Full text of New York Times bestselling author Harlan Cohen’s talk: Getting Comfortable With The Uncomfortable at TEDxUrsulineCollege conference.
In this eventful talk, he shares his own experience of dealing with difficult moments in college and discusses why we must all get comfortable with the uncomfortable in life.
Listen to the MP3 Audio here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Harlan Cohen – Author
Thank you so much.
My name is Harlan Cohen and I get painfully uncomfortable socially and emotionally. I worry about what people are thinking and I want to be liked.
I also remember being single and that was really painful. I was and I still am afraid of rejection.
And I know, because I’ve spoken on over 400 campuses and talked to hundreds of thousands of students that I’m not alone.
And I also know this, because I’m a syndicated advice columnist. I’ve been writing my column for 20 years people sharing their deepest darkest secrets with me. And I know that we all share uncomfortable.
So what I’ve learned is that there are two types of people in the world.
There are those who fight the uncomfortable and those who can face the uncomfortable. Those who fight the uncomfortable they’re always hating, hiding and blaming.
But those who face the uncomfortable they do something I like to call ‘getting comfortable with the uncomfortable.’
That’s what I’m going to share with you today. And it’s something you can use right now and it’s something you can share with the most uncomfortable people in your lives.
My uncomfortable journey really peaked when I went to college. I went to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, an amazing beautiful unbelievable school.
I am so lucky that this is what my life presented to me and I got there and I have never been so miserable in my entire life.
I didn’t have any friends, because I wasn’t supposed to have friends and I needed friends. So my roommate was going to be my first friend.
And when he moved in, I remember we shared some common interests, but not that many. Right after his parents left, he reached into his backpack and he pulled out some shrubbery and I was not familiar with this particular shrub.
And I looked at him.
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I said “What are you doing?”
And he said “What do you mean?”
I said “What’s that?”
And he said “I’m rolling a joint.”
So I tried to be cool. So I said “That’s cool”.
So then he rolled the joint and he took a puff and he reached out and he said, “Do you want some?”
And I didn’t know what to say, so I said the first thing that came to mind. I said “No thanks man. I’m full!”
And he was like, “Whoa!”
He was really impressed by that. He didn’t get it. So he realized I was full of something else. He moved out and I was negative one friend, which was very sad.
I left my room and I tried to meet some guys in my Hall and I’m really not great at making friends right away. These guys were all rushing a fraternity. I thought it would be cool to rush a fraternity.
So I rushed with them. Rushing’s the process to get a bid an invitation to join. Everybody got a bid but one person – me.
So now I was literally thrown out of rooms where they were hanging out. They said, “Harlan, we have to share pledged secrets!” And they made me leave.
So I was minus eight friends, I went back to my room and there was negative one friend and things were going the wrong way.
Well, somehow I had a girlfriend, okay. And my girlfriend was a senior in high school and I was a freshman in college.
And to give you a little more insight into me and dating, it really was a miracle. Because I remember as a freshman in high school, there was a girl that I was interested in and I asked her to a dance.
I found the courage to ask her and I said, “Would you like to go to dance with me?”
And she said, “No”.
And I asked her, “Why?”
And she said “You’re too fat. I don’t date fat guys.”
And it was really painful and she only had to say it once like the second time was gratuitous. Okay I got it. When she said she didn’t date fat guys. And it was really painful.
And from that point forward, I knew I was defective and that nobody would ever love me.
And then I fell in love in high school. Love entered my life and I had to go to college. So as my first year became so difficult and I was so depressed and felt so alone.
I had my high school girlfriend until she had a conversation with her father. And her father compared our relationship to a dying puppy, urging her to shoot the puppy.
So she called me and she shot the puppy. And I was devastated. I had lost the only love I knew in my life, and that was the love I had for my girlfriend.
So I did what so many of us do when we get uncomfortable. I ran. I got the hell out of there.
I transferred to Indiana University. And the reason I transferred to Indiana is because both my brothers had gone there. I’ve been visiting there since I was 10 years old. I had friends there and my brothers were in a fraternity and I was a legacy.
So they had to take me and I was okay with that.
So I get to Indiana thinking it’s going to be amazing. And unbelievably, it’s difficult and uncomfortable, like bad body odor it stuck to me.
And I was so confused, but I was patient. The difference is that I was patient. I gave myself time to work through it because it was familiar. I kind of knew this is how it could be and I made it.
And then I made it through my second year, my third year. And in my fourth year, I started to write my advice column.
And when I was writing my advice column, students were sharing their secrets with me. And I realized there’s something that no one ever tells us and it’s just so simple. It’s that, ‘Life is uncomfortable, it’s painfully uncomfortable!’
But nobody tells high school students or college students. And this is why a quarter of all students transfer to another school; and two thirds experience homesickness and loneliness; and another third experience debilitating depression during their college years, some going so far as to hurt other people or tragically hurt themselves.
But it doesn’t have to be so uncomfortable, it doesn’t.
So I figured out how to get comfortable with the uncomfortable and it’s life changing.
It’s something I had to figure out, so I could move forward, so I can find what I love in life and build healthy relationships.
And I want to share it with you and I hope you’ll share it with others.
At the root of uncomfortable is a truth, it’s called the universal rejection truth. And there are many forms of the universal rejection truth.
The universal rejection truth of friendship says ‘Not all people I meet will want to be my friend; many will, many will not.’
The universal rejection truth of sales: ‘Many people will like my products and services, many will not.’
The universal rejection truth of dating and relationships: ‘Many women will want me, OK, but there are many who are going to look at me and go, ‘Huh, ok!’ And they’re going to look at you and go ‘Huh, huh ok.’ But there are many who will go, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!’
This is the universal rejection truth.
