Or rather, don’t judge people at all. But how often does it happen that you form opinions about people based on their skin color,
their nationality, their jobs, their marital status, their educational background, etc.? Watch this TED talk for a serious life lesson.
In this video Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the inaccuracy of judging whole groups by one single story. The foundation is of course her own life story, being the daughter of middle-class Nigerian university professors, which in itself contradicts stereotypes about people in Africa.
I think the main message is an important lesson for any occasion and any time when you think you know someone just because you know where they come from or what they do for a living. Life stories are so much more complex than that, and the part that you don’t know could always draw a whole different picture than the one you think you do.
And don’t we all do that a lot? Stereotypes are hard to fight, even with conscious effort, they are just planted in us so deeply. This talk reminds us that everyone has a story, and many times it is not even close to what we think. The next time we are about to judge someone, we should all remember this.
Chimamanda is a writer of novels, either fiction and non-fiction, her works were translated into thirty langugages. Beyond the fact that we seem to have a similar taste in music (cue: 4:38) I found her presentation style pretty enjoyable and her stories very instructive, made me curious to check out her writing too. If you liked this one, you can check out her other TED talk on feminism here.
Anyway, I plan this to be a regular series of TED talks, speeches of a certain kind, podcast episodes, roundtable discussions, intervews, etc., anything that you can draw inspiration or learn something from. I hope by watching the first one you can see where I am going with this.
When you’re done, let me know in the comments what is your biggest take-away from this talk!
