Texas State University hosts TEDx event discussing human resilience

By Yaa Antwi

Blog Content Contributor

On Feb. 24th, Texas State University will host a TEDx seminar that covers the importance of maintaining proper care for an individual’s mental health while touching on the numerous difficulties from the last few years.

TEDx, similar to TED talks, is a self-organized event where people come together to share their TED-like experiences. The theme of this year’s panels is “Resolve,” which highlights society’s persistence throughout the last few years.

From the global pandemic to economic uncertainty and human rights protests, society continues to overcome these challenges. These talks will explore ideas and solutions to help individuals transform through local and global obstacles. Key speaker, Nadim Adi, assistant professor in the School of Family and Consumer Science, explains how his TEDx panel explores the importance of self-resilience through small actions.

 “The way we live in our environment plays a huge role, and I think that a lot of people will spend a lot of their lives in an office they don’t like or in spaces they don’t like, and they think they can tough it out,” Adi said. “It impacts your quality of life, and we need guidelines to say how you can fix up your space even if it’s a tiny space. Something as small as painting a wall or painting a picture.”

Achieving these actions requires examining different angles and solutions from one another as a community. The TEDx panels emphasize the importance of finding proper solutions that can help society adapt to different situations.

“As we grow older, we need to come up with novel ways to continue being resilient,” Adi said. “There is cool stuff we are doing as researchers, and you don’t have to come up with something that changes the paradigms of our lives, because we can do things and continue to be successful with small steps.”

Many develop resiliency through a multitude of experiences and lessons. From an individual’s tenacity to their emotional composure, each person holds the power to exhibit determination through persistence. Kendra Marsteller, a Texas State University Police Officer, uses her personal experience in helping her community to push the importance of communal support.

“This year’s focus is on how we can resolve these things,” Marsteller said. “Most of what I’m addressing is the mental health aspect within today’s environment and how to prioritize mental health.”

For individuals to learn the first steps in taking care of their well-being, having tough conversations regarding environmental situations is important. Whether the conversations are about current political issues or individual issues that intertwine with the current environment. Having a community with the proper tools can be beneficial.

“It’s acknowledging resources but also giving options on what you can do as of today,” Marsteller said. “How you can prioritize it in your own life and giving ideas on what one can do to take time out of their day including cost-effective methods.”

Humans display perseverance throughout multiple points in their lives and society’s current circumstances continue to prove this. Events such as TEDx allow for more conversation on how people can take the next step forward.

“I’m hoping people get excited about evidence-based design and mental health research,” Adi said. “If you would like to have a few hours of inspiring talks, TEDx is the place to go.”

The event will take place Feb. 24^th from 12:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Performing Arts Center Recital Hall.  For more information on this event visit https://txstatepresents.universitytickets.com/w/event.aspx?id=4017&p=1