Read the full transcript of Walter Green’s talk titled “Why We Should Eulogize The Living” at TEDxSanDiego 2023 conference.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
The Power of Expressing Gratitude
WALTER GREEN: You know, it’s incredible to me that people are so important in our lives and then we wait till they die to honor them and to express our profound gratitude to them. This has always perplexed me and it led me to a deep belief that there was a missing ingredient to elevate every important relationship. And it was — now it’s been a journey of over three decades that I want to share with you. It’s now my passion. It’s my big why. And it’s called Say It Now.
I learned that relationships matter and that deep relationships were a treasure. Those two blazing insights led me, when I had my 50th birthday, to gather my five closest friends for a weekend celebration in New York. At that event I expressed to them their importance in my life, what they had meant to me. I did it publicly. That was the beginning of the mission and the movement today.
The Inspiration Behind Say It Now
In the years following, I attended several memorial services and celebrations of life. I was always touched by the beauty of the tributes, but even more so by the recognition that the person being honored was in a casket and never heard a word of it. I decided I did not want that to be the fate of people who had been important to me.
So for my 70th birthday and the year following, I met with 44 people individually to express what they had meant to me in my life. That was a profound life experience and inspired my first book.
A Friend’s Wish and a Living Tribute
It was a short time after that, that a very dear friend of mine named Denny reminded me that he wanted a really nice party after he departed. Now Denny was one of the most optimistic and positive people I’ve ever met in my life. I said, “Denny, wouldn’t you want to be at the party?” He looked at me and said, “Walter, that’s not how it works.”
I said, “Denny, how it works makes, it makes no sense. Now you’re going to be 75 shortly, Denny, so why don’t you take out the list of the people you’re going to invite and invite them to a birthday party? If you invite them to the birthday party, I’ll do the celebration of life.” We had a deal.
We had a fantastic birthday party. The tributes paid to Denny were heartwarming and is not customary in our society. He heard the importance that he had to people who mattered in his life. It was a living tribute that so few people get to hear because they’re gone.
Sadly, Denny died a year and a half later. I had that celebration of life for him that I said I would. We invited many of the same people. We were honoring the same man. The first event, that was joyful. This one was sad. It was, we were all conscious that Denny wasn’t there, but the good news is that we had all expressed to him what he meant to us, and so we had no regrets, no regrets for things that we wish we had said.
The Importance of Expressing Gratitude Now
Say It Now is about the power of expressing gratitude when the person is alive. It doesn’t matter whether you do it one-on-one, or whether you write a letter, or whether you gather a community to honor one person. It doesn’t matter how. It matters now.
It was William James who said that the deepest principle in human nature, and William James was the founder of American psychology in America, he said “the deepest principle in human nature was the craving to be appreciated.” The craving to be appreciated. And all too often, we don’t know our impact on others. So if they don’t express it to us, we will never know.
The Evolution of Technology and Living Tributes
The evolution of technology makes it very easy for us to stay connected around the world. Literally, with a click of a button, and almost no cost, we can gather a group and have a living tribute. With that in mind, I want to ask you two questions. First, is there somebody who’s had a profound influence on your life who’s still alive? The second question is, if something happened unexpectedly to that person, would you have regrets for things you wish you had said?
Now picture being able to say it now to that person. You’d be able to tell them their impact on your life, and you will never have a regret for something you wish you had said. And he or she is the recipient of being acknowledged and knowing that they made a difference in your life.
The Unpredictability of Life
Life is always unpredictable. The COVID crisis demonstrated that to us. Over one million people in the United States lost their lives unexpectedly and abruptly. Can you imagine if those people had heard us say it now, to know that they had made a difference in so many people’s lives? Can you imagine the friends and family who would have been able to tell them their lives had mattered, and they wouldn’t have had any regrets for things they wish they had said?
The Vision for Say It Now
You know, a friend of mine asked me recently, “Walter, what’s your long-term vision for Say It Now?” I said, it’s actually happening right now. The program is in all 50 states. It’s in 15,000 classrooms in 67 countries around the world. And it’s growing by the minute. This year we’re expecting 1 million expressions of gratitude to parents, and teachers, and coaches, spouses, friends, and grandparents.
And now, this is your moment.