My talk to Miami University went very well, and there were way more adults (like, old people like me adults, not college-aged adults) than I expected. Turns out I was terrified for no good reason.
I recorded the entire thing, and once I have a chance to clean up and edit the audio, I’ll post it on Radio Free Burrito. Until then, here’s an excerpt from my prepared remarks.
(NB: I write these things to be spoken, to be performed. I don’t know if it translates perfectly to written text, because if I were writing this to be read, I would change a bunch of things.)
There are a very few absolute truths in human existence, but I will discuss a couple of them today, starting with the fundamental truth from which everything else springs: everyone here, and every single human with whom we share this planet, wants to be happy. Pretty much everything we do in our lives is motivated by that desire in one way or another, and that actually works out very well for me, professionally, because I make my living as an entertainer. It’s my job to do my best to make people happy!
Today, it works out for me personally, too, because you are the future of our society, and you will shape the world that I’m going to grow old and have my diapers changed in. I would like that world to be kinder than it is right now, if I do this right, I’ll plant some seeds today that will provide some shade for me to relax in while I yell at clouds. So I hope that you’ll view me as a kind of dungeon master – someone who has logged a lot of hours in this game, can see what’s on the road ahead and offer some idea as to what your choices might be and how you can protect yourself and make friends along the journey. I can’t promise you that I’ll give you the key to happiness (because there isn’t one), but I will give you some conditional bonus modifiers on all of your future happiness rolls.
(That’s a D&D reference. If you don’t know what that means, I’m sure a nearby nerd will be happy to over-explain it to you long after you’ve lost interest. It’s what we do.)
So when I’m not being an actor, I am a writer. These two disciplines compliment each other in interesting ways when I’m discovering and defining a character’s narrative. I need to think about what a character wants in a story, identify who or what is helping or hindering his efforts, how he feels about it, and what he does as a result of those feelings.
If you’re paying extremely close attention, you may have noticed that I just described, in very broad strokes, what life is. Our life is a story, and we are the heroes of our own narrative. We are all starring in the story of our lives. And when we meet and interact with other people, they become characters in our stories, while we become characters in theirs.
I’m technically here today to talk about bullying, but as I worked on this talk, I kept drifting away from that topic, and coming back to these thoughts I have about being happy. When I was your age, I didn’t need someone to stand up in front of me and tell me that bullying is crappy, because I already knew that — I was and am a nerd, for fucks sake, and in the 80s the suggestion that we’d one day hear people accusing people of pretending to be nerds because it was cool was about as likely as carrying a computer in your pocket or people thinking vaccines weren’t a good idea.
So I’m still going to talk about bullying, but I’m going to spend the rest of my time here sharing with you some things I’ve picked up over the years that have helped me find happiness. These things actually go together, because of this other fundamental truth: bullies and harassers are afraid, insecure, and REMARKABLY unhappy. In their stories, as they look for happiness, they haven’t had a lot of time finding it. They feel frustrated, they feel bad about themselves, and the only way they can give themselves a sense of worth and empowerment is to do everything they can to hurt other people.
And I worry a lot because at this moment in time, it is easier than ever to be a bully.
So if we just treat our bullies and harassers with sympathy and empathy, if we could just get them to talk about their feelings while they’re hurting us or harassing us or making our lives miserable because we happened to get seated next to them on the bus the same morning their dad called them a loser for the hundredth time, then bullies would magically transform into fully-functioning people, everything will be great and the cycle will be broken! Yay! I just saved humanity. One Nobel Prize, please!
…yeah. It doesn’t work that way. But understanding what motivates someone to be cruel and hurtful can help us to identify that potential in ourselves, and stop us from becoming the villain in someone else’s story.
And before we can understand someone else, we have to understand ourselves. Before we can even think about caring for another person, we have to take care of ourselves.
I’m going to repeat that, because I think it’s really important: you have to take care of yourself, emotionally as well as physically. Nobody is entitled to your time and attention. And, dudes, I wish I didn’t have to single you out, but I kinda do: if she’s not interested in your time or attention, walk. Away.
