matters.

  • When we start looking at that, we can change the world.

  • (soft music)

- When you pity people who are sick,

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