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You’re Never Going to Be Happy Being Anyone Other Than Yourself
In his autobiography, Rainn Wilson (Dwight Schrute from The Office) described the moment where he finally became OK being himself.
A tall, gangly, pasty-white actor, Wilson had been a struggling actor for years. He kept trying to be a “classical actor,” beloved by artsy critics in New York.
But after acting in literally dozens of Shakespearian performances, he never felt OK being himself. As a result, his performances were almost always stilted, tense, and poor.
After over 10 years of paying his dues at run-down theaters with no audience, he was finally offered his first role as a Broadway star. The play was an obscure classical performance, and Wilson spent weeks beforehand “pretending” he was the classical actor he felt the audience wanted.
He’d constantly wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, on the verge of a panic attack. The tension of trying to be someone else was killing him.
Still, he persisted. And when opening day came, he was a wreck. He completely bombed the performance.
But this fiasco finally taught him an important lessons: he’d never be happy being anyone other than himself.
After he embraced his nerdy, geeky, outlandish attitude, he became more calm…
