When I was asked to do another speech I said ‘Yeah, no problem’ and then I thought about what I might say – and had a complete meltdown. I mean – can you tell these people in just a few minutes something that might help them – you know – get through life?

 And I thought … No.

Can you tell me how to get through life?

 So (like any sane person) I went to YouTube.

Man was that a bad idea. I discovered I’m not Tom Hanks, or Denzel Washington, or Batman (you can look those up) and so I asked chat gpt.

Man was that a bad idea. It wrote a grandly inspirational speech – worthy of a movie, but to say it on a stage? I’d have to be Tom Hanks, or Denzel Washington or Batman. So I asked the Head Teacher what she wanted me to talk about and she said ‘Next steps’.

Next steps – into the world beyond school. Or as some people would have it ‘The real world’. I know I was always told ‘You’ll know all about it when you have to survive in the real world.’ Yep. It’s all different out there in the real world’.

Now a clear-minded thinker might ask ‘Well if the real world is so different and I’m not ready for it, then what the hell have you been teaching me all this time?’ And that’s a fair question.

But an even clearer-minded thinker would say ‘Define real’.

There’s fake news, adverts and scams – there are politicians on one side telling you one thing whilst there are other politicians telling you another thing. There’s AI and deepfakes and on top of that there’s just the common or garden idiot telling you the wrong thing because they either don’t know any better or they’re trying to look good or they’re just an idiot. Outside of science and maths what’s true for you might not be true for me.

Other advice you might get is ‘Try your best, live your best life, be the best version of you’. And I had a think about that. I think the best version of me is the writer in me. The guy who sits and stares into space and makes up imaginary stories in imaginary places with imaginary people.

My wife thinks the best version of me is the me that does the laundry.

As I total it up the best version of me would:

Make more money, but work away less and be at home more.

Whilst at the same time getting out more and doing a bit of exercise,

And

Being more relaxed whilst getting some of the jobs done around the house and thinking about the future.

I should communicate more and listen,

And if I could be funny but not so much of a smart arse that would be great.

Hmmm… is it possible, just possible, that there is no ‘best version of me’? There’s just me. And, to be honest, it’s not always the same me.

You’re not the same person you are with your parents that you are with your teachers and I know you’re not the same person with your friends that you are with your boyfriend or girlfriend. And there are good reasons for all of that.

But, here’s the real news. You aren’t the same person now that you will be in the future. I look back at my younger self and think ‘What an idiot he was’. Older generations are fond of saying ‘Ach, if I knew then what I know now’.

But you can’t. That’s the whole point of it all. Your current ‘real’ isn’t your final or only ‘real’.

If there is one constant in life it’s change. And that includes you. Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne (I’m a nerd) is credited with saying .

 I knew things at 18 that I do not know now.

And he wasn’t talking about Taylor Swift lyrics. He was talking about the certainties you have in your head right now that you cannot imagine ever changing. But they do and thank heaven for that.

Of all the things people say in grandiose speeches I think the worst one has to be ‘You have one life, make the best of it.’

No you don’t. That’s a nonsense.

A few years ago I was talking to a mate in a pub (at least one of us was hammered) and for some reason the idea of reincarnation came up. And my mate said ‘I already feel like I’ve been reincarnated’.

And because of the hour or the drinks or whatever I knew immediately what he meant. Not that he’d lived and died before then come back as him, but that there had already been more than one life in this life.

American Poet Stanley Kunitz said;

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

Now, I am a leader of a national charity, I get to work in film and I get to make films with young people all the time. I don’t have a boss and the person who runs the charity with me is my business partner. Who also happens to be my best mate and I’ve known him since we were younger than you are now. (Very young, with more and better hair).

That’s not what I started out to be. Because when I was your age I had a head full of dreams and nonsense and great big plans. But I am not who I was.

I reckon I have been at least five fully different people since then – all the while being my true self. The truth is you will have many different lives. Work life, home life, your young years and (if you are lucky like me) your middle age and on. Me? I have been a comic, a writer, a lover, a student, a father… I have been an inspiration and, I have no doubt, a disappointment. The place I am now is the best place I have ever been, the job I do now is the best job I have ever had.

How did I get that job? I made it up. Before this there was no one doing exactly what I do and to be honest there aren’t that many who would want to or could. And that doesn’t matter to me. As Oscar Wilde said:

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”

How you live all of those lives is a matter of trial and error. I have made many mistakes, but they have been mine. I’m not going to start singing My Way or anything but if you are going to make all the mistakes anyway they might as well be your own, no? I’m certainly not going to pay the price for other peoples.

This is getting long so I’ll finish back at the start. People will tell you that it’s a struggle to survive in the real world. And for the more unfortunate it is. For most of us though, well, it can be boring at times but it’s not Mad Max, it’s not The Hunger Games out there.

Take the best advice you can, make all the mistakes you need to and for God’s sake don’t beat yourself up about it. There’s another life around the corner.