next up is senior Matthew canary
Matthews isn’t be talking to us about
emotional toolboxes hello so as far as I
can see there are only two ways to play
with Legos first there is the bucket
approach in this format there is one
large bucket with a varying assortment
of colors and shapes of LEGO bricks and
everyone involved builds whatever they
want for as long as they want no
planning necessary on the other hand
there is the planned approach this
methodology can involve the instructions
that come with a Lego set or can revolve
around an agreement between all parties
involved to build one specific thing
together throughout the entire time that
they’re with each other when I was in
the prime of my Lego days I loved the
plant approach when I had playdates I
was obsessed with the planning and would
continue to plan as we built the Lego
itself I planned for so long that before
we could even get to the initial
building stages of our Lego construction
my friend would either walk away and
play with a different toy or start their
own Lego construction out of sheer
boredom I never understood why a
six-year-old wouldn’t want to spend half
of their afternoon planning out how to
play one day my ever wise parents pulled
me aside after observing my friend’s
frustration and boredom Matthew why
don’t you ever finish the Legos you
build with your friends that was a silly
question to me it was because they
lacked the creative vision that I held
so dear my mom noted that my peers often
seemed bored while playing with me and
she asked if I ever felt bored while
playing with anyone else well to tell
the truth playing house with my sister
wasn’t quite as exciting as firing nerf
guns in the basement she then raised the
question if my sister
the way I wanted to more often would I
have more fun well yes but wait a minute
are you gonna tell me that if I ask my
friends how they want to play they’ll
have a better time it was groundbreaking
to a six year old that day and those
Legos even gave me one of the first
tools that I ever had and I carry it to
this day see that day was one of the
first times that I learned empathy I
learned how to relate one of my
experiences to the experience of another
and behave more accordingly those Legos
are the building blocks of my empathy
and I am sure that all of you have your
own foundation in a similar lesson it is
important to remember those lessons
because I believe that in order to
empathize with people effectively we
need to assemble a sort of toolkit those
experiences with other people we gain
more and more tools and become more
capable of relating to others now ik
waiting my playtime with friends with
playtime with my sister was easy level 1
and empathy because the two activities
are very similar however as we get older
our situations become more more complex
and our experiences less and less common
now in contrast to my Lego days my free
time now is mostly taken up by playing
guitar since picking it up I have not
been able to put it down I play when I
have time and I play when I don’t have
time I play when I’m wide-awake and I
play when my eyes won’t stay open and
when I finally finished my chores or
homework and I have the time to play
guitar no one better interrupt me
whether it’s my mom reminding me of
something I have to do when my sister
asking me if I want to go get dinner
I’ll either continue to play and pretend
that I was listening or I’ll stop
playing and be mad that I had to break
my concentration now when my mom is done
with everything she has to do with in
her day she relaxes either through the
enrichment of a good book or through the
challenge of uncountable levels of candy
crush when I read a book or play games
on my phone it never bothers me to be
interrupted as a result when my mom is
partaking in those activities I never
hesitate
ask her questions however one day I
realized that the way she acts when
playing candy crush is the same way that
I act when playing guitar disinterested
in anything else and disgruntled by any
interruption after some deep meditation
I realized that candy crush is my mom’s
guitar right there I found my next tool
this one is a real level up from the
Legos with them I needed to have the
right experience to relate to someone
else I needed to be bored while playing
in order to know how my friends felt
when they were bored with me
with my guitar I didn’t need to have the
same experience with my mom
our activities weren’t even remotely
close but the important part was how she
felt about it I realized that I knew how
it felt to be committed to an activity
and so I knew how she felt this is a
powerful tool because even in situations
that don’t concern my favorite activity
I still use it for instance I have
political opinions more importantly I
know how it feels to have political
opinions
therefore when someone else has views
that I don’t agree with I still know how
they feel because we both have opinions
I may not relate to them at all but when
they talk about their convictions I
relate in this way the guitar introduced
me to the power of generalizations to
empathize with my mom I had to identify
a category favorite activity identify
how I felt about my favorite activity
and realized that she felt the same way
about hers as I did about mine if we let
specifics fall away empathy can span
great differences so the truth is
everything that we care about falls
under general terms that we can name our
