47Kierkegaard once said, “If I were to wish for any-
thing, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for
the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which,
ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure dis-
appoints, possibility never.”
17. Learn to play a role
Your future is not determined by your personality.
In fact, your personality is not even determined by your
personality. There is no genetic code in you that deter-
mines who you will be. You are the thinker who deter-
mines who you will be. How you act is who you become.
Another way of seeing that might be contained in
these related thoughts from Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy:
“Spock had a big, big effect on me. I am so much more
Spock-like today than when I first played the part in
1965 that you wouldn’t recognize me. I’m not talking
about appearance, but thought processes. Doing that
character, I learned so much about rational logical
thought that it reshaped my life.”
You’ll gather energy and inspiration by being the
characteryou want to play.
I took an acting class a few years ago because I
thought it would help me deal with my overwhelming
stage fright. But I learned something much more valu-
able than how to relax in front of a crowd. I learned
that my emotions were tools for me to use, not demonic
forces. I learned that my emotions were mine to work
with and change at will.
Although I had read countless times that our own
deliberate thoughts control our emotions, and that the
feelings we have are all caused by what we think, I never
trusted that concept as real, because it didn’t always
feel real.
Learn to play a role