Speech 3
Transcending Yourself and Challenging Your Limits
超越自我，挑战极限

Seriously, it is pleasure to be here on what is a remarkable day. It's a beautiful day if it doesn't rain and a very special day in your lives. You've worked incredibly hard to get here, to get through here, and I hope you're all very proud of yourselves. You should be. And I'm sure you've already done this, but I hope that at some point this weekend—I'm sure everybody's encouraged you to do this—that you look your parents in the eye and hung them close and thank them for everything they have done to get you to this moment and this spot. Because as hard as it's been for you, I guarantee you it's been twice as hard for them.

My mom's advice to me as Yale graduation was “Follow your bliss”.I was hoping for something a little more specific, like plastics. What, plastics? You like plastics? All right. But in retrospect, follow your bliss was pretty good advice. My mom didn't actually coin the phrase—actually it was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College named Joseph Campbell who did—and my mom had seen a taped interview on TV. It shows you our relationship—she was giving advice she has gotten off of television. I'm thankful she wasn't watching Montel Williams or something, or Fox News. I kid, because they have huge ratings. They kill me.

The problem, of course, with follow your bliss (and I actually think that's pretty good advice), but the problem with follow your bliss is actually trying to figure out what your bliss is, and that's not an easy thing to do. Like many of you, I have a liberal arts degree, which is to say, I have no actual skill. And I majored in political science. You're excited about it now, but believe me, it doesn't go very far. It means you can read a newspaper, but other than that, I'm not really sure what else. I also focused a lot of my studies on communism, which when the Berlin Wall fell, I was totally screwed. I know, it was a happy occasion for a lot of people, but believe me, on this campus, believe me, all of the Russian studies majors were very down in the dumps. The one thing I knew I liked was television and particularly television news. I watched a lot of it growing up so I figured okay, I've got a Yale degree, I'll go give that a shot, I'll apply for an entry-level job at ABC News, a gopher position. Like I'm totally qualified for this: answering phones, I'll go do whatever Peter Jennings wants. I could not get this job. It took six months; they strung me along. I did interviews. I could not get the job, which shows you the value of a Yale education.

But it actually was the best thing that ever happened to me. I decided that if no one would give me a chance, I'd have to take a chance, and if no one would give me an opportunity, I would have to create my own opportunity.So I came up with this plan to become a reporter. I figured if I went places where there weren't many Americans, I wouldn't have much competition. So I decided to start going to wars, which my mom was thrilled about. It was a very simple plan, but it was moronic, but it actually worked. I made a fake press pass on a Macintosh computer—actually, I didn't even make it to be honest, a friend of mine made it because I'm computer illiterate—and I got a home video camera that I borrowed and I just decided to go to wars. I snuck into Burma and holed up with some students fighting the Burmese government and moved into Somalia in the early days of the famine. I spent really the next two years going from one war-torn country to another:Bosnia, South Africa for Mandela's election. I was in Rwanda for genocide, which makes ultimately doing“The Mole”a natural step, as you can see where I'm going.

I may have gone to school as Yale, but I always think that in many ways I was educated on the streets of Johannesburg, in Kigali, in Sarajevo, in Port-Au-Prince. And I've learned when you go to the edges of the world, where the boundaries aren't clear, where the dark parts of the human heart are open for all to see, you learn things about yourself and you learn things about your fellow human beings and what we're all capable of. We're capable, really, of anything, great acts of compassion and dignity, as we saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. We're also capable of great acts of cowardice and brutality and stupidity, which we also saw in the wake of Hurricane of Katrina.

The funny thing is that just two years after doing this, of going on my own and going into wars, ABC News called me up and offered me a job as a correspondent. I was just about 27; I was the youngest correspondent they hired since Jennings and Koppel years ago. For me, it was a lesson:two years before I tried to get an entry-level job and I thought that was the path, because that was the path that everyone took. And had I gotten that job there was no way I would have had the opportunities that I had; there was no way I would have seen the things I've been able to see.