values they mean so much to us and
anyone who interrupts them is anything
from a moderate annoyance to an outright
villain if we look at the values of all
of you or of all of the people in this
state variations develop in the
specifics of what is important to you
but the commitment to them exists the
same frustration when others don’t
respect your values if we keep widening
our perspective to span all of humanity
I don’t think it is difficult to predict
what we would find the finer points
would become more and more numerous but
the general trend would continue I bet
if that if we if we could survey every
man woman girl and boy in every country
on every continent and cross all the
cultural divides and language barriers
we would get billions of people saying
approximately the same thing we would
find empathy and maybe even some people
playing candy crush I think about this a
lot and it makes me think about my
toolkit even more part of why it’s on my
mind so often is because I am starting
college this fall and my enrollment at
Northeastern a diverse University in a
substantial City means I will meet and
learn about people of all sorts of
opinions lifestyles and places of origin
I do not think I have the right tool I
need to handle this coming situation but
I fully intend to add it to my set once
I find it in a way empty space is the
ultimate tool in the empathy toolbox
because we can never be prepared for
every situation but we can carry that
knowledge with us and understand our
limitations always prepared to
understand others limits as well and
quickly fill in the gaps within our own
toolkits unlike me during my playdate
we don’t always have older wiser people
to pull us aside to remind us that we
aren’t behaving correctly we have to
mother ourselves when it comes to
empathy and look for how we can improve
this allows us to move forward we’re
ready to apply our empathy in every new
situation whether in conflict with our
family members or in thinking about
refugee crises across the world or in
boring our friends to death we can rely
on our tools to help us relate and
behave the best way possible
however this the ability to understand
others at any scale only comes when we
truly understand ourselves so as you
move from tonight I encourage you to
take a look back at your toolbox find
your Legos and identify the place where
you first learned to empathize with
people next look at your guitar your
favorite activity and comprehend how you
learn to generalize
and adapt to relate to people that
aren’t even close to similar to you and
lastly look at what is missing and stay
open to fill in the gaps as the
opportunity presents itself you never
know how soon it might come thank you [Applause]
Matthews isn’t be talking to us about
emotional toolboxes hello so as far as I
can see there are only two ways to play
with Legos first there is the bucket
approach in this format there is one
large bucket with a varying assortment
of colors and shapes of LEGO bricks and
everyone involved builds whatever they
want for as long as they want no
planning necessary on the other hand
there is the planned approach this
methodology can involve the instructions
that come with a Lego set or can revolve
around an agreement between all parties
involved to build one specific thing
together throughout the entire time that
they’re with each other when I was in
the prime of my Lego days I loved the
plant approach when I had playdates I
was obsessed with the planning and would
continue to plan as we built the Lego
itself I planned for so long that before
we could even get to the initial
building stages of our Lego construction
my friend would either walk away and
play with a different toy or start their
own Lego construction out of sheer
boredom I never understood why a
six-year-old wouldn’t want to spend half
of their afternoon planning out how to
play one day my ever wise parents pulled
me aside after observing my friend’s
frustration and boredom Matthew why
don’t you ever finish the Legos you
build with your friends that was a silly
question to me it was because they
lacked the creative vision that I held
so dear my mom noted that my peers often
seemed bored while playing with me and
she asked if I ever felt bored while
playing with anyone else well to tell
the truth playing house with my sister
wasn’t quite as exciting as firing nerf
guns in the basement she then raised the
question if my sister
the way I wanted to more often would I
have more fun well yes but wait a minute
are you gonna tell me that if I ask my
friends how they want to play they’ll
have a better time it was groundbreaking
to a six year old that day and those
Legos even gave me one of the first
tools that I ever had and I carry it to
this day see that day was one of the
first times that I learned empathy I
learned how to relate one of my
experiences to the experience of another
and behave more accordingly those Legos
are the building blocks of my empathy
and I am sure that all of you have your
own foundation in a similar lesson it is
important to remember those lessons
because I believe that in order to
empathize with people effectively we
need to assemble a sort of toolkit those
experiences with other people we gain
more and more tools and become more
capable of relating to others now ik
waiting my playtime with friends with
playtime with my sister was easy level 1
and empathy because the two activities
are very similar however as we get older
