Next Thursday, October 23, I am speaking at the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center’s 55th Anniversary Gala. We hope to raise some money to help them help our neighbors, and I’m going to share my story, which I hope inspires someone to take the first step on their own recovery journey.
We’re doing this at the magnificent Valley Relics Museum, and the event is open to the public. If you’re able to come to Van Nuys next week, I hope you’ll join us.
I’ve been reviewing some of my existing speeches, while I prepare this one, and I came across this part, near the closing of a speech I gave to the Southern Kentucky Book Festival in 2023. It’s one of those things that I say in some form every time I have the privilege of speaking to people who are trusting me with their time and attention, especially when there are younger generations in the audience.
One last thing, before I finish. I want to speak directly to any young people who are here: This is your world, we’re just borrowing it for a little bit while you decide what to do with it. We’ve left you a real big mess to clean up, and I’m sorry about that. Believe me, a lot of us tried — and are trying — to make it easier for you, but we haven’t done enough.
I talked a bit about how afraid I was as a kid, how I felt like I was constantly on the verge of getting in trouble. One of the things I got yelled at about was doing something “on purpose,” so that’s a pair of words that have always kind of rubbed me the wrong way. For a few years now, I have taken the concept of “on purpose” and made it literal. I want to share with you some things I do “on purpose”, to literally give my life purpose and meaning, to help guide me when the path is unclear.
I’m a reasonably successful person. I don’t mean in my work, or only in my work. I mean in my life. I have great friends, I am so close to my adult children. I am married to my best friend. I get to do cool things, and I’m happy a lot more often than not. A real big part of that is committing to these choices:
- Establish and protect your boundaries. You do not owe anyone anything. If someone does not respect your boundaries, it’s all the red flags.
- Choose to be honest. I’m 50, and I’ve learned that the only currency that really matters in this world is the truth.
- Choose to be honorable. This dovetails with number one. You attract to yourself what you put into the world. Dishonorable people will take everything from you and leave you with nothing. Do your best to be a person they aren’t attracted to.
- Choose to work hard. Everything worth doing is hard. Do the hard work that sustains and nourishes relationships, that gets you the most out of your education, that gets you closer to your goals. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into something in your life that’s really hard, and you’ll want to give up, but it’s something you care so much about, you’ll do whatever you can to achieve it. It’s going to be hard, but it’s going to be less hard for someone who has practiced doing the hard things all along, than it is for someone who doesn’t know how to do the hard work because they’ve always chosen the easy path.
- Always do your best, and know that your best will vary. Monday’s best may not be close to Tuesday’s best, and Wednesdays best may eclipse them both. Even if you don’t get the result you wanted, doing your best is really all you can ever do. We tell athletes to leave it all on the field. Whatever your version of that is, do it. And if you notice later that maybe you kinda phoned some of it in? Do your best to be gentle with yourself. We’re constantly learning and growing.
- The last one is the most important one. If only one thing sticks, I hope this is it. This is the one I hope you’ll share with your peers: Always choose to be kind.
And just to be clear: Nice and Kind are not the same thing. Nice is about manners, and it comes from here. [I point to my head] Kind is about empathy, and it comes from here [I point to my heart]. Cruel people can be nice, but they will never be kind. Please, practice kindness.
I always come back to these choices, because they are the ones that always make a difference for me. I’m working on adding a reminder that courage is not the absence of fear; it’s when you something you know is right, even though you are afraid.
We’re going to see a lot of courage tomorrow, that’s for sure … and it’s making the right people very, very uncomfortable.
I appreciate you. Thanks for reading. If you’d like to get my posts in your e-mail, you can use this thing:
Discover more from WIL WHEATON dot NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thank you Wil! I really. needed to read this today
With you 100% Wil! Always practice kindness. Well said.
Thankyou Wil. Timely email. I needed to read that this morning. Please always stay awesome.
Wil, you are so inspiring in many ways. In a world where we can be anything, we should all strive first and foremost to be kind. You are out there spreading that message and living it. That’s why WHO you ARE is so much greater even than all the great things you have accomplished. Thanks for being you and for taking the time to share your thoughts on this wonderful blog.
