Hillary Clinton: 'It's not easy to wade back into the fitght every day', Yale University - 2018

23 May 2018, Yale Class Day, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Oh, that was great. Oh, nice one. Thank you, thank you. Hello. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you, thank you. Wow, I am so delighted to be here. Sorry we're not outside, but this makes it kind of cosy.

I want to thank President Salovey and Dean Chun. Thank you Alex, a Razorback fan from Little Rock, Arkansas for getting us started on such a high note. Thanks to Alexis and Josh for your comments and your introduction. Thanks to all of the family and friends here today for allowing me to share this happy occasion, and good afternoon to everyone joining us by livestream from around campus. But most of all, congratulations to the class of 2018. I am thrilled for all of you, even the three of you who live in Michigan and didn't request your absentee ballots in time.

But before I go any further, I just want to be sure, did the students from the new colleges make it here? I worried that your flights might be delayed. Sorry Franklin and Pauli Murray, I heard you had a great first year and I am honoured that this class has invited me to be your speaker. Now I see, looking out at you that you are following the tradition of over-the-top hats so I brought a hat too. A Russian hat. Right? Look, I mean, if you can't beat them, join them.

Being here with you brings back a flood of memories. I remember the first time I arrived on campus as an incoming law student in the fall of 1969 wearing my bell-bottoms, driving a beat up old car with a mattress tied to the roof. I had no idea what to expect. Now to be honest, I had had some trouble making up my mind between Yale and Harvard Law Schools. Then one day while we were still in that period of decision making, I was invited to a cocktail party at Harvard for potentially incoming law students where I met a famous law professor.

A friend of mine, a male law student, introduced me to this famous law professor. I mean truly, big three piece suit, watch chain, and my friend said, "Professor, this is Hillary Rodham. She's trying to decide whether to come here next year or sign up with our closest competitor." Now the great man gave me a cool dismissive look and said, "Well, first of all, we don't have any close competitors. And secondly, we don't need any more women at Harvard."

Now I was leaning toward Yale anyway but that pretty much sealed the deal, and when I came to Yale I was one of 27 women out of 235 law students. It was the first year women were admitted to the college, and as that first class of women prepared to graduate four years later, The New York Times reported on Yale's foray into co-education, noting that the women "worked harder and got somewhat better grades than the 940 men graduating with them. A fact," they went on to say, "that some of the men apparently found threatening." Well, I was shocked.

But over the years Yale has been a home away from home for me, a place I've returned to time and again. I spoke to class day back in 2001 on the 300th anniversary of the university, and I hope that that will be the case for many of you as well. This school has been responsible for some of my most treasured friends and colleagues, people like Jake Sullivan and Harold Koh, and I've watched some of you grow up, like Rebecca Shaw, who's graduating today and you'll hear from shortly. And I've been honoured to serve over the last year or two, working with some of the Yale Law School faculty including the new Dean, Heather Gerkin.

Now Yale grads, many of whom are also here today, have worked for me in the United States Senate, the State Department, on my presidential campaigns, and I have been so well-served. I have a very dedicated campaign intern here graduating, David Shimer, the class of 2018.

But I have to confess, of all the formative experiences I had at Yale, perhaps none was more significant than the day during my second year when I was cutting through what was then the student lounge with some friends, and I saw this tall, handsome guy with a beard who looked like a viking. I said to my friend, "Well, who is that?" And she said, "Well, that's Bill Clinton. He's from Arkansas and that's all he ever talks about." And then as if on cue, I hear him saying, "And not only that, we grow the biggest watermelons in the world." And I was like, "Who is this person?" But he kept looking at me and I kept looking back.

So we were in the Law Library one night, I was studying but I couldn't help but see occasionally as I lifted my head up that he was, again, looking at me. So finally I thought, "This is ridiculous," so I got up, went over to him, and I said, "If you're going to keep looking at me and I'm going to keep looking back, we at least ought to be introduced. I'm Hillary Rodham. Who are you?" And that started a conversation that continues to this day.

Now it was also here at Yale that I saw a flyer in the Law School on a bulletin board that changed my life. Now some of your parents and grandparents may remember flyers and bulletin boards. For the rest of you, suffice it to say, that was how we got information. It was like Facebook but the bulletin board didn't steal your personal information. So one day I saw a note about a woman named Marian Wright Edelman, a Yale Law School graduate, civil rights activist who would go on to found The Children's Defence Fund.