Now there are two types of people in the world. There are those who fight the truth; they hate, hide, avoid, make excuses. It might be you.
Then, there are those who can face the truth.
And the difference between those who fight and those who face is those who can work through the truth, they know a secret. I call it people, places and patience.
It’s people, places and patience.
When we get uncomfortable and face this truth, those who can move forward they have people…
5 people
Who are the 5 people in your corner? People who will always be there…
And in different situations there are different people who are in your corner… people who you can ask for help, people who volunteer to help, people you pay to help you. Who are these people?
3 places
Everybody needs a place. When people don’t have a place, they feel like they have nowhere to go. They get desperate, they panic. We all have places, places where people will love us and accept us and support us. Where are your 3 places?
And patience.
We are rotten with patients. We are terrible – texting, Twitter. I googled the word ‘patience’, okay and in 0.45 seconds, I got 42 million results. And you know what I was angry because I liked it in 0.25 seconds, I waited too long. We’re awful with patience.
It’s people, places and patience.
Now I want to give you an example of someone who didn’t have people, places or patience, someone other than me.
So I was at a campus and I was doing a res-life training session. It was actually at University of Notre Dame of all places, and there are lots of different schools there.
And one of the RAs, the resident assistant, shared a story with me about one of the women on her floor. This girl was incredibly conservative and she lived with a very liberal roommate.
So the conservative roommate was in her bed. It was a bunk bed type of situation, and she was sleeping and walked in the liberal roommate with a friend.
The liberal roommate brought a boy into the bed with her. The conservative girl heard noises. She didn’t know what to do. This had never happened to her before.
So she froze. She hoped it would go away. But it just increased in intensity. So she didn’t know what to do. She panicked.
So she reached out and she grabbed her cell phone and she called her mom. And she said, ‘Mom, my roommate’s entertaining someone on top of my head. What should I do?’
And the mom said, ‘I’ll be right there.’
So the RA hears a knock on her door, three hours later. It’s the mom. She says, ‘My daughter is in a room and someone’s being entertained. We need to get her out of there.’
So they rushed to get her out of there. How it was going on for three hours, I have no idea; and why the girl couldn’t leave, I don’t understand. But they got that girl and they rescued her and the solution was to put her in a single.
They put her in isolation, so she wouldn’t have to face the uncomfortable. And I thought that is so tragic. When is she ever going to learn how to get comfortable with the uncomfortable?
So I want to share a story of some other people who did find their people, places and patience.
I was in another school just a few weeks ago in Pennsylvania. And when I do events sometimes the people bringing me in will entertain me. It’s really nice. I get to visit with these students. I always enjoy that.
So I was with these two women and we were talking. Sexual assault has been a big issue lately and I asked the question, ‘Has that been something that you guys have been dealing with a lot?’
And the girl looked up at me and said. ‘Yes’.
And I said ‘One of your friends?’
And she said ‘No, me!’ She said I just started talking about it last week.
And I said, ‘You know, may I ask you some questions? Do I have your permission to ask you questions.’
And she said, ‘Sure.’
So what happened is she was visiting one of her male friends in a house and there was alcohol involved and everybody was drinking and having fun.
She went to sleep. One of the friend’s friends entered the room, while she was sleeping and assaulted her. She’d been keeping the secret inside her for over a year. She felt such shame and she’d finally given it voice.
And I asked her; I said, ‘What’s the one piece of advice you would give other survivors? What would you tell them?’
And she said, ‘I would tell them to talk to one person.’ She said, ‘Because last week I talked to her, the other woman, who’s at the table.’
She said, ‘I was crying and she was hugging me. And then her two roommates came in the room and then, I had three people around me, hugging me. And then two days later, we had ‘Take Back the Night where survivors of sexual assault and those who support survivors, all gather together!’
And she said, ‘I was surrounded by hundreds of people.’ She said, ‘One led to three and it led to hundreds.’ It’s about people!
I was in another campus and I finished the event. A second year I was there and this girl ran out. She was so excited, she goes, ‘Harlan, It’s so good to see you again. Do you remember me?’
I said, ‘Of course. I do.’ No I didn’t know who she was.
She said, ‘Last year, we talked after the event. I was so unhappy and I worked to find my places. It was really rough. But I got involved with my residence hall and I started to go to this Bible study group. And I also now volunteer and it’s gotten so much better. And I found my places. And I just wanted to thank you!’
I said, ‘I want to thank you!’ Because I didn’t have my places and she found them. And I was so grateful.
That was at another event. This one was in Ohio and I finished the event. It was like grad students. And this guy said, ‘I had to come to the event this year.’ This was again the second year and I said ‘It’s good to see you!’
He said, ‘Do you remember me?’ And of course I said, ‘Yeah, of course I do!’
And anyway he shared a story he said, ‘You know last year after the event, I was really thinking. I went home and I have been in a relationship for six years. It’s been a horrible relationship. We were on and off and it was really unhealthy and it had to end. I was thinking about you know where my people, where are my places. And I went to her house and I broke up with her!’
He said, ‘And it was really hard and I wanted to go back but I was patient and I knew it would get better because it always gets better. I knew it would get better!’
He said, ‘In three months later, someone in my grad program… we started talking and we started dating. We’ve been together nine months and it’s the best relationship, the healthiest relationship of my life!’ And it’s patience.
So many times we’re in pain, we’re suffering, and we’re uncomfortable. And we forget that there are people and there are places and if we’re patient, it will get better. The difficult is front-loaded.
13 to 18 is about making everybody feel like less, so we can all feel like more and we all carry it with us the rest of our lives.
But if we can remember people, places and patience, we can get there.
Life is painfully uncomfortable at times, and there are two types of people: there are those who fight the truth and there are those who face the truth. When you face it, when you help your friends face it, ask yourself three questions:
