Enlightened teachers get all sorts of assignments. Sometimes we end up in the higher astral; sometimes we end up in the realm of pure spirit; sometimes we end up in the desire realms. Sometimes we go down to the lower astral to teach, you don't really teach there, you just sort of are, because everybody is confused.
In retrospect, I think maybe Audrey Hepburn was going to talk to me about doing something for UNICEF. I was so overwhelmed to just even be in her presence and I was very young, but it was really special and unforgettable.
I started working at a soup kitchen in skid row of Los Angeles when I was 13 years old, and the first day, I felt really scared. I was young, and it was rough and raw down there, and though I was with a great volunteer group, I just felt overwhelmed.
But to win, I was overwhelmed - it felt great! I was really excited. I didn't expect it, but I'm also really competitive. As soon as I hear the word "competition" I get serious and start doing everything that I can do.
I think on my passport form I described myself as 'entertainer,' filling it in, in a Post Office or something. I felt like I should be doing jazz hands when I wrote that, but I don't do anything else really.
I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I didn't necessarily need or want to be famous or a celebrity actor. But I wanted to be somewhere where there would be no ceiling on what I could accomplish, and I felt like if I stayed in St. Louis I might have a really great regional theater career or something, but that I wasn't going to be able to get much further than that. And it felt like New York and L.A. were the two places where you could end up being a TV star or you could end up doing regional theater, which would have been fine as well.
If you don't do anything, you simply end up overwhelmed by something happening.
The spirit around leaving New York, for me, was that I just felt I needed to do something really outside of my comfort zone. And I really couldn't tell you at the time why I needed to do it. It wasn't like I was running from something dark; it was a desire to shake things up.
I never thought I'd end up doing comedy, but actually, it's been something I've really relished the challenge of and ended up doing quite a bit of.
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following Your Will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please You does in fact please You. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
We start off confused and end up confused on a higher level.
Growing up in the Pacific Northwest as a young girl, whenever I felt emotionally overwhelmed, I would take a walk in the woods. Being in the stillness and grandeur of trees had always calmed me.
If you're trying to be an actor, sometimes you get lucky, and you end up on 'The Office', but if you don't, and you know that you have something to say, it's really, really fortunate to be able to get to write and star in your own comedy.
I always felt like Tahliah's a very grown-up name to have. It's a pretty name when you're young, and then I think when I became a young lady, it felt kind of like a lot to grow into for some reason. I don't know. It sounds kind of regal. I never really liked it. I always felt like I couldn't live up to it.
I don't believe in a perfect world. I don't believe it's achievable, and I believe the people who try to achieve it usually end up turning it into something like Cambodia or something very similar because purity tests set in. Are you ideologically pure enough to be allowed to live? Well, it turns out that very few people are, so you end up with a big powerful struggle and a mass killing scene.
Everyone says comedy is really hard, but with 'The Office' the naturalism was everything so it didn't feel like doing comedy; it just felt like doing a really offensive character who thought he was funny.