 Anxiety. It is defined as an emotion characterized by feelings of tension, worry thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure and shortness of breath. Now feelings of anxiety are normal and we've all experienced it at one time or another, be it during your first test or competition or maybe you're anxious, walking down a dark hallway or walking into a room with your peers or maybe you're anxious at home. Give me your first kink top. Yeah, those feelings are bound to come and go. They're temporary. But imagine if those feelings during those temporary moments weren't so temporary. Imagine that they grow into a consistent worry and fear becoming an ongoing and underlying part of your life. Now in checked over time these can develop into anxiety disorders, which are much more common than you think with over 40 million adults in the US suffering from one of these anxiety disorders listed here. And that's a bit more than 18% of our population. And that trend is only increasing globally. The WHO reports that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health disorders worldwide with one in 13 people globally suffering from anxiety. Now more specifically, Dr. Benny Pine of the Child Mind Institute of National Institute of Mental Health told NPR reporters that one in five children will experience some kind of clinical level anxiety by the time they're adolescents, one in five. That's like if you were to look down at your feet and look at your toes. One of those little piggies is going to therapy. Now for me, I literally need to start my speech by saying the word anxiety because I've realized that without identifying what I'm going through it's almost impossible for me to move ahead. Now that idea is echoed in a quote by the head of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study Dean Tomaco Brown-Nagin who said that we must reckon with this reality before we begin to move ahead. Now she said this during a discussion about a similarly pervasive issue in America and I'm going to give you guys a couple of seconds to just drop in the chat what you think she was talking about. But if you cheated and looked ahead at my title of my speech, you'll already know that she was talking about racism and how embedded it is in American life. Now we're going to get back to the idea of racism, but this is important here because researchers have shown that anxiety disorders are in part correlated to several early and often underdressed negative childhood experiences. Now one influential experience from my childhood that took time for me to reckon with was the experience I had at Logos and how it differed from my elementary school experiences in Clarkson. Now Logos, if you don't know, was a weekly after-school program in my predominantly white Presbyterian church in Tucker, Georgia, and as you can see it's only about 15 minutes away from my elementary school area at Clarkson. Now a quick Google search will show you that Clarkson is known as the Ellis Island of the South and the most diverse square mile in the US. It's a town of 13,000 with 40 different nationalities speaking 60 different languages. Clarkson was a place where my family, refugees from Nigeria, could feel seen and valued because here we were all refugees and immigrants and even if you weren't, it's likely that your neighbor was. But when I would step outside of my mom's car every Wednesday to go to Logos, I knew that I had to prepare myself for different expectations and perceptions because none of the other kids there look like me. Now, let me be clear, I don't want to allude to my Logos peers as being racist or bullies in comparison to my Clarkson people because in fact, they were my friends. And we played and ate together like all kids did. But it was in this space, I was always conscious that I was an outsider and other, and that inexplicably came with the feeling that who I was didn't matter as much as what others thought of me, or how they viewed me, both the kids and the adults. Not rarely do you consider the racial biases of children and how those ideas might impact their peers but did you know that infants can differentiate between races. And by the time they're to they've been able to use racial categories to reason about people's behaviors and by the time kids are three to five, they're expressing bias based on race. Now, I didn't really need these stats growing up because well, I was black, and I was just hyper aware that I was different constantly feeling observed and perceived a certain way because of my race and nationality. It made every decision that I made at Logos feel that much more important. I felt that to them, I was a black Nigerian representative, a simple, my small actions would ripple defining their ideologies of an entire race from classes to sports, I would worry about how my actions would rub against their own perceptions. I could be played any games together, I would not only worry about my team, but I'd also worry that the other team would think it was unfair that my team got the black guy. And I was worried that they hate me for it. The amount of times a younger lessee would let my Logos friends do things like be me in a foot race or say that I was struggling more in school just so that they could have the feeling and elation of having done better than me and something is something that I reflect on often. I feel a complicated pity for the already DEI concern younger me but childhood experiences like those wouldn't constant fear of being other than perceived differently developed into what my first psychiatrist explained was social anxiety. Now, unfortunately, this problem is much bigger than me and my singular experience serves as a scarily accurate reflection of larger American society where those who feel or perceived as differently are largely left to fend for themselves. Rather than society reckoning with their mistreatment of others. It's those who have been mistreated who are perpetually doomed to combat society's negative perceptions. Now a story in this same vein but often left untold is that of the immortal Dr Martin Luther King Junior, who tried to cut his own life short twice before the age of 13. A legend, even as great as he suffered from bouts of poor mental health and we still don't discuss this as a community. Even after his childhood suicide attempts during his rise to prominence as they am okay that we know today, he still felt the need to hide his mental health struggles because of fears of how you perceived by the very community he was aiming to say, we have failed to reckon with that reality. And it is difficult to address issues we can't properly identify my feeling of being other wasn't something that I could properly face without identifying the anxiety associated with it. Now not only did it take identifying but reckoning with that reality and realizing that if left unchecked, it will continue to grow into a heavier burden. Now this is similar to racism in this country. Racism is a pervasive and underlying issue that severely impacts how many people live their daily lives, and much like anxiety, the prevalence of racism must be something that we as a country begins to truly reckon with. It means properly identifying what it looks like in our daily lives, what institutions has been pervasive in and agreeing to no longer leave it unchecked. If we can't reckon with the reality of our current situation as a nation. A nation where, despite the progress it's made since Dr King has seen racially motivated hate crimes against minorities rise within the last few years. A nation where anxiety and depression are growing despite widespread discussions about mental health. And if we can't sit down as people and as a nation and begin to truly come to terms with our reality. Let me risk being forever stagnant way down from our past while attempting to propel into our future. I believe that a cultural reckoning is necessary. And the first steps to solving any problem is recognizing that there is one. And so we need to look inward and see how negative experiences in our past have shaped our perception of those around us influenced our actions and ultimately halted our progress. So, if that is the first step then what should we do next. After reckoning with our own personal reality and the reality of this nation. How do we move ahead to build a better tomorrow. If there was an infallible answer I'm certain Dr King would have yelled it from that famous mountain top however, I do have a suggestion for how we should start. And that is to namely use our lived experiences your stories both the good and the bad to inspire those around me so that they may have the tools to create a better reality to. Now, what does that look like. In my previous experiences at logos and others have helped shape my current path, turning it into an almost cathartic journey of realization and purpose. I've learned to channel who I am, what has shaped me anxieties and all into the beginnings of a career focused on creating interventions for children, in that improving their mental and physical health, especially those in minority groups like myself. My experiences may not be the same as yours. But I hope that I have inspired you all to understand that the uniqueness of each and every one of our live experiences provides us all with the knowledge and wisdom to help those around us. We all have overcome hurdles and obstacles in our lives that we wouldn't wish on others. So it is our responsibility to make sure that we can improve the circumstances of our community and of our nation. And while my charge is for all of us to pour into others it is equally important to ensure that you keep your own cup full as well. In order to move ahead and build the prosperous and equitable nation that Dr King and vision, we must have the resources to reckon with the reality of our present. Now dealing with anxiety, racial inequalities, traumas, these can be hard. And if you need some support, here are a few tools to help with mental health and wellness. Now as we get ready to listen to the remainder of these incredible talks today and then you go on to live your individual lives. I challenge you all to simply remember that our past does not define us. However, our presence does as individuals and as a nation. But if we can properly use our presence to better understand the underlying influences of our past, then I believe that we can build a better future. Thank you.