6
“Hassan?” Professor Ismat called out as she put her purse down.
“Yes Professor, I’m here,” replied a surprisingly confident voice from the corner.
Hassan stood up in his seat, picked up his notes from the desk, and walked to the front of the classroom where Professor Ismat was standing.
“Students, Hassan volunteered to share with us Jim Carrey’s story,” said Professor Ismat as she gave Hassan a warm smile. “As you requested, I have added the slides to my deck,” she continued, handing over the clicker to Hassan and heading to sit in his seat. I had never heard Hassan deliver a presentation, so I was naturally curious how this was going to play out.
Everyone turned their eyes to Hassan. For a minute, I thought he would fumble. A few seconds passed. Nothing happened.
We looked at the Professor to see whether she would do something. She refused to intervene and kept looking at Hassan with a confident smile.
Hassan looked down for a moment, raised his head, and then smiled. It felt as if he had finally come unto his own. With a renewed sense of confidence, he raised his notes in front of him and began to read.
“James Eugene Carrey,” said Hassan clearing his throat.
His voice was calm and confident.
“James Eugene Carrey, otherwise known as Jim Carrey, is a Canadian American actor, comedian, writer, and artist who first gained acclaim for playing lead roles in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Mask, and Dumb and Dumber. Today, Carrey has countless awards to his name. He’s considered the epitome of what’s funny in American culture, shaping countless narratives with his incredibly popular roles,” added Hassan as he paused to ask the class a question.
“How many of you first heard about Jim Carrey because of The Mask?” he asked.
A few dozen hands shot up, giving Hassan the confidence to continue.
“Good. However, most of us don’t know what it took for Carrey to get to that point. Not many people are aware that in his early years at school, Carrey was quiet and didn’t have many friends. He was kind of like me, you know,” he added with a smile, not at all apologetic for who he was.
There was a sense of inner confidence in Hassan that I had never witnessed before.
“Growing up in poverty, Carrey was forced to get an afterschool factory job at the age of 12. When he was 14, his father lost his job and his family had to live in a Volkswagen van on a relative’s lawn. According to Carrey, his father’s failure taught him a valuable lesson,” continued Hassan, pressing the clicker hoping it would work.
The projector screen lit up.
“You can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”
Confident that the class was following him, Hassan turned to the next page of his notes and continued.
“The actor we know today actually did multiple stints as a security guard and janitor. However, he didn’t let this dampen his dreams. Carrey relentlessly pursued his dream of becoming a comedian in Toronto despite the challenges that he continued to encounter along the way,” added Hassan.
“Moving to Los Angeles to follow his dreams, Carrey was penniless. However, he saw these obstacles as challenges that were testing his resolve. He would drive up to the top of Mulholland Drive in LA every night and visualize what we wanted for himself as an actor. In a 1997 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Carrey shared his approach to dealing with this adversity,” continued Hassan, pressing the clicker again.
“I would visualize things coming to me that I wanted. And I had nothing at that time, but it just made me feel better, at that time all it really was, was kind of just, making me feel better. I would drive home and think ‘well I do have these things, and they’re out there, I just don’t have a hold of them yet, but they’re out there.”
Satisfied that the students were following him, Hassan continued.
“In 1992, Carrey wrote himself a check for $10 million dating it three years in advance for ‘acting services rendered’. Keeping it in his wallet as a reminder, Carrey sincerely believed in his vision and his dream,” added Hassan as he paused and turned to what seemed to be the last page of his notes.
“Eventually, Carrey’s persistence and determination paid off when on Thanksgiving 1995, Carrey received $10 million for the box office hit Dumb and Dumber. Since then, Carrey has gone on to win various awards - People’s Choice, Golden Globes, and Teen Choice Awards just to name a few,” concluded Hassan, as he folded the notes in his hand and made his way towards his seat.
To his surprise and my own, the entire class started applauding. Professor Ismat got up and patted him on the back for a job well done. She took the clicker from Hassan and moved to her usual position at the front of the classroom.
“Children, the reason I asked you to learn about Jim Carrey’s story is not to impress you but to impress upon you that you can do whatever it is that you want to do. You need to recognize the power of your capacity to dream and achieve the goals you set for yourself. Remember what I said, all your dreams can come true, but only and only if you have the courage to pursue them,” emphasized Professor Ismat before continuing.
