“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” – Jim Carrey
I was recently watching a commencement address that Jim Carrey gave at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Iowa. I was compiling motivational clips to use for an end of the year activity for my students.
You can view the part of the speech I showed my students here:
The quote that I already mentioned really spoke to me. “You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.” – Jim Carrey
He was explaining how his father could have been an excellent comedian, but he never took the risk to attain that goal. Instead, he became an accountant, which was the “safe” route for his life.
Carrey goes on to explain that despite having chosen this safe path, his father still ended up being fired. He had still failed. Thus, his advice to the graduates is to take chances with achieving their dreams since they can fail in the process, but they can also fail in other careers that they are less interested in.
As a teacher, I have to determine when to push students’ dreams and when to bring them back down to reality. Usually I want to help them to achieve their goals, but some of them are simply unrealistic. The boys who play some pickup basketball around the neighborhood and expect to be in the NBA even though they’ve never played for the high school team. The student who wants to be a famous YouTuber despite not having any YouTube videos nor the necessary equipment to make them. The girl who fails every class, but says that she is going to become a surgeon.
I don’t want to crush dreams, but I also don’t want my students wasting tuition money for unlikely careers. Yet at the same time, I have students who have dreams but are afraid to actually try to attain them.
They may not all end up in their dream jobs, but if they don’t try, they may always wonder what could have been.
I was fortunate to know what I wanted to do very early on in my life. In 8th grade I decided to become and English teacher and I stuck with it. I have been a high school English teacher for the past six years and I can honestly say that I love my job. I don’t ever dread waking up for work. After long breaks, I really start to miss my students and I feel excitement about going to see them and hear about their vacations.
And ultimately, that’s what I want for my students. I want them to be able to carve out paths for themselves that enable them to find careers that they will enjoy and prosper in. Too many people have jobs that they hate. Many of these people are in these situations because they took the safe route. They settled for mediocrity and gave up on their dreams.
Most people will work for 30-40 years of their life. I cannot imagine having a job that I despise, or even one that I am indifferent toward, for that many years. I am so grateful that I am not in that sort of a position.
We must take chances in order to find fulfillment in life. I had to take the leap of faith that required me to quit my job in Connecticut, moving away from all of my family and friends to follow my dreams of living by the ocean. And now here I am, living steps away from the beach, working at a school where my classroom window overlooks the ocean.
I didn’t get here right out of college, as I had planned. I taught in Connecticut for 5 years before making the jump. But now I’m here, doing exactly what I want to be doing.
I hope that be telling my own story, I can help my students to realize that they are capable of achieving many of their dreams as well. I didn’t have my life handed to me on a silver platter, but I worked to get where I am. And I know that they can do the same, if they have the courage and willpower. They need to take the chance to do what they love.
Peppermintfrost 