Good morning, and thank you all. Thanks to President Pattenaude
for inviting me back. To be honest, I'm struggling with
a variety of conflicting emotions about standing before
you today. I feel all at once elated, inadequate, honored,
undeserving, slightly terrified, and comforted to have returned
to see that so little has changed. I am heartened to see
that so much has changed. I feel a twinge of guilt that
I didn't work harder in my time here, pangs of regret that
I didn't play harder. Okay, scratch that one -- who am I
kidding? It was in college in the seventies. I am thrilled
to have the chance to reconnect with old friends and faculty,
but a little depressed to think that I graduated before
many of you were even born. Way before. And so even though
the thing that I mostly feel is old, there is really not
too much of a distance between us. When you think about
it, weĠre only one generation and four Star Wars
movies apart. We have much more in common than you think.
From an historical perspective, for instance, we have shared
experiences. When I was in school here, I survived an American
president who, in his second term of office, perjured himself
and resigned to avoid impeachment. You, in your time, witnessed
a president, who in his second year of office, perjured
himself, and was impeached because he refused to resign.
My graduating class, 1977, like yours today, had to confront
a difficult job market, a struggling economy, pressure on
the environment, and political turmoil around the globe.
Uncertain times to be sure, at a point in your journey when
you may already be wrestling with feelings of uncertainty
about your own lives. ... Well, that's all the time I have
for the day. Good luck! Congratulations.
No, seriously, my reason for coming here to talk to you
today is to address this issue of uncertainty and the role
that it has played in my life. I am living proof that uncertainty
is vastly underrated, and often times a blessing in disguise.
Those moments when we seem to find ourselves hovering in
a state of suspended animation, wondering which way to turn,
can actually be moments exploding with possibilities, opportunities,
and even miracles. For me, the most profound example of
this practical magic, i.e., the first major turning point
in my life, happened right here during the first semester
of my senior year at the University of Southern Maine. I
think you'll find this story helpful, if for no other reason
than it might illustrate to you the density level of the
fog through which I stumbled at that time, and thereby prove
that there is hope for all of you.
Now, at that time, on the one hand, I was fortunate in
some ways in that I had found something I love to do. I
was supported, nurtured, challenged, and inspired by a richly
diverse group of professors that made up, and still make
up, the faculty of this truly top flight theatre department.
I will be forever grateful to them, because they were the
ones who put me in touch with my passion. But unfortunately,
it was up to me to figure out what to do with this desire;
I hadn't a clue how to pursue it out in the world or how
I would be able to make even a modest living at it. For
that matter, I couldn't imagine what was going to become
of me after I graduated in the spring.
One day in December, a buddy of mine, Eddie Romanoff, also
a theatre major, began to regale me with stories of a recent
USM grad, Marianne, who was thriving in her first year at
the Yale School of Drama. Marianne was Eddie's girlfriend
at the time, and I knew her well. I had been in countless
plays and classes with her in my sophomore and junior years.
She had recently been urging Eddie to talk to me about applying
to the master's program at Yale. She had thought that it
might be a good place for me, and even though the odds of
getting in weren't great, or even realistic, she was strongly
encouraging me to apply.
As my friend Eddie related this message to me, I listened
intently, and by intently I mean just barely. To be honest,
I didn't have a clue what he was talking about. I didn't
know there was such a thing as graduate school for acting.
Of course I had heard of Yale, but couldn't even have attempted
to guess where it was located. When I was told New Haven,
my brain played geographical Three Card Monty for a minute
or two in an effort to figure out which part of New England
that was in (and I had been living in Portland, Maine, for
three and a half years).
Anyway, every day, for the next two or three weeks, Eddie
would bug me -- I mean ask me -- if I had contacted the
drama school to request an application form. And for a number
of reasons, I still hadn't. Good reasons, you know. I couldn't
figure out how to plug in my new phone; I was out of stamps;
I had a hangover; and I was busy darn it! "No Eddie,
no, okay? No." Well, he just kept asking, and I just
kept vamping, until one day he actually handed me the application.