Marian was coming back to campus to give a lecture. I went, I was captivated to hear her talk about using her Yale education to create a Head Start programme in rural Mississippi. And I wound up working for her that summer, and the experience opened my eyes to the ways that the law can protect children or come up short. Because like many of you, I learned just as much outside the four walls of the classroom as I did sitting in a lecture hall, and I discovered a passion that has animated my life and my work ever since.

Now a lot has changed since I was here. In 2019 Yale will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the matriculation of women at the college, and the 150th anniversary of the first women graduate students at Yale. And I heard that Yale officially changed the term freshman to first year. I also heard, amazingly, that The Duke's Men and the Whiffenpoofs have started welcoming women. Now as for my long lost Whiffs audition tape, I have buried it so deep not even Wikileaks will be able to find it, because if you thought my emails were scandalous you should hear my singing voice.

I find it very exciting that today's graduates hail from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and 56 other countries. And in your four years on campus, you've survived late nights in the Bass cubicles and early mornings in the Sterling stacks, you've trekked up Science Hill, maybe you've even found love at The Last Chance Dance, and now you're ready to take on your next adventure. But maybe some of you are reluctant to leave. I understand that. It's possible to feel both because the class of 2018 is graduating at one of the most tumultuous times int he history of our country, and I say that as someone who graduated in the sixties.

I recently went back and looked up those famous lines from Charles Dickens in A Tale of two Cities because I usually end after saying, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." But it goes on, "It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

Now Dickens was writing about the years leading up to the French Revolution, but he could have been describing the ricocheting highs and lows of this moment in America. We're living through a time when fundamental rights, civic virtue, freedom of the press, even facts and reason are under assault like never before. But we are also witnessing an era of new moral conviction, civic engagement, and a sense of devotion to our democracy and country. So here's the good news. If any group were ever prepared to rise to the occasion, it is you, the class of 2018. You've already demonstrated the character and courage that will help you navigate this tumultuous moment, and most of all, you've demonstrated resilience.

Now that's a word that's been on my mind a lot recently. One of my personal heroes, Eleanor Roosevelt said, "You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself I have lived through this horror, I can take the next thing that comes along." Well, that's resilience and it's so important because everyone, everyone gets knocked down. What matters is whether you get back up and keep going. This may be hard for a group of Yale soon-to-be graduates to accept, but yes, you will make mistakes in life. You will even fail. It happens to all of us, no matter how qualified or capable we are. Take it from me.

I remember those first months after that 2016 election were not easy. We all had our own methods of coping. I went for long walks in the woods, Yale students went for long walks in East Rock Park. I spent hours going down a Twitter rabbit hole, you spend hours in the Yale Memes Group. I had my fair share of Chardonnay, you had penny drinks at Woads. I practised yoga and alternate nostril breathing, you took Psych and the Good Life.

And let me just get this out of the way, no, I'm not over it. I still think about the 2016 election. I still regret the mistakes I made. I still think though, that understanding what happened in such a weird and wild election in American history will help us defend our democracy in the future. Whether you're right, left, centre, Republican, Democrat, independent, vegetarian, whatever, we all have stake in that. So today as a person, I'm okay. But as an American, I'm concerned.

Personal resilience is important but it's not the only form of resilience we need right now. We also need community resilience. That's something that this class has embodied during your time on campus. Literally, at times, like in the March of Resilience your sophomore year. It was the biggest demonstration in the history of the school. That's 300+ years. Led by women of colour, supported by students and faculty determined to make Yale a more just, equitable, and safe place for everyone. Many of you have said that march was a defining moment in your college experience, and that says something about this class and your values. Because the truth is, our country is more polarised than ever.

We have sorted ourselves into opposing camps and that divides how we see the world. The data backs this up. There are more Liberals and Conservatives than there used to be and fewer Centrists. Our political parties are more ideologically and geographically consistent, which means there are fewer northern Republicans and fewer southern Democrats. And the divides on race and religion are starker than ever before. And as the middle shrank, partisan animosity grew. Now I'm not going to get political here, but this isn't simply a both sides problem. The radicalization of American politics hasn't been symmetrical. There are leaders in our country who blatantly incite people with hateful rhetoric, who fear change, who see the world in zero sum terms, so that if others are gaining, well, they must be losing. That's a recipe for polarisation and conflict.