“Carrey is only one among thousands of individuals who chose to stick to their dream long enough without giving up. They knew that what they were doing brought their life meaning and value and therefore, what the world thought about them or their work didn’t matter. It was a personal responsibility to themselves that these individuals sought to fulfill. As you embark on your own personal journeys, you will have to believe in yourself” she paused, as she took a sip of water.
“Carrey chose to go ahead and believe in himself even when things weren’t right. And guess what? They never will be. You will never be perfect. It will never be perfect. The fact is that regardless of whatever we do, where we do it, or when we choose to start, we will never do it perfectly. When you want something in life, you cannot wait for things to be just right. Things will never be ideal,” stressed Professor Ismat.
“You have to set a dream for yourself and then do what you can with what you have to make your dreams a possibility. As we discussed, all we can do is our best, imperfect as it may be. It is much better to try and reach an imperfect result than to not attempt at all. This is what President Theodore Roosevelt had to say,” continued Professor Ismat as she pressed the clicker.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
A girl in the first row raised her hand and the professor signaled her to continue.
“Professor, how do I know what it is that I can achieve?” she asked earnestly.
The students leaned forward in their seats to pay attention to what Professor Ismat was going to respond. Professor Ismat smiled for a moment and then continued.
“That’s a very insightful question and a wonderful transition to what I want to talk about next. How do you know what’s expected of you?” she asked, pausing for added emphasis.
“To the best of my ability, I can tell you that all that is expected of you is that you do the best that you can do. No one, and I repeat, no one can ask any more of you but that you do your best. And my child, only you know what your best is. That is something that you have to figure out on your own,” she added as the students took notes.
Professor Ismat pressed the clicker.
“All you can do is all you can do and all you can do is enough. But make sure you do all you can do.”
Art Williams
American Billionaire
I continued to expeditiously take notes as Professor Ismat paused to take another sip. All I can do is all I can do, and all I can do is enough, I thought to myself.
“You need to develop the everyday courage to see failure in the eye day in and day out and keep pushing forward. If you change your attitude, you will see that every failure has in it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. I want to repeat, all your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them. Even the Bible teaches us the value of having faith,” she added as she pulled up another slide.
“You must have the faith to call for those things that be not as though they were.”
“Find something that you can contribute to. Find something you can make a difference in because you can. Figure out what you’re called to do on Earth and then do it. Believe that all your dreams can come true regardless of all the obstacles that you face. These challenges are nothing but building blocks on your journey that will make you a much stronger person in the pursuit of your dreams,” stressed Professor Ismat.
“Now some of you may ask how long you have to work to achieve success or as I like to call it, personal greatness,” she said with a smile.
“Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian lawyer and anti-colonial nationalist who brought the mighty British Empire to its knees, once said that you should live as if you were to die tomorrow and you should learn as if you were to live forever! The journey for personal greatness is an ongoing process; it never ends!” exclaimed Professor Ismat as she paused to take another sip.
“Despite all the ideas you come across during our time together, it will not change your life permanently. It will put you on the right path but to become the best you can be, you have to continuously learn and grow. Repetition is your friend,” she stressed.
“Like the great abolitionist Abraham Lincoln, you have to develop a ‘love for knowledge and an insatiable appetite for learning’. You have to believe as Lincoln did: ‘I will study and prepare myself and perhaps my time will come’” said Professor Ismat as she slowed down, cognizant that students were diligently taking notes.
I barely had time to look up at her myself as I filled page after page of my notepad.
“You must read all the books you possibly can. Continuously expose yourself to ideas that challenge your thinking. Know what you don’t know. Brick by brick, you will begin to see the transformation within yourself. Opportunity waits for no man or woman. It is worth paying the price for your development today or you will pay twice later in the form of missed opportunities. Remember, a life of discipline is always better than a life of regret,” repeated the professor before pulling up a slide formatted slightly different than her original style.
“It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.”
Whitney Moore Young Jr.
Civil Rights Leader
“The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.”
Malcolm X
Minister and Human Rights Activist
Professor Ismat put her bottle down before continuing.
“According to Tony Robbins, world-class life coach, author, and philanthropist, life change comes down to this - you must raise your standards. It’s about turning your ‘shoulds’ into ‘musts’. Whether it’s earning more money, losing more weight, or having a better relationship, Robbins goes on to say that people rarely accomplish their ‘shoulds’ but they absolutely accomplish their ‘musts’,” she continued.
“If something is a must for you, you will accomplish it no matter what. According to Robbins, human beings absolutely follow through on who they believe they are! What do you believe is possible for you?” asked Professor Ismat before pulling up another slide.