our situations become more more complex
and our experiences less and less common
now in contrast to my Lego days my free
time now is mostly taken up by playing
guitar since picking it up I have not
been able to put it down I play when I
have time and I play when I don’t have
time I play when I’m wide-awake and I
play when my eyes won’t stay open and
when I finally finished my chores or
homework and I have the time to play
guitar no one better interrupt me
whether it’s my mom reminding me of
something I have to do when my sister
asking me if I want to go get dinner
I’ll either continue to play and pretend
that I was listening or I’ll stop
playing and be mad that I had to break
my concentration now when my mom is done
with everything she has to do with in
her day she relaxes either through the
enrichment of a good book or through the
challenge of uncountable levels of candy
crush when I read a book or play games
on my phone it never bothers me to be
interrupted as a result when my mom is
partaking in those activities I never
hesitate
ask her questions however one day I
realized that the way she acts when
playing candy crush is the same way that
I act when playing guitar disinterested
in anything else and disgruntled by any
interruption after some deep meditation
I realized that candy crush is my mom’s
guitar right there I found my next tool
this one is a real level up from the
Legos with them I needed to have the
right experience to relate to someone
else I needed to be bored while playing
in order to know how my friends felt
when they were bored with me
with my guitar I didn’t need to have the
same experience with my mom
our activities weren’t even remotely
close but the important part was how she
felt about it I realized that I knew how
it felt to be committed to an activity
and so I knew how she felt this is a
powerful tool because even in situations
that don’t concern my favorite activity
I still use it for instance I have
political opinions more importantly I
know how it feels to have political
opinions
therefore when someone else has views
that I don’t agree with I still know how
they feel because we both have opinions
I may not relate to them at all but when
they talk about their convictions I
relate in this way the guitar introduced
me to the power of generalizations to
empathize with my mom I had to identify
a category favorite activity identify
how I felt about my favorite activity
and realized that she felt the same way
about hers as I did about mine if we let
specifics fall away empathy can span
great differences so the truth is
everything that we care about falls
under general terms that we can name our
values they mean so much to us and
anyone who interrupts them is anything
from a moderate annoyance to an outright
villain if we look at the values of all
of you or of all of the people in this
state variations develop in the
specifics of what is important to you
but the commitment to them exists the
same frustration when others don’t
respect your values if we keep widening
our perspective to span all of humanity
I don’t think it is difficult to predict
what we would find the finer points
would become more and more numerous but
the general trend would continue I bet
if that if we if we could survey every
man woman girl and boy in every country
on every continent and cross all the
cultural divides and language barriers
we would get billions of people saying
approximately the same thing we would
find empathy and maybe even some people
playing candy crush I think about this a
lot and it makes me think about my
toolkit even more part of why it’s on my
mind so often is because I am starting
college this fall and my enrollment at
Northeastern a diverse University in a
substantial City means I will meet and
learn about people of all sorts of
opinions lifestyles and places of origin
I do not think I have the right tool I
need to handle this coming situation but
I fully intend to add it to my set once
I find it in a way empty space is the
ultimate tool in the empathy toolbox
because we can never be prepared for
every situation but we can carry that
knowledge with us and understand our
limitations always prepared to
understand others limits as well and
quickly fill in the gaps within our own
toolkits unlike me during my playdate
we don’t always have older wiser people
to pull us aside to remind us that we
aren’t behaving correctly we have to
mother ourselves when it comes to
empathy and look for how we can improve
this allows us to move forward we’re
ready to apply our empathy in every new
situation whether in conflict with our
family members or in thinking about
refugee crises across the world or in
boring our friends to death we can rely
on our tools to help us relate and
behave the best way possible
however this the ability to understand
others at any scale only comes when we
truly understand ourselves so as you
move from tonight I encourage you to
take a look back at your toolbox find
your Legos and identify the place where
you first learned to empathize with
people next look at your guitar your
favorite activity and comprehend how you
learn to generalize
and adapt to relate to people that
aren’t even close to similar to you and
lastly look at what is missing and stay
open to fill in the gaps as the
opportunity presents itself you never
know how soon it might come thank you [Applause]
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