The celebrated comedian and actor Jim Carrey took a moment for some serious reflection while speaking to the graduating class at Maharishi International University in Fairfield, Iowa.
Watch excerpts from Jim Carrey’s speech:
Jim Carrey (b. 1962) is a Canadian American actor, comedian, and producer. Known for his highly energetic slapstick performances, he has been described as one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood.In his commencement address, Carrey encouraged the graduates to ask the universe for big things and make the ’not-so-safe’ choices.
“Now fear is going to be a player in life, but you get to decide how much. You can spend your whole life imagining ghosts, worrying about the pathway to the future, but all it will ever be is what’s happening here, the decisions that we make at this moment, which are based on 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 dare to ask the universe for it.
“My father could have been a brilliant comedian, but he didn’t believe that was possible for him, and so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. When I was 12 years old, they let him go from that safe job, and our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, mainly because you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
