the right words at the right time

The Right Words at the Right Time

by jennifer aniston

I think of life as a continual learning process so it's difficult for me to single out one specific moment when someone said something to me that has made all the difference. I remember many moments where my life has been turned around. The first one that comes to mind is when my dad told me,\" You should become a lawyer.\" My father, John Aniston, has been an actor on daytime television for some twenty-five years now, and he has seen the ups and downs of the business and how many of his friends have suffered the heartache of rejection.

As a good father, he wanted to spare my heartache. When I look back at that now, I see how complex his feelings must have been to say that. He loves acting; he derives so much satisfaction from it- yet the process can be emotionally brutal. Not just the audition and rejection process, but once you're cast, going into sometimes dark places to find a character. Of course as a good daughter, I took it as a challenge. I wanted to prove to him that I could do it. I thought he would then be unbelievably impressed and would love me that much more. I think I had a little streak of rebelliousness too. I didn't consider the hurtful end of it. And his advice really set me on my path as an actor. I tell him sometimes, \" If you really didn't want me to become an actor, you should have told me to be one because then I would have chose to be a lawyer.\" But sometimes, a challenge from someone who we know really loves us can be good, because we know he will love us regardless of the outcome.

As I began studying at the High School for the Performing Arts in New York City, there was another turning point. I was doing what I thought was a highly dramatic scene from The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, and I could distinctly hear laughter in the audience. I walked off the stage, thinking, Huh, laughing at Cheknov, not really the reaction I was going for.

Later when my acting teacher, Anthony Abeson, was going over the scene with me he said,\" You know Jennifer, they're laughing because you're funny.\" And I said,\" But I don't want to be a funny actress, I want to be a serious actress.\" \"No, you've got it wrong,\" he said. \" This is a wonderful thing. You should hone it, but please don't let it become your crutch.\"

In performance I had a tendency to be funny instead of going deeper into a scene. An in retrospect I realize that this was something I had been doing most of my life. All through my childhood I had used humor as a survival technique. Whether it was my parents' divorce or trouble with my friends or any of a hundred problems or insecurities that kids go through, I got by through being funny and making people laugh. I think I just did what came naturally to protect myself from hurt.

That's not to say that I didn't love making people laugh; I did. And when I think about it, all the things that I loved to watch growing up depicted these women who made me laugh. Yet when I thought about acting I just always thought of myself as a dramatic actress. I wanted to be the kind of actress who had made me cry as a kid when I went to the theater. Being funny just seemed too easy for me.

So this incident in high school radically changed the way I thought about acting.

I realized I had to accept this aspect of my personality- my natural tendency to make people laugh- but place it into a larger context of what I wanted to achieve. I realized I needed to strike a balance. So instead of rejecting the funny side of myself, I embraced it. And channeled it into something I love to so and that makes me unbelievably happy and amazingly, makes other people happy too.

Another turning point in my life happened with the success of Friends. Here I was in my twenties, and all of a sudden I had all this perceived success, and people started thinking of me as being fabulous and famous. But all the time I was thinking: How weird that these people think this about me. If only they knew me.

I was really at a place where I felt undeserving. I thought about the people out there who were really making a difference in this world. I couldn't make the success and attention mean anything when I compared it to others. I was thinking that my being an actress had no longer value to anyone. Sure it gave me financial security and validation as an actress and it was fun, but initially I thought, How could it be enough?

I started feeling an overwhelming need to withdraw from the attention when a friend of mine, Abhi, sent me this excerpt from a Nelson Mandela speech written by Marianne Williamson. It was an epiphany for me. Part of it reads: \"It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us... There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you... We were born to

make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.\"

So with those words I realized there was nothing gained by playing small to make others feel comfortable. Who was I to deny myself the light within me, the light that is within everyone? We all need to celebrate who we are and what we have to give to the world. It doesn't matter if you're driving a truck or making television shows or movies. We all have something unique to offer.

In reading Mandela's words, I realized that I did have a value and a place in the world, and part of that was making people laugh on a grand scale. Making lots and lots of people laugh, people I would never know, but perhaps people who needed to laugh. Now I'm grateful for my achievements and happy in giving what I have to offer as a human being.

Although I feel that I am at a good place right now, I'm sure there are more turning points to come. I guess that's what makes life so damn interesting.