If there’s a person in your life who consistently makes you feel bad, that person does not deserve to be in your life. Sure, meaningful relationships take work, but there’s a real difference between working to maintain a healthy relationship and being a minor character in someone else’s story that’s a poorly-written melodrama.
And here’s an important point that I want you to keep in mind: Even though I can now experience full empathy for my childhood bully – I need you to understand that you are NOT RESPONSIBLE for your bully’s feelings. But! Being empathetic gives you a deeper understanding of the situation, and a deeper feeling of hope for the future, as well as a way to live your life at its happiest.
I think that’s one of the reasons that people like me and my friend Chris Hardwick, who are adult nerds now, work so hard to make the entire world a safe place for the young nerds of today. You have all grown up in a world where it is harder to find someone who doesn’t want to talk about Doctor Who than it is to find someone who will make fun of you for loving it. You damn kids today have no idea how good you’ve got it.
But it’s awesome to be a nerd today. It’s awesome to be a person who is massively passionate about something, whether it’s science fiction or basketball or that iPhone game Felicia Day won’t stop playing where you adopt cats for some reason.
Being a nerd isn’t about what you love, it’s about how you love it, and the way a nerd loves something can be really weird to the muggles of the world … but you’ve got to know this, from my voice of experience into whatever it is you kids today have where we old people have ears: if you’re weird, you gotta own that. If someone you know is weird but feels weird about it, you gotta help them own that.
If you’re weird, don’t try and hide it – find people who love your weirdness. And if you can’t find anyone who shares the things you like, don’t worry. They’re out there, I promise you. Right now you probably feel like you’re immortal – and that’s wonderful, so did I. But the curse of immortality is that time stretches out forever, and the moment you’re in right now seems eternal. It’s not. This will all end sooner than you know it, and be a distant memory.
And if someone else is doing something that seems weird to you, and it isn’t hurting anyone – let them be. It seems like these days, it’s easier than ever to be a bully and just get away with it – or not even realize how hurtful you’re being. it’s easy to forget that there’s a person on the other side of the screen. We’re surrounded by online communities and networks where a shitty person can hide behind a fake username and make life miserable for those of us who don’t. And if someone is being shitty to you – remember that being yourself is the best protection spell you can cast, because YOU are always with yourself, YOU have to live with yourself, long after the people you were trying to impress by being someone you were not have moved on, leaving you all alone in the parking lot at the – whatever it is you young people are doing these days that you really didn’t want to go to in the first place.
Look at my old roommate Chris Hardwick – this is a guy who was dumped headfirst into a trashcan full of old lunch spaghetti because he was enthusiastic about comic books and Latin and chess. So he did everything he could to distance himself from the things he loved, out of fear of being ridiculed for it. When I met him, when we were both 18, I could see that there was a nerd screaming to be let out of the cage he was keeping it in. I could see it, because I was doing the same thing at the time. And we’ll both tell you that we were pretty darn unhappy for many years, until we decided to embrace all of those things that people used to make fun of us for, and come out as nerds. And we have no shortage of friends and people who love us for it.
OK, one last fundamental truth of life: you attract to yourself what you put into the world. When you are kind and gentle, you’ll find yourself surrounded by kind and gentle people, and you’ll all be like a tribe of awesome. When you’re cruel and selfish, you’ll be surrounded by jerks, dragged down into an abandoned well of stagnant misery where nobody wants to help you out, because that means they’d be stuck down there alone.
So this is the part where I try really hard to impart some useful advice that you can hopefully apply to your own life, to help you find happiness more often than not, to help you be a more joyful person, and thus put a significant dent in the population of unhapppy bullies of the future.
- Be kind. Not just to others, but to yourself.
- Be honest.
- Be honorable.
- Work hard. Everything worth doing is hard.
- Try not to be the smartest person in the room. Keep learning.
- Always do your best. Your best will vary from day to day and that’s okay.
