"Desperate Housewives" Star Advises
Graduating Students How To Cope With Despair

By Paul Mueller I June 13, 2005

Ricardo Chavira

More than 1,200 graduating students of Earl Warren College gathered on the RIMAC lawn Sunday afternoon to listen to Ricardo Chavira deliver a commencement address entitled "The Other Side of Despair."

Playing off the name of the "Desperate Housewives" series he stars in, Chavira said that students "face desperate measures on a daily basis." Each student, he said, "has been desperate in some way, shape or form," and "one of the main components of despair is uncertainty - those things you cannot predict or control." To cope, he suggested, students must "embrace not knowing" and practice "active patience" - such activities as meditation, reading, hiking, mentoring, gardening, music, and service in the community.

Ricardo Chavira

"And in developing your patience," Chavira said, "you will also learn the key to one of the great paradoxes in life - the greatest fulfillment in life comes from committing yourself to something outside yourself.The end of desperation lies out and above yourself - in your heart and in your soul."

Desperation and uncertainly, Chavira said, "are a way of life for any artist.or for that matter any human. In his song from the movie 'The Motorcycle Diaries,' Jorge Drexler talks about 'al otro lado del rio' - the other side of the river. The other side of the river holds uncertainties and maybe even some desperation, but also life, love and hope."

Chavira graduated from UCSD with an MFA in acting in 2000 after receiving his undergraduate degree in Texas.