Re-Invention

We are constantly experiencing new things. God placed us on this earth to learn, progress, and grow. Because life is not fair, things get in our way. In order to succeed in this life we must be malleable. We need to learn to adapt, shift, and mold ourselves into the men and women that God has prepared us to be. This does not mean that we should be someone that we are not. In fact, that is the very opposite of what we should do. Life is a refiner's fire (Isaiah 48:10). We need to learn to strengthen ourselves. I am talking about re-invention. It is an intimidating, bold, and scary thing to do. One person that comes to my mind that did a beautiful job of re-inventing himself is Conan O'Brien. Yep. I love the guy. He truly has been through a lot (especially lately). Let's delve into his experiences a bit so that our understanding of this concept of re-invention can be deepened.

Are you with Coco? If not...you should be. Check your head!

Conan O'Brien. Hilarious.

Conan O'Brien. What a guy. He currently hosts a late night talk show simply called, "Conan". Before hosting "Conan" he was the host of the most coveted talk show of all time: "The Tonight Show". He took over for Jay Leno but then after some turmoil, craziness, and then the ultimate mistreating of Conan...Leno took his job back and Conan was in a year long hiatus. "Conan" now airs on TBS and is a smash hit (from what I hear - I have been on my mission for over a  year now). BUT I have been a fan of Conan O'Brien for a long time. He is uniquely funny that I simply cannot get enough of him. Before his first talk show, "Late Nite with Conan O'Brien" (which he hosted for nearly 17 years), Conan was a writer for "The Simpsons" and "Saturday Night Live" (during the REALLY good days of "SNL"). Before that he went to school and graduated from Harvard. In a nutshell...Conan is a stud. I heart him and his quirks!

Conan easily could have given up when we lost his spot as host of "The Tonight Show". It was something that he had worked for his whole life. Something that he dreamed of reaching. Then he reached it! But it was taken away. Let me ask this question: How many of us have experienced something similar to Conan? Granted, we probably haven't experienced anything with this much publicity or at this type of scale. But I truly believe that we all can relate to him to some degree. What are we to do? In a speech given to the 2011 graduating class of Dartmouth, Conan spoke of his time after he left "The Tonight Show". He says some deep, inspirational, motivating, and enlightening things. He said:

"But then something spectacular happened. Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things. I grew a strange, cinnamon beard. I dove into the world of social media. I started tweeting my comedy. I threw together a national tour. I played the guitar. I did stand-up, wore a skin-tight blue leather suit, recorded an album, made a documentary, and frightened my friends and family. Ultimately, I abandoned all preconceived perceptions of my career path and stature and took a job on basic cable with a network most famous for showing reruns, along with sitcoms created by a tall, black man who dresses like an old, black woman. I did a lot of silly, unconventional, spontaneous and seemingly irrational things and guess what: with the exception of the blue leather suit, it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life. To this day I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged—and this is important—had more conviction about what I was doing."

"How could this be true? Well, it's simple: There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized. I went to college with many people who prided themselves on knowing exactly who they were and exactly where they were going. At Harvard, five different guys in my class told me that they would one day be President of the United States. Four of them were later killed in motel shoot-outs. The other one briefly hosted Blues Clues, before dying senselessly in yet another motel shoot-out. Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course. This happens in every job, but because I have worked in comedy for twenty-five years, I can probably speak best about my own profession."

"Way back in the 1940s there was a very, very funny man named Jack Benny. He was a giant star, easily one of the greatest comedians of his generation. And a much younger man named Johnny Carson wanted very much to be Jack Benny. In some ways he was, but in many ways he wasn't. He emulated Jack Benny, but his own quirks and mannerisms, along with a changing medium, pulled him in a different direction. And yet his failure to completely become his hero made him the funniest person of his generation. David Letterman wanted to be Johnny Carson, and was not, and as a result my generation of comedians wanted to be David Letterman. And none of us are. My peers and I have all missed that mark in a thousand different ways. But the point is this : It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention."

Wow. Conan is absolutely right. He has experienced that through failure and grief we will (if we handle ourselves correctly) become our best selves. We need to look to those great people and examples around us and do our best to emulate them.  But we need to keep in mind that we will never be that person. We will never have the same effect on others that our idols have had on ourselves.

The beauty of emulation is that it brings about re-invention. We are all individuals. One hundred percent unique. When we strive to emulate the characteristics and attributes of another we will fail on many levels. But I promise you that in other areas we will excel and even exceed the capabilities of that person, thus breaking through our own expectations. When we recognize this we can be certain that we have re-invented ourselves through emulation.

Our Savior and friend.

When living this thing called life we need to ALWAYS look to our King, Jesus Christ. He is our perfect example. (For more on this subject go to Be Thou An Example.) Christ Himself taught that we should follow Him. We need to do all that we can to emulate Him and be the best that we can be. But in our quest to be more like Christ we will trip, slip, and mess up. We are human. We will make mistakes. But that should never stop us from trying to be better and be more Christlike. Just like being removed from "The Tonight Show" never stopped Conan from trying to be successful. Remember, it was because of his lowest moment that he had his greatest triumph.

Christ is the great exemplar. As we try to be more like Him we will have more happy and more fulfilling lives. But as I said before, we will make mistakes. The beauty of emulating Christ is that we can access the atonement, be forgiven and then be given an enabling power to accomplish great things. Through emulation of Christ we work together with Him to re-invent ourselves into the men and women that He would have us be. Christ's greatest triumph was when He suffered all things and was brought below us all so that He could have perfect empathy for us in our afflictions and then be resurrected. "He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;" (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6).

When we suffer pains, afflictions, and hard times are we going to choose to suffer longer and say, "Why me?" Or are we going to choose to emulate Christ and be strengthened by Him and be re-invented into our best selves? "The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greather than he? (Doctrine and Covenants 122:8). The choice is yours. As for me, I'm with Christ. And Coco. I'm with Coco.