- It isn’t enough to stand up for yourself. You have to stand up for others.
- Don’t be a dick.
I used to think that the planet was huge and I would live forever. The thing is, the world is getting smaller every year, and we have to share this diminishing space with each other. No one has ever called their parents and said, “My new apartment is awesome! The guy next door is such a jerk I can’t wait to deal with his bullshit every day!” Our lives are really short, and nobody ever used their dying breath to say, “I … I wish I’d spent more time being a dick to people.”
We’re all in this together, you guys, and I want you all to be the most awesome hero you can be in your own story … and I don’t want you to be the villain in someone else’s.
Life’s too short to be Voldemort.
Thanks for listening to me.
Even though I genuinely enjoyed this experience, it was so far out of my comfort zone, I never really felt … well, comfortable. I don’t think I’ll make a habit of traveling around the country to give speeches (even though I’ve already agreed to do it two more times on different topics this year), but I’m glad I did this. I met a lot of students while I was there, and I had a wonderful and inspiring time talking with them. I have a lot more hope for the future today than I did before I met them, which is nice.
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What you say about us being the heroes of our own story actually really hit me. I’ve always felt like the supporting character or the quirky sidekick in my own life and it’s feels really crappy. Some stories are just less important than others is how people see it sometimes and that should change. Whether you’re a big actor in Hollywood or a nobody with no direction in your life.
This is great – I’m sending the link to my 19 year old daughter, I think she really needs to read this right now. Thanks for putting into words what so many of us are often thinking 🙂
Beautiful. Bravo to you, Wil. I spent many a year being unhappy where I was in life until one day I sort of said fuck it and left. I let everyone and everything I knew and moved halfway around the world to start over. And in doing so, I found my passion for life, I found love, and I found nearly everything I had been missing.
It’s a really good feeling being happy, even on the bad days when happiness is elusive.
Thanks for speaking up about this stuff, Will. You rock.
You, sir, definitely have Things to Say. I suspect that however often or not you choose to do it, you’ll be spreading goodness across the world. Thanks for sharing this; I’d hoped you would.
Awesome, Wil. Thanks for sharing.
I’m sorry it wasn’t comfortable; it WAS awesome.
That last line was strangely poetic
I’m the same age as you and this really spoke to me, in many ways. Some really good stuff that I needed to hear and ponder on. I’m not a dick or a Voldemort, but I frequently make myself a supporting player in other people’s stories and have sort of lost the thread of my own story. Now I have some reflecting to do on that matter. I’m glad you did the speech and even more glad that you shared it. It was worthwhile and had positive impact. And as you said, anything worth doing is hard.
I was teased unmercifully as a kid for being weird (and I hadn’t even gotten into D&D/nerd stuff yet – I was just overly friendly, didn’t like sports and liked academics). My mom worked hard to instill in me a sense of independence – that “nobody likes me” was not an acceptable excuse for sadness (get over them – their opinion is not important). Then, in the summer after 6th grade, like magic, something clicked. I was thinking about my self and my life (mentally preparing to go into ‘junior high’), and this issue of popularity…and my inner monologue said “You know, I like me.” Right there and then I decided that I liked being a Weirdo, and I was going to embrace it. And just like you describe above, I began to gravitate towards others like myself, and even became the leader of a high school clique for weirdos (we’d accept anyone who wanted to hang with us – we were an INCLUSIVE clique). [Likely my supportive and accepting parents were a big help in making this happen.]
Now I’m not saying junior/senior high school was all flowers and rainbows, but I do think that this early epiphany kept me from a LOT of misery and has helped me through many rough spots over the years. So I’d say yes – knowing yourself, accepting yourself and appreciating YOU is an important step to happiness. Note, I also think everyone always needs to be checking that the self they are appreciating is not being a dick – but that is another topic/conversation.
This reminds me of when I was invited to be the keynote speaker at a an elementary school graduation. My topic was “10 things I wish someone would have told me when I was going into middle school”. It touched on a lot of the same themes as your speech.
