Unless you’ve been cryogenically frozen over the last three weeks, you have heard Conan’s Tonight Show has been forced off the air in favor of Jay Leno. Following several shows in which Conan expressed his bitterness against his bosses at NBC in various ways, he ended his run nine days ago rather graciously. (A $33 million settlement will do that.) But it wasn’t his gratitude to NBC that caught my attention.
Right before picking up his Les Paul and riding off into the late-night sunset by performing a rendition of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Freebird” -- complete with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons (with beard), good buddy Will Ferrell (with cowbell), Ben Harper, and of course, Max Weinberg -- Conan expressed this jewel of wisdom to his viewers that really hit home with me:
“All I ask is one thing, and I’m asking this particularly of young people that watch. Please do not be cynical. I hate cynicism. For the record, it’s my least favorite quality. It doesn’t lead anywhere. Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get, but if you work really hard, and you’re kind, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you, amazing things will happen. I’m telling you. It’s just true.”
He's right. I go through ups and downs like anyone, and it always seems like those downs correlate with cynicism. It’s tough to figure which is the cause and which is the effect (i.e., do my downs cause me to be cynical, or does being cynical cause my downs). But either way, striving to avoid excessive negativity is the way to live.
Conan’s right: that’s when amazing things happen.
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