Will

by Will Smith

awareness has stayed with me throughout my life. Paradoxically

Magicker was a little white boy with red hair, fair skin, and freckles. He always wore a little powder-blue polyester suit, with a fire-engine-red bow tie. His pants rode just a little bit too high, exposing poorly chosen white socks.

The bigger the fantasy you live, the more painful the inevitable collision with reality. If you cultivate the fantasy that your marriage will be forever joyful and effortless, then reality is going to pay you back in equal proportion to your delusion. If you live the fantasy that making money will earn you love, then the universe will slap you awake, in the tune of a thousand angry voices.

Gigi was the moral compass that has guided my entire life. She was my conduit to God. If Gigi was happy with me, that meant that God was happy with me; but if she was unhappy, that meant that the universe was displeased. Gigi’s approval of me meant that the universe approved of whatever I was doing. In my mind, she had a direct line to God. When she was talking, I felt like I was getting explicit instructions from God. So her approval wasn’t simply the adoration of a loving, gentle grandmother—her approval was how I would access and harness the power and favor of the Lord.

My father was one side of the triangle: discipline. He taught me how to work, how to be relentless. He instilled in me an ethic that “It’s better to die than to quit.”

My mother: education. She believed that knowledge was the irrevocable key to a successful life. She wanted me to study, to learn, to grow, to cultivate a deep and broad understanding, to either “know what you’re talking about or be quiet.”

Gigi: love (God). Whereas I tried to please my mother and father so I wouldn’t get into trouble, I wanted to please Gigi so that I could bathe in ...

“Gigi, why you so happy all the time?” I whispered. Now she was fully smiling. She paused, like a gardener preparing to sow essential seeds. She leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I trust God. And I am so thankful for his grace in my life. I know that every single breath I take is a gift. And it’s impossible to be unhappy when you’re grateful.

“So everywhere I go, I try to make everything I touch better.”

To me, love was a performance,

And over the next forty years, I would never break character. Not once.

What does this mean? In what time was he himself ?

We simply loved what we were doing, so we kept doing it.

My heart was racing, my hands were shaking, but by this time I had developed an infallible strategy for coping with my fear: performance. If I could get them laughing and smiling, then I would feel safe.

then I asked myself, If I have this much power, shouldn’t I use it for good? Words can affect how people view themselves, how they treat each other, how they navigate the world. Words can build people up, or they can tear them down. I decided that night that I wanted to use my words to empower others, to help rather than hurt. I never cursed again in my rhymes. And I got criticized and smashed for years for that choice. But there was no peer pressure that even came close to overriding Gigi pressure.

In order to feel confident and secure, you need to have something to feel confident and secure about. We all want to feel good about ourselves, but many of us don’t recognize how much work that actually takes.

There’s a great concept from Jim Rohn: “Look at the five people you spend the most time with because that’s who you are.”

Hope sustains life. Hope is the elixir of survival during our darkest times. The ability to envision and imagine a brighter day gives meaning to our suffering and renders it bearable. When we lose hope, we lose our central source of strength and resilience.

People’s advice is based on their fears, their experiences, their prejudices, and at the end of the day, their advice is just that: it’s theirs, not yours. When people give you advice, they’re basing it on what they would do, what they can perceive, on what they think you can do. But the bottom line is, while yes, it is true that we are all subject to a series of universal laws, patterns, tides, and currents—all of which are somewhat predictable—you are the first time you’ve ever happened. YOU and NOW are a unique occurrence, of which you are the most reliable measure of all the possibilities.

“Jus’ remember, Lover Boy,” she said, “be nice to everybody you pass on your way up, coz you just might have to pass them again on your way down.”

But here’s the reality—that’s what life is. Living is the journey from not knowing to knowing. From not understanding to understanding. From confusion to clarity. By universal design you are born into a perplexing situation, bewildered, and you have one job as a human: figure this shit out.

Life is learning. Period. Overcoming ignorance is the whole point of the journey. You’re not supposed to know at the beginning. The whole point of venturing into uncertainty is to bring light to the darkness of our ignorance. I heard a great saying once: Life is like school, with one key difference—in school you get the lesson, and then you take the test. But in life, you get the test, and it’s your job to take the lesson.

Benny knew all about my music. We talked for a bit about hip-hop and the impact technology was having on the music industry, and the future of video on demand, and then out of nowhere, he asked, “Do you know how to act?” Act? You mean to perform actions in order to elicit joy and passion from those around me? You mean to warp my perceptions of myself as a means to hide myself? You mean to believe deeply in stories that don’t exist, that never existed, that could never exist? You mean to play the role of who everyone around me wants me to be, rather than who I actually am? As a general rule, if someone asks me if I can do something, the answer is always yes.

Change can be scary, but it’s utterly unavoidable. In fact, impermanence is the only thing you can truly rely on. If you are unwilling or unable to pivot and adapt to the incessant, fluctuating tides of life, you will not enjoy being here. Sometimes, people try to play the cards that they wish they had, instead of playing the hand they’ve been dealt. The capacity to adjust and improvise is arguably the single most critical human ability.

It’s amazing how skewed your vision can become when you see the present through the lens of your past. It was a very difficult psychological rehabilitation for us to learn how to put down the snow globe.

psychography,

The next take is what appeared in the actual episode: Uncle Phil: I’m sorry. I, you know, if there was something that I could do— Will: You know what, you ain’t got to do nothing, Uncle Phil. It ain’t, like, I’m still five years old, you know? Ain’t like I’m gonna be sitting up every night asking my mom, “When’s Daddy coming home?” you know? Who needs him? Hey, he wasn’t there to teach me how to shoot my first basket. But I learned, didn’t I? I got pretty damn good at it, too, didn’t I, Uncle Phil? Got through my first date without him. Right? learned how to drive. I learned how to shave. I learned how to fight without him. I had fourteen great birthdays without him. He never even sent me a damn card! [Screams toward the empty door] TO HELL WITH HIM! I ain’t need him then, and I don’t need him now. Uncle Phil: Will . . . Will: No, you know what Uncle Phil? I’m going to get through college without him. I’m gonna get a great job without him. I’m-a marry me a beautiful honey. And I’m-a have me a whole bunch of kids. I’ll be a better father than he ever was. And I sure as hell don’t need him for that, because they ain’t a damn thing he could ever teach me about how to love my kids. And after a beat, Will starts crying and says, “How come he don’t want me, man?” Uncle Phil lovingly gathers Will into his arms. The shot slowly pans away onto a statue of a father and son Will had purchased as a gift. In the embrace, James Avery whispers in my ear. “Now, that is fucking acting.”

“How would you ever respect me if I did that?” I said, between gags. Working while sick, injured, or under difficult conditions became a badge of honor for me. I wanted to thrive where my competition would fold. I wanted my wife to know that I was invincible. Women (and Europeans) always shake their heads or describe this trait negatively. But on a primal level, it’s really hard to not respect a warrior.

“I been there, brother,” Quincy interrupted. “Lemme give you some advice.” I leaned into the pause. I’d never needed a good word like I did at that moment. “Give that woman half your shit and move on with your life,” Quincy said. Huh?

“Nah, Dad, I haven’t seen ’em yet. JL will—” “Remember I told you! There’s no such thing as luck. That you are the creator of your own destiny. Remember I told you that?” “Yeah, Dad, I remember. But can we—” “Remember I told you? That there was no such thing as luck. Only what you make? Remember I told you that?” “Of course, Dad, you would say that all the time, but—” “Remember I told you—there’s no such thing as luck? Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Remember I told you that?” “Yes, Dad, absolutely—”