Picture Dictionary & Books : Free for English Learner!

I’ve been acting since I was 11.

But I thought acting was too frivolous and certainly not meaningful.

I came from a family of academics and was very concerned of being taken seriously.

In all seriousness, I believed every one of them.

Their bearing and self-confidence alone seemed the proof of their prophecy where I couldn’t shake my self-doubt.

I got in only because I was famous.

This was how others saw me and it was how I saw myself.

Driven by these insecurities, I decided that I was going to find something to do at Harvard that was serious and meaningful, that would change the world and make it a better place.

At the age of 18, I’d already been acting for 7 years, and assumed I find a more serious and profound path in college.

So freshman fall I decided to take Neurobiology and Advanced Modern Hebrew Literature because I was serious and intellectual.

Needless to say, I should have failed both.

I got Bs, for your information, and to this day, every Sunday I burn a small effigy to the pagan Gods of grade inflation.

But as I was fighting my way through Aleph Bet Yod Y’shua in Hebrew and the different mechanisms of neuro-response, I saw friends around me writing papers on sailing and pop culture magazines, and professors teaching classes on fairy tales and The Matrix.

I realized that seriousness for seriousness’s sake was its own kind of trophy, and a dubious one, a pose I sought to counter some half-imagined argument about who I was.

There was a reason that I was an actor. I love what I do.

And I saw from my peers and my mentors that it was not only an acceptable reason, it was the best reason.

When I got to my graduation, siting where you sit today after 4 years of trying to get excited about something else, I admitted to myself that I couldn’t wait to go back and make more films.

I wanted to tell stories, to imagine the lives of others and help others do the same.

I have found or perhaps reclaimed my reason.

You have a prize now or at least you will tomorrow.

The prize is a Harvard degree in your hand.

But what is your reason behind it?

Now granted these things don’t necessarily help me answer the most common questions I’m asked: What designer are you wearing?

What’s your fitness regime? Any makeup tips?

But I have never since been embarrassed to myself as what I might previously have thought was a stupid question.

Table of Contents