Our social fabric is fraying and the bonds of community that hold us together are fractured. This isn't just a problem because it leads to unpleasant conversations over the Thanksgiving dinner table, it's a problem because it undermines the civic spirit that makes democracy possible. The habits of the heart that de Tocqueville found so unique in the American character. I believe healing our country is going to take what I call radical empathy. As hard as it is, this is a moment to reach across divide of race, class, and politics, to try to see the world through the eyes of people very different from ourselves and to return to rational debate. To find a way to disagree without being disagreeable, to try to recapture a sense of community and common humanity.

When we think about politics and judge our leaders, we can't just ask, "Am I better off than I was two years or four years ago?" We have to ask, "Are we all better off? Are we as a country better, stronger, and fairer?" That's something you've done here at Yale. You've learned that you don't need to be an immigrant to be outraged when a classmate's father, a human being who contributes to his family and his country is unjustly deported. You don't need to be a person of colour to understand that when black students feel singled out and targeted, we still have work to do. And you don't need to experience gun violence to know that when a teenager in Texas who just survived a mass shooting says she's not surprised by what happened at her school because, and I quote, "I've always felt like eventually it was going to happen here too." We are failing our children. So enough is enough, we need to come together and we certainly need common sense gun safety legislation as soon as we can get it.

Now empathy should not only be at the centre of our individual lives, our families, and our communities, it should be at the centre of our public life, our policies, and our politics. I know we don't always think of politics and empathy as going hand in hand, but they can, and more than that, they must. As former secretary Madeleine Albright writes in her terrific new book, Fascism: A Warning, she says, "This generosity of spirit, this caring about others and about the proposition that we are created equal is the single most effective antidote to the self-centred moral numbness that allows fascism to thrive." And of course, Madeleine had personal experience fleeing the Nazis in Czechoslovakia as a baby, returning after the wall, feeling the communists as a young girl.

Now that brings me to one more form of resilience that's been on my mind over the last year, democratic resilience. In 1787, after the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin, who by the way received an honorary degree from Yale, was asked by a woman in the street outside Independence Hall, "Well doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy? And Franklin answered, "A republic, if you can keep it." Right now we're living through a full-fledged crisis in our democracy. Now there are not tanks in the streets, but what's happening right now goes to the heart of who we are as a nation.

And I say this not as a democrat who lost an election, but as an American afraid of losing a country. There are certain things that are so essential, they should transcend politics. Waging a war on the rule of law and a free press, delegitimizing elections, perpetrating shameless corruption, and rejecting the idea that our leaders should be public servants undermines our national unity. And attacking truth and reason, evidence and facts should alarm us all.

You and your parents have just paid for a first class, world class education, and as Yale History Professor Timothy Snyder writes in his book, On Tyranny, "To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticise power because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle." I think Professor Snyder, both in that book and in his new one, The Road to Unfreedom, is sounding the alarm as loudly as he can. Because attempting to erase the line between fact and fiction, truth and reality is a core feature of authoritarianism. The goal is to make us question logic and reason and to sow mistrust toward exactly the people we need to rely on, our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, even ourselves.

Just this week, former Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson said, "If our leaders seek to conceal the truth, or we as people become accepting of alternative realities that are no longer grounded in facts, then we as American citizens are on a pathway to relinquishing our freedom. Perhaps a tad late, but he's absolutely right. So how do we build democratic resilience? I think it starts with standing up for truth, facts, and reason, not just in the classroom and on campus but every day in our lives. It means speaking out about the vital role of higher education in our society, to create opportunity and equality. It means calling out actual fake news when we see it and supporting brave journalists and their reporting, maybe even by subscribing to a newspaper. Now most of all, as obvious as it seems, it means voting. In every election, not just the presidential ones. So yes, these are challenging times for America but we've come through challenging times before.

