TITLE: Be a Long-Term Optimist and a Short-Term Realist
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: June 08, 2022  1:51 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:

 Before I went to bed last night, I stumbled across actor Robert De Niro
 speaking with Stephen Colbert on <em>The Late Show</em>.  De Niro is,
 of course, an Oscar winner with fifty years working in films.  I love to
 hear experts talk about what they do, so I stayed up a few extra minutes.

 I think Colbert had just asked De Niro to give advice to actors who were
 starting out today, because De Niro was demurring: he didn't like to give
 advice, and everyone's circumstances are different.  But then he said
 that, when he himself was starting out, he went on lots of auditions but
 always assumed that he wasn't going to get the job.  There were so many
 ways not to get a job, so there was no reason to get his hopes up.

 Colbert related that anecdote to his own experience getting started in
 show business.  He said that whenever he had an acting job, he felt
 great, and whenever he didn't have a job, pessimism set in: he felt like
 he was never going to work again.  De Niro immediately said, "oh, I never
 felt that way".  He always felt like he was going to make it.  He just
 had to keep going on auditions.

 There was a smile on Colbert's face.  He seemed to have trouble squaring
 De Niro's attitude toward auditions with his claimed confidence about
 eventual success.  Colbert moved on with his interview.

 It occurred to me that the combination of attitudes expressed by De Niro
 is a healthy, almost necessary, way to approach big goals.  In the short
 term, accept that each step is uncertain and unlikely to pay off.  Don't
 let those failures get you down; they are the price of admission.  For
 the long term, though, believe deeply that you will succeed.  That's the
 spirit you need to keep taking steps, trying new things when old things
 don't seem to work, and hanging around long enough for success to happen.

 De Niro's short descriptions of his own experiences revealed how both
 sides of his demeanor contributed to him ultimately making it.  He never
 knew what casting agents, directors, and producers were looking for, so
 he was willing to read every part in several different ways.  Even though
 he didn't expect to get the job, maybe one of those people would remember
 him and mention him to a friend in the business, and maybe that connection
 would pay off.  All he could do was audition.

 The self-assurance De Niro seemed to feel almost naturally reminded me of
 things that Viktor Frankl and John McCain said about their ability to
 survive time in war camps.  Somehow, they were able to maintain a
 confidence that they would eventually be free again.  In the end, they
 were lucky to survive, but their belief that they would survive had given
 them a strength to persevere through much worse treatment than simply
 being rejected for a part in a movie.  That perseverance helped them stay
 alive and take actions that would leave them in a position to be lucky.

 I realize that the story De Niro tells, like those of Frankl and McCain,
 is potentially suspect due to survivor bias.  We don't get to hear from
 people who believed that they would make it as actors but never did.
 Even so, their attitude seems like a pragmatic one to implement, if we
 can manage it: be a long-term optimist and a short-term realist.  Do
 everything you can to hang around long enough for fortune to find us.

 Like De Niro, I am not much one to give advice.  In the haze of waking up
 and going back to sleep last night, though, I think his attitude gives us
 a useful model to follow.
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