I am not a fan of Straits Times Recruit until recent times. I find that some of their articles are amazing and seem to resonate with me especially as I turn 30 this year. Here is this week's article.
What insights does an actor have to teach a bunch of graduating students about life? Plenty, it seems. Actor Bradley Whitford, who portrays White House deputy chief of staff Josh Lyman on the television series The West Wing, shares six life valuable lessons he learned through acting. Here is an excerpt of the commencement speech he delivered to University of Wisconsin graduates in 2004."The good is that if you keep at it [acting] long enough, you not only get a little better at it- but you begin to see that the process of acting has the potential to show us a little bit about how we might act a little better in out real lives, it comes down to about six basic principles. I call them "Everything I Need to know in Life I Learned on My Way to a Humiliating Audition", and they go like this:
Number One: Fall in love with the process and the results will follow. You have got to want to want to act more than you want to be an actor. You got to want to whatever you want to do more than you want to be whatever you want to be, you want to write more than you want to be a writer want to heal more than you want to be a doctor, want to teach more than you want to be a teacher, want to serve more than you want to be a politician. Life is too challenging for external rewards to sustain us. The joy is in the journey.
Number Two: Very obvious- do your work. When faced with the terror of an opening night on Broadway, you can either dissolve in a puddle of fear or you can get yourself ready. Drown out your inevitable self-doubt with the work that needs to be done. Find the joy in the process of preparation.
Number Three: Once you're prepared, throw your preparation in the trash. The most interesting acting and the most interesting living in this world has the element of surprise and of genuine, honest discovery. Be open to that. You've all spent the majority of your lives in school, where your work is assigned to you and you're supposed to please your teachers.
The pressure to get into wonderful institutions like this is threatening to create a generation of what I call hiney-kissing requirements- fulfillers. You are all so much more than that. You've reached the wonderful and terrifying moment where you must be your own guide. Listen to the whispers inside you. We have a lot of problems in this world and we're going to need you to think outside the box.
Number Four: You are capable of more than you think. If you've ever smashed a mosquito on your arm, there is a murderous Richard III inside you. If you're ever caught your breathe at the sight of someone dipping their toes into Lake Mendota in the late afternoon sun over at the Union, you, too, have Romeo's fluttering heart.
Don't limit yourselves. Take it from the professional extrovert - the most gregarious among us are far more insecure than we would ever admit. We all go through life bristling at our external limitations, but the most difficult chains to break are inside of us.
One of the few graduation speakers who will never be forgotten, Nelson Mandela, put it this way:
"Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, " Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. You are playing small doesn't serve the world."
Number Five: Listen. It is the most difficult thing an actor can do and it is the most riveting. You can't afford to spend your life like a bad actor stumbling through a predetermined performance that is oblivious to the world around you. We can't afford it either. Listening isn't passive. It is an act of liberation that will connect you to the world with compassion and be your best guide as you navigate the choppy waters of love, work and citizenship.
Number Six: Take action. Every story you've ever connected with, every leader you have ever admired, every puny little thing that you ever accomplished is the result of taking action. You have a choice. You can either be a passive victim of of circumstance or you can be the active hero of your own life. Action is the antidote to apathy and cynicism and despair. You will inevitably make mistakes. Learn what you can an move on. At the end of your days, you will be judged by your gallop, not by your stumble.
You will go out into a world we could not have imagined four years ago. Ominous threats seek to distract us from achieving our spectacular potential as individuals, as a nation and as a delicate, shrinking planet. We need you.
Come as you are, armed with nothing more than the tools of a mediocre television actor. All we need is for you to find you joy in your journey, to find satisfaction in hard work, to be aware and listen, and finally, to act- not to play make believe. This isn't a television show. The choices are difficult and the consequences are real.
I want you to be an actor in your own life. Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever you beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen- yourself, right now, right down here on Earth"
