if you can remember far back enough
you’ll remember 2016 2016 wasn’t a great
time there was animosity caused by the
presidential race there was the Dallas
police shooting the Orlando shooting and
it seemed like there were a ton of
events last year that really showcased
our countries and the world’s lack of
empathy from all sides of social
dilemmas now a lot of media outlets and
people have discussed this so-called
lack of empathy where it came from
and how to get rid of it and a lot of
people agree that this lack of empathy
is results of people only listening to
or watching to new watching news that
they politically agree with and I can’t
say I disagree but I also believe that
the cause of this lack of empathy is
much more fundamental and it starts with
people telling us to find our groove now
this is Naviance almost every public
high school in the country uses this
wonderful and magical machine Naviance
is a website that helps high school
students find what they are passionate
about non-violence will help you find an
interests it will help you find a
college that supports that interests and
then hopefully a job career that you can
pursue Naviance knows more about you
than you know about you Naviance will
help you find your groove my name is
phillip bliss I am a senior at West Lake
High School but Naviance didn’t work for
me like every freshman at Westlake High
School I was given an account so I could
identify my strengths and hopefully
stick to them over the next four years
with the ultimate goal of kick starting
my career
as soon as possible thus I could steer
early and have a head start over the
people who joined my career later in
life but there was a problem after I
filled out the Naviance personality and
profession finding questionnaires
Naviance could not specify what I was
interested in my future ranged from
lawyer to architects to farmer and to
understand that why I failed so
miserably here’s a little background on
me ever since I was little my parents
had this desire to make me what they
thought was well-rounded so I ended up
participating in a lot of activities
that really don’t seem to go together
I now play have been playing violin for
about 12 years and I’ve been playing
lacrosse for about seven years and
before I played lacrosse I played hockey
in combination with violin now being a
violin playing lacrosse player or a
lacrosse playing violinist doesn’t make
any sense at all
violin requires agile and healthy
fingers while lacrosse spends most of
its time trying to break those fingers
with metal sticks but actually the
biggest difference between violin and
the crosses the mindsets required for
each now if you’re a musician or
especially a classical musician that
then you know that success in an
instrument like violin requires really
intense focus on precision movements
every fingering every vibrato with every
dynamic change and even emotional phrase
is plans through arduous hours of hard
work this is the kind of thinking that
will actually hurt lacrosse performance
which relies more on instincts action to
succeed with a little bit of brute force
now
as long as I can remember I’ve been
exposed to these two mindsets because I
never really found a groove
I never specialized and as a result I’ve
spent a lot of equal time with two
groups that are fairly polar on the
social spectrum and here come the
starett first we have the orchestra
nerds primarily of in the sense the
orchestra nerds at my school have a an
average GPA of four point seven which is
pretty high the orchestra nerds spend
their time doing school talking about
schoolwork practicing their instruments
and figuring out new places to get bobba
the other side of the spectrum are the
lacrosse players or otherwise known as
the blacks pros lacrosse players at my
school have an average GPA of 3.7 which
is a little bit lower and they spend
their free time doing sports talk sports
looking as preppy as possible and
occasionally talking about girls with
the utmost respect
now while this second group may not be
the best standard for academically
driven or well behaved kids in
comparison to the orchestra students
I’ve still managed to grow fond of both
groups I relate to both groups in
different ways and if you’ve taken any
psychology courses then you know that
this is a lot of the mere-exposure
effect which means that the more time
you spend with someone the more you tend
to relate to that person and like that
person now this is actually why I didn’t
do all the Naviance tests because I
spent an equal time with these two poll
groups
so in general orchestra kids tend to be
more interested in STEM careers this
most likely relates to the intense focus
on precision movements that we see in
classical instruments like violin on the
other hands a lot of lacrosse players
are interested in banking and finance
careers which relates more to the
instincts and anticipation that you see
in lacrosse but when I filled out the
Naviance
questionnaires I mixed these two
mindsets which resulted in an
unsuccessful hybrid and by the time that
I realized what was the problem a lot of
my friends had already started
specializing maybe not technically but I
noticed that a lot of my orchestra
friends were decidedly more interested
in their math and science classes even
though they still had to take humanities
courses and the opposite happened to a
