“What you do in life chooses you. You can choose not to do it. You can choose to try to do something safer. Your vocation chooses you.”

As children (and even as adults), we are oftentimes offered conflicting career advice. Go to school and learn some practical and respectable. Learn to be a nurse or an accountant. Those jobs are stable and pay well. Then again, maybe you should do what we love… only to realize that the money very rarely follows. And what you love can change over time. That has been precisely the case with Jim Carrey.

You Can Do What You Want to Do

Like most other people, I was first introduced to “James Carrey” by way of In Living Color, the 90s sketchy comedy show that arguably pushed more boundaries than Saturday Night Live. Many of the characters and sketches on the show would be considered wildly offensive today, like Men on Film and Anton Jackson. Jim Carrey played female bodybuilder Vera De Milo.

Indeed, over-the-top performances bursting with frenetic energy defined his brand of comedy throughout the 90s and into the early 2000s. He enjoyed great success with such films as Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and The Mask. From what we could gather, Jim Carrey was doing what he loved. He was doing what called out to him.

But it feels like he has taken a significant step back from the limelight in recent years. He distanced himself from Kick-Ass 2, saying he couldn’t condone the portrayal of such violence. Along the way, he has had his heart broken and he needed to find a means to heal. As it turns out, he’s a really talented painter.

Moving to a New Channel

Absolutely, it doesn’t hurt that Jim Carrey has amassed a fortune of untold millions over the years, which has clearly facilitated the exploration of his new art, but that shouldn’t detract from his journey and his healing. He says those words at the top of this post right in the beginning of the short documentary, I Needed Color. The title may or may not refer back to his days as Fire Marshall Bill on In Living Color.

There’s something that calls to you, even if you don’t love every minute of it. Even if you make your living as a banker, you may feel this unwavering interest in woodworking… but you choose banking because it’s “safer” and more stable. While there is no shame in that, it still hides the truth that a different vocation calls to you.

What may start out as a hobby could evolve into a side hustle. And that side hustle could turn into you main gig if you persevere, putting in the necessary time and effort. Or, it could just stay as a hobby. And that’s okay too.

Express Yourself

Perhaps the most important lesson we can learn from I Needed Color, aside from learning of Jim Carrey’s hidden talent, is that we all need a creative outlet to express ourselves and to work through our struggles. As we’ve seen from comedians like Chris Farley and Robin Williams, sometimes the people who are laughing the loudest on the outside are hurting the most on the inside.

Yes, I Needed Color is a little self-indulgent, but it’s also beautifully put together with a unique perspective into this “new” artist’s new life. If you haven’t already watched it, this short film is well worth about six minutes of your time. And if you have, go ahead and watch it again.