Speaker: Louie Schwartzberg
TEDxSF
Date: June 2011
Location: San Francisco, California
Description from TED website:
Nature’s beauty can be fleeting — but not through Louie Schwartzberg’s lens. His stunning time-lapse photography, accompanied by powerful words from Benedictine monk Brother David Steindl-Rast, serves as a meditation on being grateful for every day.

My Review / Notes / Thoughts
This is an extremely moving talk… not that he talks all that much. He showcases a project he’s working on that really makes you stop and think. We are all in a hurry all the time. We fill our days with “busy” and don’t have time to stop and look at the beauty around us … let alone be grateful or thankful for it.
This is certainly a great talk to watch and reflect on for people who are rushed…busy…constantly on the go. I think it’s also a good video for young college students to watch and consider how they are going to conduct themselves in the future. Do they want to be so busy that they can’t enjoy life?
None of us are promised tomorrow.
We don’t want to rush through life and then get to the end and regret that we rushed.
I can certainly see this video being used in the classroom with incoming college students. I can also see it being used with psychology and social work fields of study, as it could be beneficial for them to have to use it with those they will work with. I think it would also work well in a “mental health” or “self-care” module inside any program that is geared towards high-stress careers.
While a discussion forum is one use for this video, I think the most powerful use of this video would be to have students watch it and then reflect on their own lives. Provide them with some prompts, such as:
- How important is it to you to take the time to be grateful for each day?
- What type of habit would you establish in your daily life to cultivate gratefulness in your everyday life?
- What type of impact do you think such a habit would have on your life?
- What type of impact do you think such a habit would have on the lives of those around you?
- How do you think your view on these will change throughout your life?
These are just a few examples… ideas that popped into my head. If you have other prompt ideas, please share! And if you have other ideas for how this video could be used, share that as well!
Until next time … live long, life-learner!