lot of my lacrosse friends and the worst
thing about all of this was that my two
friend groups seemed to grow farther and
farther apart it’s you know violinists
and lacrosse players have never been
known to mingle but it seemed that as
both groups specialized they grew into
completely completely separate worlds
now my lacrosse friends think of my
orchestra friends as wimpy nerds and my
orchestra friends think of my lacrosse
friends as dumb and worthless jocks so I
especially noticed this when I was
listening to political conversations and
both of my friend groups so again in
general Orchestra students tend to be
more politically liberal and lacrosse
players politically conservative and as
I was listening to conversations and
both friend groups I noticed that
everyone in one friend group would
pretty much agree on every topic they
would leave the conversation convinced
that they were right and there was no
point to a valid opposing arguments and
this is where finding your groove goes
wrong
as my friend groups as the members of my
friend of my friend groups became so
comfortable in their own cliques they
limit their exposure to different types
of people and different ways of thinking
they grow a false sense of the
sensibilities everyone around them
and by being unable to adequately
empathize with others they’re unable to
resolve potential conflicts that needs
an understanding to solve this is the
same lack of empathy that we see on the
news every day now Naviance may not be
the root cause of this divide but it’s
just another example of the craze the
craze that everyone needs to find a
groove in this case it’s the early
specialization that so many kids are
forced to go through from earlier and
earlier on kids are pressured to focus
on one activity so that basic can
succeed in a rising level of competition
and we’ve seen this early specialization
work in cases such as Tiger Woods but it
doesn’t always work and I’ve seen it
divide my friends it’s divided them the
same way that’s I’ve seen people across
the country and across the world divided
by their inability to adequately
empathize with one another so finding
your groove might feel good at first
eventually that groove can become a rut
that you follow without thinking and
soon you’re stuck in one profession
surrounded by a bunch of people who are
exactly the same as we saw last year the
consequences of this could be a little
bit more severe than we think so
don’t find a groove don’t listen to
these TEDx kids
step beyond your intellectual comfort
you may not like it
experiencing someone else’s groove but
your involvement will help to prevent
more years like 2016 thank you
you’ll remember 2016 2016 wasn’t a great
time there was animosity caused by the
presidential race there was the Dallas
police shooting the Orlando shooting and
it seemed like there were a ton of
events last year that really showcased
our countries and the world’s lack of
empathy from all sides of social
dilemmas now a lot of media outlets and
people have discussed this so-called
lack of empathy where it came from
and how to get rid of it and a lot of
people agree that this lack of empathy
is results of people only listening to
or watching to new watching news that
they politically agree with and I can’t
say I disagree but I also believe that
the cause of this lack of empathy is
much more fundamental and it starts with
people telling us to find our groove now
this is Naviance almost every public
high school in the country uses this
wonderful and magical machine Naviance
is a website that helps high school
students find what they are passionate
about non-violence will help you find an
interests it will help you find a
college that supports that interests and
then hopefully a job career that you can
pursue Naviance knows more about you
than you know about you Naviance will
help you find your groove my name is
phillip bliss I am a senior at West Lake
High School but Naviance didn’t work for
me like every freshman at Westlake High
School I was given an account so I could
identify my strengths and hopefully
stick to them over the next four years
with the ultimate goal of kick starting
my career
as soon as possible thus I could steer
early and have a head start over the
people who joined my career later in
life but there was a problem after I
filled out the Naviance personality and
profession finding questionnaires
Naviance could not specify what I was
interested in my future ranged from
lawyer to architects to farmer and to
understand that why I failed so
miserably here’s a little background on
me ever since I was little my parents
had this desire to make me what they
thought was well-rounded so I ended up
participating in a lot of activities
that really don’t seem to go together
I now play have been playing violin for
about 12 years and I’ve been playing
lacrosse for about seven years and
before I played lacrosse I played hockey
in combination with violin now being a
violin playing lacrosse player or a
lacrosse playing violinist doesn’t make
any sense at all
violin requires agile and healthy
fingers while lacrosse spends most of
its time trying to break those fingers
with metal sticks but actually the
biggest difference between violin and
the crosses the mindsets required for
each now if you’re a musician or
especially a classical musician that