I’m always trying to find a succinct way to encourage people to be kind with my rock messages. I’ve tried “Be Kind” and “Kindness Matters” but neither of those were quite right. I think I’ll make a stamp for “Practice Kindness”. I think that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
I’m a very old but very big fan of yours and we are Trekkers of course! I love your writings and other projects. You are a talented and kind human. Kudos and thank you. We will be marching tomorrow. Let’s go!
Wil, I read your words about nice vs. kind many, many years ago – maybe the first time you ever wrote about it on your original blog/journal – and those words have stuck with me ever since. I’ve passed them on to many people including my stepdaughter. Thank you for being you and for always giving us something to think about.
Thanks Wil – that distinction between niceness and kindness is helpful. I’m not scheduled to be in LA the 23rd but will be thinking of y’all and hope it goes well!
“Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.” – The Twelfth Doctor
First thing that popped in my head when reading Wil’s post! Wil, if you haven’t seen it yet, I commend “The Twelfth Doctor Regenerates” on YouTube, wherein Peter Capaldi gives a Doctor Who version of your speech: “Never be cruel, never be cowardly… and never ever eat pears!”.
Wish more people would listen to you. Thank you for your insight.
This is the third time today I’ve heard or referenced this teaching from Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks z”l: “Optimism is a passive virtue, hope an active one. It needs no courage, only a certain naiveté, to be an optimist. It needs a great deal of courage to have hope.” Tomorrow so many people are showing up courageously. Thank you for providing a voice for this, Wil.
“We’re going to see a lot of courage tomorrow, that’s for sure…” and yes, I’m kinda scared. But my sign is made (“No King Makers [Abbott + Cruz])”, and I’m going through with this because of YOU.
Would you like to know what put you on my blogging radar years ago? This: https://thebloggess.com/heres-a-picture-of-wil-wheaton-collating-papers/
I hope this reminds you of the joy and camaraderie and just plain goofiness you’ve injected into the all-o-sphere, and that it keeps on giving. You’re a blessing, sending out ripples you’ve never imagined.
Wil, I appreciate how vulnerable you are in these posts. You continue to touch and inspire me.
Thanks for the encouragement, Wil. Hugs.
PS: comments have been wonky for me lately again. It’s probably me. Very old system, etc. But I’m still here. Glad to see you back on the blog more again. Hang in there. If not today, maybe tomorrow? 😉
Thank you for being the a Ferris Bueller type of “righteous dude” that you have always been and I will forever be proud that I briefly got to spend a bit of time with you on the JoCo – highlight of my life! ❤️
I would love to share this with my son, but he doesn’t do well with written text. Are there any recordings of you speaking this out loud, Wil?
I think so? If you search for the event, you may find a recording.
Great post, Will. It was really refreshing to read. I hope that your Kentucky Book Festival speech inspired the audience to believe that they can do much better for themselves and others. If Ruby wasn’t my middle name, it would be kindness. It’s my most basic and natural state. Thank you! 😊
Thanks Wil!!
Wil, this is all really sound and great advice for anyone. You are making a difference by the way you live and by sharing your wisdom with others. You make the world a better place! Thanks for being you!
This wisdom…keeping it all close in my heart. Thank you for this incredible light filled written hug Wil!
At the very least, and blunter, as you say Wil, “Don’t be a dick.” Or alternatively, as Nathan Fillion used as his tag line at Twitter:
“It costs nothing to say something kind. Even less to shut up altogether.”
Hi Wil
I’m an Italian old fan of your. I followed pretty much everything you did in the past, especially your commitment on the mental health side and the help you gave to “nerd” kid on fighting the bullies troubles.
I’m a father of an 11 years old soon-to-be-nerd kid and I’ve always looked at you as a guide and a real light in the dark. I just want to thank you, from the other side of the ocean, from the old Europe, thanks from the bottom of my heart.
We need kindness.
Keep going.