I think it was such a neat opportunity, and I was so flattered. Even though I think it was the highlight of my career, and even though it was to a room full of kids and their parents, I wanted to throw up and am okay never doing it again!
Good job though. I really enjoyed reading this.
Ciao.
Ti vedo in The Big Bang Theory ed è strano pensarti mentre scrivi queste cose. Però hai ragione e ti ammiro molto perché ti sforzi di andare avanti e tirare fuori il meglio dalle situazioni. E hai assolutamente ragione: la vita è troppo breve per essere Voldemort.
Grazie Wil. Sei forte.
(Scusa se scrivo in italiano, non parlo inglese e ho dovuto usare il traduttore per leggerti).
Io non parlo italiano, e ho usato Google Translate per scrivere questo. Grazie per aver guardato la mia nello show, e grazie per aver letto il mio blog!
If i had read this 2 or 3 weeks ago, I would’ve been like nope i will never find anyone here to be my friend (where i’m currently living). I know i’m unhappy a lot of times which stems from loneliness which could’ve easily made me a bully but i have this thing where it’s like I feel bad i don’t want people to feel bad because i feel bad. Yes I am misunderstood online, and according to people who are my friends say that i give off a different vibe than how i actually am or they say that they were unsure of me at first, but once they got to know me realize how awesome I am. I don’t try to come off anyway, which might be the problem, people fill in the gaps themselves. But like i said 2 weeks ago i’d be like nope and have a negative reaction, but i found a movie buddy, which i’m so happy about, and made friends with his dog (which is important: make friends with animals). Being the misunderstood isn’t a complaint or asking how to be understood, because at this point I’ve accepted it and no one has been able to give me an answer that i can implement. I just try to surround myself with people who do, no matter how few there are.
Thank you for stating something that – I’ve never seen stated more clearly:
“…Being a nerd isn’t about what you love, it’s about how you love it, and the way a nerd loves something can be really weird to the muggles of the world … but you’ve got to know this, from my voice of experience into whatever it is you kids today have where we old people have ears: if you’re weird, you gotta own that…”
I’ve loved a few pastimes, and by that, I mean… dove into them, bathed in them, and tried to understand them as deeply as possible. Three of them became professions, two of those eventually became businesses, not because I got into them to make money, but because it’s nearly impossible to get into something deeply and not turn it into a profession because that’s just what happens. I’ve loved all these pastimes in the same way, because I’m a nerd. But people generally only regarded my approach to one of them as “normal” … yep… computers. No one found it odd that I stayed up till 3am with a soldering iron / wire-wrap tool & and a breadboard for most of my childhood and eventually wound up working for Intel. NO one found that even REMOTELY odd. (Lol) But people in other “less outwardly geeky” pastimes have found my approach odd / eccentric / offputting because it’s not how those pastimes are usually pursued. But it’s just that they’re not used to being around nerds. Nerds don’t want to know how, they want to understand why. Then… they want to understand more about the things they discovered while learning why. Nerds want to at least understand the role of, if not the nature of, every branch on the logic tree… all the way down to the last turtle. So if you’re a nerd, you’re by default signing up for at least two things. 1.) A life full of joyful learning 2.) Getting dumped on by people who find that odd.
I love the fact that one of the pastimes in which you’re immersed, is making the world a friendlier place.
Thank you for that.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. This does work very much for things outside of bullying and really hit home to me today. So much of what you said connected with me. I’ve been the supporting character for so long and right now I have an incredibly terrifying chance to not be. To finally realize my hopes and dreams and be happy with myself and where I am going. After having some horrible things said to me last night, reading this renewed my hope and inspiration going forward.
My old roommate was dumped into a trashcan full of comic books and Latin and chess because he was enthusiastic about old lunch spaghetti.
And I was the guy who dumped him.
Old lunch spaghetti lovers creep me the eff out.
that’s a name i haven’t heard in along time, said the arbitrary aardvark.
