“My father could have been a great comedian but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant and when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
“Fear is going to be a player in your life. But you get to decide how much. You can spend your whole life, imagining ghosts, worrying about your path to the future. But all there will ever be is what’s happening here, and the decisions we make in this moment which are based in either love or fear. So many of us choose our path out of fear disguised as practicality. What we really want seems impossibly out of reach and ridiculous to expect so we never ask the universe for it.”
As graduation season begins again, we felt it would be worthwhile to analyze and respond to another popular commencement address. This week we're looking at Jim Carrey's speech to the 2014 graduating class of the Maharishi University of Management. In this address, he discusses his belief that our choices are generally based in either fear or love. He encourages the graduates to have faith in themselves, to follow their passions in spite of negativity and doubt. He also promotes feelings of connection and urges them to express both their desires and skills without hesitation.
Jim Carrey's commencement address to the Maharishi University of Management's Class of 2014.
An edit of the commencement address set to music and footage.
