How Unexpected Experiences Change Your Life
Author Matthew Emerzian takes the seemingly simple premise of “You Matter” and shows readers how truly understanding their own worth will change every aspect of their lives. His book, You Matter, is a call to empathy and a joyous celebration of the value of each and every person.
Matthew Emerzian
The following is an excerpt from Matthew Emerzian’s book “You Matter”.
Pulling up to the arrivals area at any terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) is slightly dangerous and very annoying. The only way to describe it is “too many people and cars in too small of a space.” This formula has never been my favorite, hence the reason I leave concerts before the final encore. That very last song is never worth the hour stuck in a parking lot, in my opinion.
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What made this trip to LAX even more adventurous was that I had never met the person I was picking up. We had spoken on the phone a few times, but never met. Her name is Dr. Tererai Trent, and her story is one for the ages.
From the pictures and videos I saw of her online, I knew I was picking up someone larger than life.
I am because of you. We are because of we. We matter.
As I came back around on my ten-minute loop of LAX, I immediately spotted Tererai. There she stood in her traditional Zimbabwean headdress and dress. The colors were magnificent—different patterns going different directions and creating a persona of power, style, and courage. I pulled my car right up in front of her and jumped out to meet her.
We only had a few hours to spend together before Tererai needed to return to the airport, so we went to a nearby hotel lobby, grabbed a table, and dove into conversation right away. It’s amazing how within just moments I felt like I had known Tererai my entire life. It also felt like she had been alive for thousands of years, not because of her physical appearance, but because of her wisdom and the way she spoke. Her Zimbabwean accent was super thick as she rolled her R’s and shifted the pronunciation of certain words. Her cadence was one of southern gospel preacher, almost as if every word carried with it animation and life.
She was spellbinding.
Tererai grew up in the village of Zvipani in Zimbabwe. Unlike her brother, she was not allowed to get an education. Their culture believed that girls are for getting married and having babies, while boys are to become men and the breadwinners. Tererai shared with me that she would borrow her brother’s books and try to learn at home on her own because she knew she would need to be educated to create a life for herself. She clearly had that desire for something more in her at a young age. When Tererai was just thirteen years old, her father sold her as a child bride in return for a cow, and by the age of eighteen, she already had three children.
Years later, Tererai met the leader of international affairs at Heifer International, a global nonprofit committed to ending poverty and hunger. Tererai was asked what her dreams were, and she shared that she wanted to move to America, get a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, and eventually a PhD. Her fifth and final dream was to then return to her village to build a school for girls and women.
Tererai’s mother told her that if she wrote her dreams down on a piece of paper and buried them in the ground, her dreams would grow to become true.
Her mother could not have been more correct. In her young thirties, Tererai moved to America and pursued and achieved all of her education goals. Her only remaining dream was to return and build the school, which became a reality when she appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show, and Oprah offered her $1.5 million to go back and build her school.
With my jaw on the ground in that airport hotel lobby, I struggled with what to say back to her. I knew there was something special about Tererai, but I wasn’t exactly expecting that story. What a spirit. What a soul.
After sharing my story with her, Tererai sat for a moment and then said, “This is why we are supposed to meet. You spend your days trying to help everyone know that they matter.” The way she said “they matter” was so profound.
She continued, “That I matter. That you matter. That we all matter. This is the same belief system that many of us in the African culture believe. It’s called Ubuntu.”
“Ubuntu means that ‘I am through you.’ That ‘we are because of each other,’” she explained. “That my existence only matters through yours and vice versa. This is precisely your same message. It’s so beautiful.”
Our two hours together flew by in a minute. It was time to return Tererai to the airport, but we both knew this was just the beginning of something special.
They helped me see that it’s possible to have relatively nothing, by our materialistic standards, yet still be filled with joy, faith, and trust in a beautiful life.
Years prior to meeting Tererai, whom I now call “Vitamin T,” I got the privilege of experiencing the African culture through the lives to two young boys. As part of my recovery from anxiety and depression, Denise also encouraged me to develop my faith. Armenia is said to be the first Christian nation. It is even believed that Noah’s Ark is somewhere on a mountainside in Armenia to this very day.
But I grew up in a family that believed in loving our neighbors and doing unto others as you would have others do unto you simply because it was the right way to live, not because of our religion.
As part of understanding what it meant to live a life that was not about me, Denise wanted me to look even bigger.
I started going to church and reading the Bible and books by Wayne Dyer, the 14th Dali Lama, Desmond Tutu, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, and so many other great spiritual and inspirational teachers. A big aspect of all of this exploration was that it started to allow me to surrender my need for control and to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe something bigger than me was in control here.
It also grounded me and reconnected me to humanity.
Anxiety and depression had shrunk my life so much that I felt completely alone and disconnected from everyone and everything. These learnings helped me feel like part of a larger fabric—the exact message behind Ubuntu and “We Matter.”
One Sunday, at church, I saw a posting in the café that read chaperones needed. A children’s choir from Uganda was coming to Los Angeles, and they needed hosts to take care of some of the children while in town. I signed up immediately and couldn’t wait for the arrival of the new houseguests.
Two short months later, I drove to the church to meet my new friends, Joseph and Edwin. The boys were five and seven years, respectively, and were both orphans, having lost their families to civil war and the HIV epidemic. I also was assigned one of the adult leaders from the choir, whom they called “Uncle.”
I spent five beautiful days with my guests, showing them the sights and sounds of Los Angeles. It was clearly something they were not accustomed to—the bright lights, massive portions of food, movie theaters, and all the hustle and bustle of people and automobiles. But they loved every second of it, which was amazing for me to experience.
He was a dancing machine, and every single time I saw him dancing, I smiled and felt an overwhelming sense of joy.
Toward the end of their stay with me, I gave the two boys T-shirts that said you matter on them, and then asked if they knew what that meant. Of course we had some language barriers and cultural differences, so I needed to help the boys understand the context a little bit. Once they seemed to grasp it, I asked them, “Why do you matter?” Joseph said, “I matter because I love to dance and it makes people happy.” Yes, he did. Joseph danced nonstop for the six days I was with him. He danced at dinner, while he brushed his teeth, while we watched TV. He was a dancing machine, and every single time I saw him dancing, I smiled and felt an overwhelming sense of joy. Edwin then shared, “I matter because one day I am going to change my country.”
Again, these boys were five- and seven-year-old orphans, yet they were so in touch with why they mattered. Maybe it was my first exposure to Ubuntu, because in that moment I then reflected on how I would answer that question—a question I had never asked myself or anyone else before.
I am because of you. We are because of we. We matter.
Tererai, Joseph, and Edwin all had a profound impact on my life. They helped me see even greater interconnectedness in the world. That life truly is a “WE” thing, even when the “WE” is on the opposite side of world. Tererai went on to become Oprah’s favorite guest of all time, to write three books, and to share her story on stages all over the world, to truly create a world of we.
For Joseph and Edwin, I was supposed to be the one blessing them that week, but in the end, it was they who brought me so much joy and caused me to reflect on my own life. They helped me see that it’s possible to have relatively nothing, by our materialistic standards, yet still be filled with joy, faith, and trust in a beautiful life. But most significantly of all, they also introduced me to Patty. For it was at the merchandise table after their concert that I bought an African necklace and gave it to this beautiful woman standing next to me with whom I have now spent the past ten years of my life.
“Hi, I’m Matt. I bought this for you.”
“Hi, I’m Patty.”