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Nicely done. And its good to be a bit uncomfortable giving speeches, it makes them more entertaining for the listener. The day you give a canned speech and not feel nervous or a bit uncomfortable is the day your speech will be boring. Carry on!
It was a fantastic speech, coming from one of the older (but still totally young!) adults in the audience. If I had someone say those words to me when I was in college, it definitely would have helped. Thank you for always being so open and genuine.
Sorry you didn’t like Miami’s school mascot, Dave, the Microphone Spider.
you always make me misty eyed Wil Wheaton for times hurt a lot lately. — words hit home.
Thank you. Be well.
It’s OK if it’s out of your comfort zone; remember #4? I think the more you write or speak on this subject the more heroes we’ll have it the long run. You’ll be like the Johnny Appleseed of awesome peeps.
This has to be one of your best writings. Wish I could have heard your speech. Can’t wait to hear it on radio free burrito thanks Wil.
Excellent advice for every Hero, regardless of age, level, or alignment. In other words, all of us playing in the game of Real Life. Thank you, DM.
I would like to add a caveat to #5: if you somehow find yourself the smartest person in the room, don’t feel bad about that or hide it. If there’s nothing for you to learn in that moment, TEACH something (& the act of opening that type of dialogue will probably cause you to learn something, too).
I was So Super Green when I got to LA, even though I had a theatre degree. So every set I found myself on, I worked very hard to learn something new about film/tv. I still don’t know everything, but I do find myself helping to train newbies these days. I like both sides of the room.
I imagine that you don’t mind the teaching side of the room, even if it’s not your favorite place. You keep accepting speaking gigs, after all!
Awesome speech. Thanks for sharing it, Wil.
“Life’s too short to be Voldemort” ranks right up with “Don’t be a dick” as an epigram. Good show.
#8 should’ve been #1. Too many dicks in this world.
Well said, Wil.
Your speech is friggin amazing. Ah-may-zing. I’m definitely saving this for my daughter ( who’s only almost 2) so she can reap the benefits of your wisdom multiple times throughout her life.
I was there and it was great, but there was a lot more pleading for the spider not to eat you. 🙂
I believe we agreed to never speak of that … incident … again.
And here comes the spiderbomb ™….
Has your inbox already been filled with poorly-photoshopped spider memes? If not, you might want to set up a filter….
Good read, inspiring words, thanks!
I’ve always found that the nervousness and discomfort about speaking in public gets transformed into animation and energy when I actually walk up to a podium and start talking. A lot of things in life work that way, actually.
Wondering why you haven’t been called in to do a TED talk on this. Really inspiring, love the idea of conditional bonus modifiers on future happiness rolls 💛
“Life is to short to be Voldemort” what a wonderful phrase I will print it out, frame it and hang it right over my bed (right next to the one with “If Frodo could carry the Ring to Mordor, at least you can get out of the Bed”)
THIS.
Were these “old like you” adults college students? If so the term I always get being a college student at a non-college-age is Nontraditional Student. Makes me feel oh so unconventional.
Great speech by the way. ::thumbs up::
Great talk! Perfect for all of us older nerds who still need to be told to embrace our weirdness. Recently I spent some time with some of my many sisters and we found ourselves confessing that we ALL felt like the ‘weird one in the family’ – the ‘Freak’. So we decided we should just Rock the Freak. One of my sisters made me a T-shirt, which I happen to be wearing right this minute, that says, Rock the Freak [in big sparkly letters]. I have been making a bigger effort to find my tribe. Thanks for the reminder that they really are out there.
That’s a great one. Thanks for sharing!
Hi, Wil,
You say above “These things actually go together, because of this other fundamental truth: bullies and harassers are afraid, insecure, and REMARKABLY unhappy. In their stories, as they look for happiness, they haven’t had a lot of time finding it. They feel frustrated, they feel bad about themselves, and the only way they can give themselves a sense of worth and empowerment is to do everything they can to hurt other people.”
