This is my cousin. He names himself Lucky. He is autistic. If you directly translate autism from Chinese it is called ‘self-closed’. People who are autistic close themselves from the outside world. They don’t do eye contact. They don’t like people to touch them. They don’t know how to express themselves with language. It is very difficult for them to communicate with people. Me and Lucky are both the only child in our family, because of the one-child policy. Our families are very close to each other, so we are lucky we could grow up together. How is it like to grow up with an autistic person? [The kind who almost put a pillow over your face last night] This is how I feel most of the time. (Laughter) Imagine if your roommate was Sheldon Cooper, and with a new response. You have no idea where he hides them, and when they’re going to explode. My cousin has his own sitting spot, just like Sheldon. If you touched it, you were in big trouble. He’ll scream at you and he’ll scrub with a wet tissue. He’ll scream at you and he’ll scrub the cushion with a wet tissue over and over again. So when things like this happened, I always tried to explain to him, “It’s not a big deal.” Or I tried to educate him. People need to share, become unselfish. But it always ended up with a big fight. And he sometimes even kicked me or himself. I was feeling really frustrated with that. Sometimes I feel I was just hurt. I was trying my best to help him, but he couldn’t understand it. We had lived together for over 10 years, and then I moved to another city to study and work. My work is to help expats have an easier life in China. One day I got a request: “Hi Gracie. Can you find me someone to clean my apartment like a 5-Star hotel, and speaks good English?” My first reaction was, “Oh my God, she’s so high-maintenance!” (Laughter) How can I find someone like that? Who would be a cleaning lady at your place, if she knows the 5-Star hotel standards and speaks good English. It’s common sense. It’s impossible. Then I realized I was wrong. I had lived in this country for over 20 years. She was only here for 20 days. How would she know? It is common sense for nearly 1.4 billion people. Not for her. And that made me realize I was wrong about my cousin as well. Having an exclusive sitting spot is stupid to me, but very important to him. I would also freak out if someone touched my work files, because they are important to me. So I was trying to make my cousin think the way I think. I was trying to impose my common sense [on] him. I was expecting him to be one of us. I was trying to change him to the person I wanted him to be. So there were too much of me. What if I didn’t have those judgments or expectations? What if I took myself out? Would I still feel the same way? The answer is no. One day, I was in a hurry to the bathroom before a very important meeting. Unfortunately, it was my cousin’s 5th bathroom time. Yeah, he even had six times for using the bathroom. So he stood there and yelled at me, “No, it’s my time!” If it was before, I would be so grumpy and said to him, “I am in a hurry! It doesn’t matter if it’s a couple minutes behind the schedule. You have nothing important to do.” And then we’d keep fighting until I had to get out to a public toilet. But this time I took myself out. There was no me thinking, having a big fussing time, and stupid. There was no me defining his behavior abnormal. So I said to him, “Okay, you go first. I’ll wait.” If it’s too long, I will get out to use the public one. Then he stood there with a quiet face for 10 seconds. He asked me, “Are you really in a hurry?” And I said, “Yes.” You know what? He let me in first. After I was finished, I said to him, “Thank you so much for understanding me. I really appreciate it. I know it was not easy for you.” Then I saw a smile placed on his mouth. I did mean it, and he felt it. I knew he was making such a big effort in those 10 seconds to convince himself. He changed his life plan for me. Of course, I was grateful. From that day, the magic happened. He started to ask me if I needed to use the bathroom before he goes. He started to express his gratitude. He also sometimes apologizes for his misbehavior after he calms down. He changed. He changed on the day I stopped expecting him to change. So it turns out people change when you feel it is okay that they don’t change. People change when they feel they are truly respected, accepted, and loved as who they are right now. So, when you pull out yourself from a relationship, there will be no real expectations, preferences, or judgments. It takes a lot of energy from dealing with your negative emotions. You will start... You will see the... You will start to see the intention behind the behavior, and the energy you save will become the wisdom. It’s like taking off the sunglasses from your eyes. You’ll start to see the world more clearly. It is also like taking off a share from your heart. You’ll start to know more and feel more about yourself. And what you need from outside will get less and less. You’ll find the inner peace and power. You’ll become more and more complete. And that’s when you start to learn how to truly respect, accept, and love someone else. So how do we take ourselves out from a relationship? There are two steps I have been doing. Step 1: be aware of your emotions. Whenever you’re having negative emotions, remind yourself that your own perceptions make you feel this way. If there’s something not going the way you were expecting, and you’re using a way to calm down as a step. Because when you self-observe your emotions, it starts to go away. And then you will be more rational to find out what were you expecting, and why you want it? Step 2: practice step one and you’ll get used to it. (Laughter) With more and more practice, you’ll be amazed how easily you can manage your emotions. And how good a relationship could be with your clients, colleagues, friends, especially family. You always have much more expectations [of] the ones closer to us. That’s why it feels more painful when we think they hurt us. But remember, it’s your own mind to observe yourself not them. We all are living once and life is short. So, I hope we could all have more quality time with the ones you love, instead of wasting it because of incomprehension. I hope we don’t regret when it’s too late. So let’s start now. Set all your expectations overboard and set out into the sea of communication. Leave me on the shore. (Applause)