He had been down to visit Marianne that weekend in New Haven
(that's in Connecticut by the way) and he picked up the
application for me. So of course, every day for the next
two or three weeks, Eddie would hassle me, I mean encourage
me, to fill out the application:"Come on Tony, the
deadline is approaching." I felt like saying, "Hey
pal, why don't you just apply?" But I didn't, because
I was afraid he'd get in. Well, a week or so later, Eddie
drops by my apartment -- uninvited mind you -- shoves me
down into a chair, jams a pen into my hand, and forces me
to complete this really long one-page form. I was this close
to telling him to get a life, but somehow I sensed that
he might be carrying a gun.
Okay, so you get the idea. I sent off the application.
Well, I had Eddie drop it in the box -- hey, it was right
on his way! A week or so later, I received notification
from the school regarding my audition/interview appointment,
and the next thing I knew I was preparing to drive there
for a visit. By this time, I had assessed that Conn. could
not possibly have been in Canada, so I just headed south
and hoped for the best. I had long since given up on the
prospect of Eddie ever getting around to dropping off that
AAA map he'd promised. What a loser. So, short story long,
I did my audition and interview, was accepted, and my life
took a hard right turn. Oh yeah, I left out the part where
I worked my butt off on the audition and focused every ounce
of my energy on doing my absolute best. And I left out the
most important thing that Eddie said to me throughout all
of my questioning, wavering, whining, resisting, and delaying.
He kept saying: "You can do this. You can do this."
Okay, I know what you're thinking. That's not a story about
uncertainty. That's a story about luck. And you're right.
But you know what? None of my uncertainty stories are funny.
And anyway, there's no such thing as luck. Unless you happen
to know Eddie. Luck is really preparation colliding with
opportunity. And the only thing that poisons those waters
is self-doubt.
Now it's important to differentiate between uncertainty
and self-doubt. They are easily confused. But doubt is fear-based,
and feeds on negativity. Even though it's part of human
nature, it's up to each of us, on a daily basis, to work
toward making it a steadily diminishing part, so that we
don't dwell on it and allow it to become a chronic condition.
Uncertainty, however, is faith based. I like to think of
it as a healthy hiccup. A necessary hesitation that allows
us to gradually move forward, take steps - and risks - without
knowing the outcome. All that's needed here is an overriding
willingness to embrace mistakes and surprises along the
way. Self-doubt and negativity can close us off, literally
shut down our senses. They damage our radar, if you will.
For me, self doubt manifests itself in two ways. The first
having to do with decision making: fretting over making
the wrong one. Something that it took me way too long to
learn is that there is no such thing as the wrong decision.
Because with any choice there are bound to be up sides and
down sides. What counts is what you do with the decision
you make. Your ability to embrace the obstacles and to learn
from any bad things that come out of your choices. You learn
much more from your mistakes and failures than you do from
your successes. That's where the real growth takes place.
The other paralyzing symptom of chronic self-doubt is our
fear that once we make a decision, what we do, our work,
won't be good enough. That it won't be perfect. I recently
read in a book called"Art and Fear," by David
Bayles and Ted Orland, an anecdote about this issue of perfection.
It went something like this: A ceramics teacher announced
on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups.
All those on the left side of the studio would be judged
solely on the quantity of work they produced. All those
on the right side, solely on its quality. His procedure
was simple. On the final day of class he would bring in
his bathroom scale and weigh the work of the quantity group.
Fifty pounds of pots rated an A, forty pounds a B, and so
on. Those being graded on quality however, needed to produce
only one pot, albeit the perfect one, to get an A. Came
grading time and a curious fact emerged. The works of highest
quality were all produced by the group being graded for
quantity. It seems that while the quantity group was busy
churning out piles of work and learning from their mistakes,
the quality group had sat theorizing about perfection and
in the end had little more to show for their efforts than
grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.
So, finally, what I want to say to all of you is don't
worry about saving face, knowing everything, or being right.
Ask questions, make mistakes, and commit completely even
if you feel foolish. Being involved in life, participation,
is what counts. As you embark on your path, though you might
be feeling anxious, be confident. And on the days when you
find you don't have confidence, have faith. And when faith
eludes you, remember what Eddie said: "You can do this."