Unfortunately, the exact opposite appears to be true:
http://www.today.com/parents/study-bullies-have-higher-self-esteem-social-status-lower-levels-t36271
(My inclination is that teenage and 20’s age group bullying establishes a social dominance hierarchy. Which is great as long as you’re on top…)
Wil, I was at your talk with my severely depressed, anxious, ADHD, Asperger’s teenager. It was amazing for both of us! I’m sorry you didn’t feel comfortable because I think a lot of people, nerds, aspies, anyone, could really benefit from hearing and seeing you talk about these issues. Your answers during the Q&A were especially powerful. Thanks for coming to Oxford!
I work with High School kids doing theater. They will get a copy of this to read and embrace. THANK YOU!
Maybe that’s why Voldemort was trying to become immortal?
If you’re ever in St Louis, I’d love to hear you speak. I started reading your blog because my mom is goon through a depressive episode and I wanted to find an article and I’ve heard you talk about depression and anxiety being dicks. I’m caught up now, and I really think it helped me understand my mom more. So you’ve helped me get more into tabletop gaming than I already was, start my own RPG group (we’re playing titansgrave) and helped me be empathetic towards my mom. I’d love go to one of your talks to hear you tell us how to save the world. And I’d stand in line to have a book signed and shake your hand and say thanks Wil you helped me be less of a dick and more of a nerd
Nicely done, Wil, even if you were out of your comfort zone. I tend to think that giving talks or presentations or speeches is acting, in a [wierd] way. Looking forward to the video! All the best on prepping your next two speeches!
This may not be in your comfort zone, but you’re good at it, it benefits people to hear it, so it’s worth doing. And you just said it yourself, everything worth doing is hard. Keep at it. You found a comfort zone with so many other things you enjoy, you’ll find it with this too.
You know, maybe the day it’s comfortable is the day you don’t care as much and just phone it in. Yeah, I don’t see that happening either. Keep up the good work, Sir.
Mr Wheaton, you continue to inspire me on an almost daily basis.
As a person slightly older than you I can tell you in all honesty I learned many of the lessons here a little later than I should have, but learn them I did. I don’t mean I’ve been a dick, but I did suppress many of my own passions for the sake of others in my life; for the sake of “fitting in.” I’ve always had lots of friends in my circle and I came to find that losing a few of them was the best thing I could do. The miserable ones had to go. They’re gone. Everyone is happier. Except them, maybe, but that’s not our problem. 😉
I still work on the empathy part daily.
Thanks again for being the best you that you can be!
As a corollary to your thesis “Life is too short to be Voldemort” may I offer the following? “But if you are Voldemort, you may as well try to live forever”
The thing that I love most about this is that you are treating the nacent and potential bullies in the audience as human beings, not Hitler Juniors. Few of us see ourselves as actively being villains, but it’s easy to make the wrong choice about how to behave when we are feeling awkward, unlikable, or stressed. Be aware of how you treat others and it’s never too late to start being a better person.
Thank you, Wil!
Dear Wil,
Well done
Well said
And with very kind words. Thank you.
It really is about life. I like the two-sided creativity directions (acting/writing) you mentioned. It really is a good example of balanced life. Wonderful and useful tools to make life flow happily. And productively.
A good, practical advice really.
As for bullying… Well. True for life. True for relationships and for the public transport also true)
What is more, is that knowing that you use your social impact this way is like knowing that you have a friend’s shoulder there, behind the ocean. Who protects and proclaims the same ideas you proclaim.
Wil,
So well said. I wish I had heard this when I was 12 (over 50 years ago) it would have saved me when I was a hippie emerging amidst the jocks and jills—so much time spent hiding from their bullying, bullying that the school authorities seemingly approved of. If nothing else, it made me a compassionate person, especially as I learned over time that many bullies are themselves bullied, and kindness is something that I can give freely not matter what. I am also finally learning, at 64 years old, that it is okay to love what I love, and to be excited about what I am excited about. I can put on a Steampunk costume and go to a con and thoroughly enjoy myself, and I feel young and sprightly!!
Please keep writing and sharing. I am delighted I found your blog….