When I was graduating and trying to decide what to do with my life, I really felt paralyzed because I thought I had to figure it out all at once. I had to pick a career and start down a path that I'd be on for the rest of my life. I now know that it totally doesn't work that way. It certainly didn't for me. Everyone I know who'ssuccessful, professionally and personally, could never have predicted when they graduated from college where they'd actually end up. My friends from Yale who are happiest are the ones who thought less of where they'd be in 10 years and what steps they'd have to do now in order to make partner 10 years from now in a law firm or build their 401K. My friends who are happiest now are the ones who kept taking steps based on what they felt right and what felt like them at the moment. If I had gotten that job on the set of ABC News there's no telling where I'd be now.

When I started going to wars I had no clear goal in mind. There was no path that promised me success or job security. But I was listening really to myself and followed my passion, and I'm more convinced than ever that if you do that, you will be successful. I'm not talking about rich—perhaps you will be—but you'll be fulfilled, and that'sthe greatest success you can have.

I always wince... I'm kind of rushing because I see the skies darkening, which frankly happens wherever I go, so if I whip out my rain slicker, you all are totally screwed. I always wince when someone says that college is the best four years of your life, because, frankly. For me it wasn't. I hope it's not for you either. Every year after college just gets better. Your confidence grows;you're living the life that you've chosen.

It's so interesting to me how real life has very little to do with what you've learned here, and yet, what you've learned here, what you've struggled to achieve, will help you. I can't exactly say how: It's not something that can necessarily be defined. When I first went to Somalia I was surrounded by teenagers with guns and grenade launchers, there was nothing particular that I've learned at Yale that allowed me to survive. When I was in Rwanda in the genocide and was surrounded by bodies and had seen terrible things, there was no one particular class that I've taken that helped me got through. And yet something about the experience here—the friendships, the accumulating of facts and theories, the confidence I gained over the course of four years—allowed me to go to those places and helped me chart my own course.

At Yale I met some of the smartest people I know but that kind of academic success really means very little once you've left this campus. I've never been asked what my grades were at Yale; that only happens if you run for president, and frankly, as we've all seen, it doesn't even matter. No one has ever asked me to talk about my senior thesis paper and I've never gotten a job because I was on the lightweight crew team. All those things were hugely important to me at the time, but right now, in truth, they are kind of dim memories for me. And I'm not saying they're frivolous or unimportant, they're not, and I treasure all the opportunities I had here at Yale.

But when you graduate, the slate is wiped clean. Outside of college campuses, I think we're encouraged today to see things through a very limited lens. On cable news, anchors have become caricatures, wearing their politics on their sleeves or their lapels, claiming that they're looking out for you and if you only watch their show or read their book, you'll be able to understand how things really are. It would be kind of humorous if it weren't, frankly, dangerous. On reality TV shows you watch people swapping lives, but a genuine swapping of ideas is something you rarely see outside of the college campus. We're fighting not just a war of terror but a war of ideas, and I think it's important that as a class, we all understand the importance of understanding other people's ideas, our enemies, as well as our friends'.

I'm not very good at giving advice. We all know that'sBill O'Reilly'sjob and he does it very well. I actually Googled graduation speeches to see what kind of advice other people give at these kind of things, and believe me, they're incredibly cheesy. Goldie Hawn told graduates at AU, and I quote, “while you are continuing to walk down that sometimes bumpy road of life, develop the art of laughter and joy. Keep in your backpack of treasures the whole you, the best you, the you that won't fear failure.”Yeah, think about it. Backpack of treasures. Very true. Yoko Ono gave a Commencement speech. (she didn't sing it, she actually talked at it.) She said: “I say you can't stand if you've got too much muck in your head. Let it go, and dance through life.” So true, so much muck, you know? Muck is a big problem. Of course. It's easier to dance through life if you have a billion dollars, but I digress.

Since my mom gave me advice from television, I'm actually going to give you advice from a movie, because that'sthe best I could come up with, frankly. It's one of my favorite movies：“Lawrence of Arabia.”And for you, I think, on this day, at this moment in your lives, I think that is especially true. Nothing is written. You've been taught how to write for yourselves. This weekend, the slate is wiped clean. There are no words that you have to use. There are no sentences you must complete. You stand before a field of freshly fallen snow; there are no footprints that you have to follow. Nothing is written. And I hope you know that it is truly a rare and wonderful place to be. Congratulations, Class of 2006. You deserve it.