I’m a huge fan of TED talks. There are so many ideas, so much inspiration out there—all for free. What can be more amazing than that? There’s so much you can learn about medicine and healthcare, and wisdom to be gleaned from people in the frontiers of their fields.
These are the top 5 most inspiring TED talks that touch on topics centering on illness, death, and what constitutes a meaningful life. They are told from the perspective of both doctors and patients—and sometimes, both.
BJ Miller: What really matters at the end of life
This is one of my favourite TED talks of all time (you can read my thoughts on it here). It’s impossible to watch this talk and not be inspired. Narrowly escaping death as a college student, BJ Miller changed his major to art history—eventually becoming a palliative care physician and starting his own hospice. Listen to the stories he tells. Feel the depth behind his words.
Seriously, with all the heavy-duty stuff happening under our roof, one of the most tried and true interventions we know of, is to bake cookies.
Lucy Kalanithi: What makes life worth living in the face of death
You will know Lucy Kalanithi if you’ve read Paul Kalanithi’s memoir When Breath Becomes Air. In this talk, she shares parts of their story, and how that has come to define her attitude towards suffering, death, and life. I’ve always admired her deeply for her great mental fortitude—which comes through with every word she utters.
Being human doesn’t happen despite suffering. It happens within it.
Suleika Jaouad: What almost dying taught me about living
In this fierce and humorous talk, Suleika Jaouad—a cancer survivor—speaks candidly about what it feels like to have one’s life interrupted by illness. Watch the talk to discover her transformative journey of learning to live again, whilst connecting with other patients just like her.
I had spent the past 1,500 days working tirelessly to achieve one goal: to survive. And now that I’d done so, I realized I had absolutely no idea how to live.
Nora McInerny: We don’t “move on” from grief. We move forward with it
This talk is downright hilarious—and downright heartbreaking. It’s also immensely uplifting. Nora McInermy speaks candidly about the grief of losing someone you love. We may not have mourned in the same way, but we’ve all known loss. And I think we can all relate perfectly to whatever she’s saying.
Grief is kind of one of those things, … where you don’t get it until you get it, until you do it.
Temple Grandin: The world needs all kinds of minds
When I first watched Temple Grandin’s TED talk, I had just finished her autobiography Thinking in Pictures. Seeing her in person, speaking confidently on stage, was an utterly different experience. She gives a condensed version of her life story, which is featured in both Thinking in Pictures and the film Temple Grandin. More significantly though, she uses her personal experience to argue for why we should value diverse thinkers. Although I was by then familiar with her story, I was so moved by her talk I wished I were in the audience to join in the thunderous standing ovation. She is not a patient but an advocate.
It’s a continuum of traits. … Einstein and Mozart and Tesla would all be probably diagnosed as autistic spectrum today.