“The strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.”
Tony Robbins
“You will never be able to overcome the constraints you put on yourself. If you want to change your life, you must raise your standards and believe that you have what it takes to succeed. Believe that whatever you want to achieve is possible for you and that you will do no matter what it takes to accomplish it. If you argue for your limitations, you get to keep them,” she emphasized.
Do you know the story of Roger Bannister?” asked the Professor as the class stayed silent.
“For years, experts believed that the human body was simply not capable of running a 4-minute mile. According to them, it was not only dangerous but also impossible for a human to achieve this feat. People had tried and failed for at least a thousand years to break this barrier and when the mile record for pushed to 4:01 in the 1940s, it stood there for 9 years. Almost all runners accepted that the experts were right; the human body had reached its limit,” said Professor Ismat as she paused, adding to the suspense.
“But on May 6th, 1954, Roger Bannister broke the impossible 4-minute barrier. However, what’s remarkable about this story is that within two years of this accomplishment, 37 other people ran the 4-minute mile! When no one in history had ever done it! Today, even high-school children have run 4-minute miles! Now, what happened? It was all about the power of belief and what the human mind believes is possible,” stressed Professor Ismat.
“Now, many of us get easily distracted by everything that is available to us today. According to author and speaker Eric Thomas, we must distinguish the wheat from the chaff. We need to identify the things that are adding value in our lives and the things that aren’t and then consciously choose to focus on the former. In his words, ‘don’t let the distractions distract you’. He goes on to illustrate the power of focus through an example,” continued Professor Ismat before pressing the clicker.
“If you hit an oak tree a thousand times in a thousand different spots, what’s going to happen? Absolutely nothing. But if you hit an oak tree a thousand times in the exact same spot, you know what’s going to happen. You’re going to bring it down; you’re going to do the impossible.”
“Don’t spread yourself too thin; there is only so much energy that you have. Here is Tony Robbins again,” added the professor as she pulled up another slide.
“One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”
“The world is full of distractions; your generation perhaps knows that better than I do,” added Professor Ismat with a smile. Our times were simpler when there wasn’t so much going on,” she continued with a soft chuckle.
“But, if we want to get ahead, we need to consciously focus on the things that will help us get towards our goals and ignore everything else. Don’t let anyone disturb your peace of mind or as we talked about earlier, your tranquility. Recognize that there will be distractions, but you have the power within you to be stronger than your circumstances. Nothing has the power to truly harm you if you don’t let it. You should listen to what the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius said hundreds of years ago,” she continued.
“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”
As I read the quote, I wondered how different my life would be if I adopted this practice. I imagined what my daily interactions with other people would look like. And reading this quote, it began to seem as if my problems weren’t that new or different after all. Many had faced similar problems before me, and many would continue to after me.
“It is a hefty price to pay but if it was easy, everyone would do it. As it’s said, if you don’t sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice. At the stage of life you’re in, many temptations keep tugging at you. How many of you know the business magnate Warren Buffet?” she asked.
A few students raised their hands.
“This is what Buffet, widely considered one of the most successful investors in the world, has to say about distractions,” continued the professor.
“The most dangerous distractions are the ones you love, but that don’t love you back.”
“Focus your energy on one thing and make it your priority. Your focus will more often than not determine your reality. A laser-like focus on achieving your goals gives you power. Once you focus on what you want, what you don’t want will automatically wither and disappear. It might seem hard risking everything on a single thing but that’s how true greatness is achieved,” said Professor Ismat as she pulled up another slide with more text than usual.
“I don’t care how much power, brilliance, or energy you have. If you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there, you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants.”
Zig Ziglar
Author
‘The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.’
Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Philosopher and Poet
“I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.”
Bruce Lee
Actor
“Before I move on,” she added. “I want to note that many of these quotes are male-centric which though unfortunate, reflects the state of the world we have been in for some time,” stressed Professor Ismat gravely.
“However, how do you now say it nowadays, ‘the future is female’?” asked Professor Ismat as the students started clapping and cheering.
Professor Ismat warmly smiled and then asked the students to settle. She then checked her watch and realized that we were almost out of time.
“Well, we’re a time boundary for today. In our next session, we’re going to talk about one of the most important aspects of personal greatness – your integrity and character. Before coming to next class, please read about the 2005 tennis match between Andy Roddick and Fernando Verdasco,” she said as she put her water bottle into her bag.
“As always, I look forward to reading your reflection papers,” she concluded with a smile.