If You Feel Invisible, Like Nobody Cares, STOP and Watch This Video. This powerful advice from Casey Zeman may just change your life.
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00:00And my life right then and there, I just felt like sort of invisible.
00:04When I was a kid, I was probably eight or something like that.
00:09We had a couple of friends who were very cool.
00:11I had a friend named Aaron.
00:13That kid was like the culmination of cool.
00:16He had this tanning cream that his mom, you know, his mom used, and we were like so mesmerized
00:22by it.
00:23I remember one time I was riding my bike outside of Aaron's house.
00:27I was gonna go in just to ask him about trying on some tanning cream, but he wasn't there.
00:33So I actually just walked right in.
00:36I went upstairs to where his mom kept the tanning cream, and I started to put it on,
00:41you know.
00:42I don't know what it was.
00:43I was obsessed with tanning cream.
00:44It was like my visibility paint, right?
00:47I was like finally seeing.
00:49I didn't have a barrier.
00:51I didn't see that I shouldn't be breaking into this house.
00:55While I was putting it on, Aaron's mom came home with their daughters, and they started
01:01coming up the stairs, and I was still in the bathroom when they were coming up the stairs.
01:05And suddenly, the daughters come into their room, and I'm standing in the doorway, and
01:09I'm looking.
01:10I see them, and they're sitting on the bed.
01:13They're all talking about the party that's gonna be happening for Aaron, and I'm just
01:16looking right at them.
01:17I'm like, they don't even see me right now, and it's just this weird thing, like how do
01:21they not see me that I'm right here?
01:25There were those moments where I felt like I didn't really feel like I was visible.
01:30I still did stupid stuff every now and then.
01:33I would do things that were fringe, you know, do things that were acting out, but I didn't
01:38because I had this need for being seen.
01:43I was the guy that would climb the tree, a stupid idea to climb the tree.
01:47I would always do stupid things, or I would like balance myself on the balcony, and I
01:51think all that came to a head when I was at a national park with my friends.
01:58We went into this area of the national park, and they had these rock faces that would slide
02:02down, right?
02:03They had these natural springs at the bottom of different rock faces, and there was one
02:08particular one that I wasn't supposed to go out on, and everyone was like, Casey, don't
02:11go out on it.
02:12Don't go out on it.
02:13And I went out on it, and I stood there, and I was like testing out how I could balance
02:19on this rock, when suddenly I lost my balance, and I started sliding down this big rock face.
02:27At the bottom of the end of the rock face, we didn't know it was there, but this was
02:31all off boundaries, and probably due to the fact that below me was a 200-foot gorge with
02:37stone.
02:38And so as soon as I slid down, I was like, maybe I'll be okay if I just let myself fall
02:44over the edge.
02:45Maybe it's water, right?
02:47I've been so lucky with every stupid thing I've ever done that maybe there's a big body
02:51of water that's going to catch me.
02:54But while I was sliding down, this realization, this fear that this could be my last breath,
02:59this could be it, started overpowering me, and I remember yelling out, help me, help
03:04me, help me, save me.
03:05My wife remembers hearing it, my brother remembers hearing it.
03:08I grabbed like a tuft of grass, and my legs were dangling over.
03:11Somehow, some way, I stopped myself from falling over the edge.
03:15Once I stopped myself, I realized that I would have died, for sure I would have died.
03:21My wife, after it was all done, she was crying, she was scared, and she hit me on the shoulder.
03:28I understood at that point, it was like, my actions matter, my actions can cause a terrible
03:34effect on somebody, that I need to be accountable for every action I take.
03:39And so why don't I make my actions positive and not negative?
03:44And at that moment, I started to try to live a life where I was doing more service than taking.
03:53My wife had always wanted to adopt, and I finally saw myself actually being able to adopt.
03:59The adoption process took a long, long time, it took like three and a half years.
04:02We would go, and we'd have this little apartment that we'd stay in on this big campus where
04:09kids are running around, and it's like, there's no grass, it's dirt and concrete everywhere.
04:13We met our sons for the first time.
04:16They didn't speak any English, this is in Haiti, so they speak Haitian Creole.
04:21When I first met them, they were like two and three, and they were scared, and they
04:26were like, who are these people that are, you know, I mean, they didn't know who we were.
04:31They were just told that we were, that I was their papa.
04:34And so that first moment, I remember just like connecting with them, and the apartment
04:39had a back patio that had bars all around it.
04:43We would just bring food every day to the orphanage, feed our kids, but the sad, super
04:48sad thing was like, our kids, you know, we would have sandwiches, and we'd be in that
04:53back patio, and we'd be eating those sandwiches.
04:56And all the other kids in the orphanage would come to the bars, and they'd put their hands
05:00through the bar wanting the food, because they just didn't get enough food.
05:04So they all put their hands in the bar wanting more food, more food, more food.
05:09I could tell how powerful my kids were going to be, like, it was just an amazing thing.
05:14Like, our sons wanted to share the food with the kids.
05:19Every small action we take has a ripple, right, and it has an effect on people.
05:23If I had just not stopped myself from going over that edge, I would have died.
05:27And that's the strongest experience of realizing that our actions matter, that you can ever
05:33have, right?
05:34If you can stop yourself from death, or stop somebody else from suffering, those are strong,
05:39powerful things that change your perspective on life.
05:43You're going to feel moments where you are misunderstood or not seen at all, and the
05:50thing that you need to understand is that every action, every minute thing you do has
05:54a cause and effect.
05:56And so why don't I make my actions positive and not negative?
06:05I'm not a negative person.
06:08I'm a positive person.
06:11I'm a positive person.
06:14I'm a positive person.
06:17I'm a positive person.
06:20I'm a positive person.
06:23I'm a positive person.
06:26I'm a positive person.
06:29I'm a positive person.
06:34I'm a positive person.