Find Your Voice

So for the first time in a while, I think I want to approach a more philosophical topic. So much of what we say and do is influenced by other people, whether we admit it or not. There are the people who teach us, the people who inspire us, the people who we despise, and the people we love. They have all played a part in making us who we are. Take me for example.

My high school Track and Football coach, Kenny Simpson, taught me so much. He taught me how to keep trying, and how to deal with life when you know you've not reached your full potential. He taught me how to lead, not by the words I say but by my work ethic. And he taught me economics. That last one may not seem deep, but the skills I learned in his class helped me land my job last summer, and I'm sure will keep me from ever investing money in the stock market.

There are a lot of famous people who's careers I want, but a person who really inspires me is Johnny Depp. I watched his interview with 'Inside the Actor's studio' and learned a good bit about his life and how he got there. It certainly wasn't by what could be called conventional means, but he got their by being true to himself and doing the things he loved. If I can say that about my life at the end, it won't matter if I've won a Tony or spent my life living in a cardboard box. Whenever Nathan or Sawyer or any of my friends ask me how Auburn is going, I simply reply "Living the dream". Because amidst all the madness, self doubt, self pity, and fear, I am doing what I love and making a difference in the lives of my audiences, and that's all I could ever want.

There's not a long list of people I despise, but I have a list. However, everyone on that list has still taught me a great deal about myself. They've taught me how to soldier on when people start piling lies onto you. They've taught me that not everyone will believe in me or who I am, and that it is ok for someone somewhere to think I'm awful. I don't think I'm getting this out right, but I'm just trying to say what I feel. That old saying about fooling some of the people some of the time fits pretty well here, in its own way. Or one of my favorite sayings that I picked up from a commercial: 'No rain, no rainbows.' Even the people we wish weren't in our lives or that we had never met have taught us to survive, be strong in ourselves, and remember that sometimes you just can't make people believe.

Finally, there's the people we love. Love is an overused and misunderstood word in our culture. What exactly is love? Now, any 'christian' will start quoting Paul and his whole list of traits. But, let me take a line from Pirates here,

"What is a ship? It's not a sail, or a keel, or a hull; those are things a ship needs. But what a ship is, what a ship REALLY is....is freedom."

Love is NOT patient, love is NOT kind, love does NOT not boast; those are things love needs. But what love is, what love really is....is freedom. The freedom to be yourself with someone and know that you are safe. The freedom to be open to so much pain it might destroy you and going on. And, perhaps most important of all, it is improvisational. It is in the moment, just like good acting. You can talk the talk and prep all you want, but you still have to be active and present in the moment with your partner.

So I say all that to say this. We live and learn. That's the beauty of being human, we have a chance to wake up and start anew everyday with everything you learned yesterday. As we age and mature, we are constantly seeking our own voice in the midst of all this. We yearn for the chance to be heard, for our opinion to matter, and to make a difference. We strive to make an impact in the lives of everyone; our teachers, our mentors, our enemies and our friends. Above all, we want that pat on the head. We want to be told that we are right and feel that we are right and now that we are right. And that is something that we seldom get. More often than not we are riddle with doubt, and curiously searching for that special something that will make our lives whole. Little did we know it's been there all along! Your voice, your heart, your life are all made up of the parts of the people who matter most, the people who you want (or want not) to be. Your voice is everything you want and nothing you don't. It is YOUR truth, and in this world that is the only thing you really have. There is so much we're not told, so much that we can't and won't know (if you want an example....think about Mongolia. How much do you know? How much will you ever know? But how much of it influences our world? Or think about how much our government doesn't tell us that we take for granted). In the wise words of the character Gregory House, "I choose to believe this life is not a test."

Believe in who you are and what you do...because the things people believe about you will change faster than the weather. You, however, will always be you. And someday, if you're lucky, you'll find someone to spend your life with for whom you is enough.