then you know that success in an
instrument like violin requires really
intense focus on precision movements
every fingering every vibrato with every
dynamic change and even emotional phrase
is plans through arduous hours of hard
work this is the kind of thinking that
will actually hurt lacrosse performance
which relies more on instincts action to
succeed with a little bit of brute force
now
as long as I can remember I’ve been
exposed to these two mindsets because I
never really found a groove
I never specialized and as a result I’ve
spent a lot of equal time with two
groups that are fairly polar on the
social spectrum and here come the
starett first we have the orchestra
nerds primarily of in the sense the
orchestra nerds at my school have a an
average GPA of four point seven which is
pretty high the orchestra nerds spend
their time doing school talking about
schoolwork practicing their instruments
and figuring out new places to get bobba
the other side of the spectrum are the
lacrosse players or otherwise known as
the blacks pros lacrosse players at my
school have an average GPA of 3.7 which
is a little bit lower and they spend
their free time doing sports talk sports
looking as preppy as possible and
occasionally talking about girls with
the utmost respect
now while this second group may not be
the best standard for academically
driven or well behaved kids in
comparison to the orchestra students
I’ve still managed to grow fond of both
groups I relate to both groups in
different ways and if you’ve taken any
psychology courses then you know that
this is a lot of the mere-exposure
effect which means that the more time
you spend with someone the more you tend
to relate to that person and like that
person now this is actually why I didn’t
do all the Naviance tests because I
spent an equal time with these two poll
groups
so in general orchestra kids tend to be
more interested in STEM careers this
most likely relates to the intense focus
on precision movements that we see in
classical instruments like violin on the
other hands a lot of lacrosse players
are interested in banking and finance
careers which relates more to the
instincts and anticipation that you see
in lacrosse but when I filled out the
Naviance
questionnaires I mixed these two
mindsets which resulted in an
unsuccessful hybrid and by the time that
I realized what was the problem a lot of
my friends had already started
specializing maybe not technically but I
noticed that a lot of my orchestra
friends were decidedly more interested
in their math and science classes even
though they still had to take humanities
courses and the opposite happened to a
lot of my lacrosse friends and the worst
thing about all of this was that my two
friend groups seemed to grow farther and
farther apart it’s you know violinists
and lacrosse players have never been
known to mingle but it seemed that as
both groups specialized they grew into
completely completely separate worlds
now my lacrosse friends think of my
orchestra friends as wimpy nerds and my
orchestra friends think of my lacrosse
friends as dumb and worthless jocks so I
especially noticed this when I was
listening to political conversations and
both of my friend groups so again in
general Orchestra students tend to be
more politically liberal and lacrosse
players politically conservative and as
I was listening to conversations and
both friend groups I noticed that
everyone in one friend group would
pretty much agree on every topic they
would leave the conversation convinced
that they were right and there was no
point to a valid opposing arguments and
this is where finding your groove goes
wrong
as my friend groups as the members of my
friend of my friend groups became so
comfortable in their own cliques they
limit their exposure to different types
of people and different ways of thinking
they grow a false sense of the
sensibilities everyone around them
and by being unable to adequately
empathize with others they’re unable to
resolve potential conflicts that needs
an understanding to solve this is the
same lack of empathy that we see on the
news every day now Naviance may not be
the root cause of this divide but it’s
just another example of the craze the
craze that everyone needs to find a
groove in this case it’s the early
specialization that so many kids are
forced to go through from earlier and
earlier on kids are pressured to focus
on one activity so that basic can
succeed in a rising level of competition
and we’ve seen this early specialization
work in cases such as Tiger Woods but it
doesn’t always work and I’ve seen it
divide my friends it’s divided them the
same way that’s I’ve seen people across
the country and across the world divided
by their inability to adequately
empathize with one another so finding
your groove might feel good at first
eventually that groove can become a rut
that you follow without thinking and
soon you’re stuck in one profession
surrounded by a bunch of people who are
exactly the same as we saw last year the
consequences of this could be a little
bit more severe than we think so
don’t find a groove don’t listen to
these TEDx kids
step beyond your intellectual comfort
you may not like it
experiencing someone else’s groove but
your involvement will help to prevent
more years like 2016 thank you
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