I think back to the night Barrack Obama was elected president. Many of us, so many of us were jubilant. Even I, who had once hoped to beat him, was ecstatic. It was such a hopeful moment, and yet in some ways this moment feels even more hopeful, because this is a battle-hardened hope, tempered by loss, and clear-eyed about the stakes. We are standing up to policies that hurt people. We are standing up for all people being treated with dignity. We are doing the work to translate those feelings into action. And the fact that some days it is really hard to keep at it just makes it that much more remarkable that so many of us are, in fact, keeping at it.

It's not easy to wade back into the fight every day, but we're doing it. And that's why I am optimistic, because of how unbelievably tough Americans are proving to be. I've encountered lots of people in recent months who give me hope. The Parkland students who endured unthinkable tragedy and have responded with courage and resolve. The leaders and groups I've gotten to know through Onward Together, an organisation I started after the election to encourage the outpouring of grassroots engagement that we're seeing. Everyone who is marching, registering voters, and diving into the issues facing us like never before, some for the very first time in their lives. And I find hope in the wave of women running for office, and winning. And hope in the women and men who are dismantling the notion that women should have to endure harassment and violence as a part of our lives.

So we have a long way to go. There are many fights to fight and more seem to arise every day. It will take work to keep up the pressure, to stay vigilant, to neither close our eyes, nor numb our hearts, or throw up our hands and say, "Someone else take over from here." Because at this moment in our history our country depends on every citizen believing in the power of their actions, even when that power is invisible and their efforts feel like an uphill battle. Of every citizen voting in every election, even when your side loses. It is a matter of infinite faith, this faith we have in the ability to govern ourselves, to come together to make honourable, practical compromise in the pursuit of ends that will lift us all up and move us forward.

So yes, we need to pace ourselves but also lean on each other. Look for the good wherever we can. Celebrate heroes, encourage children, find ways to disagree respectfully. We need to be ready to lose some fights, because we will. As John McCain recently reminded us, "No just cause is futile, even if it's lost." What matters is to keep going no matter what, keep going.

The Yale you're graduating from is very different from the Yale I graduated from. It's different even from the Yale that welcomed you four years ago. Four years ago, not one of Yale's colleges was named after a woman. Today students are carrying on the legacy of a trailblazing LGBT civil rights activist at Pauli Murray College and celebrating one of Yale's own hidden figures at Grace Hopper College, named after the naval officer who happened to be one of the first computer programmers in America.

Those changes didn't happen on their own, you made them possible. You kept fighting, you kept the faith. And because of that, in the end, you changed Yale as much as Yale changed you. And now it's time for you to make your mark on the world. I know the best. The best for you, for Yale, and for America is yet to come, and you each will have a role to play and a contribution to make. Thank you and congratulations to the class of 2018.

Barbara Walters: 'Your bliss will find you', Yale Class Day - 2012

20 May 2012, Yale, Connecticut, USA

You look absolutely marvellous. What a sight. Good afternoon. Congratulations to this wonderful class of 2012. Exuberant graduates, relieved parents, loving friends and exhausted professors. I am really so honoured that you've given me the privilege to address me in what is so a special a day for you and special to me as well. My hats off to you. I want to tell you first about this hat. When I arrived I was greeted by a most wonderful and welcoming lady master Pamela Laurens and who said to me, "Would you like to go upstairs and wash up?" I said, "I don't think I need to." She said, looking at me, "Yes, you're right. You already are washed up." Where is Pamela? Anyway, she made up for it. This is her hat. As you heard a few years ago I wrote my memoir. It was called audition. To me life has been a continuous audition.

While writing the book I had to do some research on my family including my paternal grandmother Lilly whom I had never met. She was evidently a very elegant and fastidious woman. On her deathbed she turned to her seven children and told them that she was a virgin. They said, "Well, how is that possible. We are here three sons and four daughters. You must have done something with grandpa." She said, "Yes, I did but I never participated." When I was asked if I would come here today if I would talk with you I said to myself, "These kids are smarter than I am. These kids are younger than I am. They are better educated, but by God I am going to participate." It's a daunting task, because I'm used to talking every day on television, usually with four other women who interrupt me all the time. Today it's a great joy to be able to speak uninterrupted. I was trying to think of what I could tell you that's going to make the least bit of difference in your lives, even 10 minutes from now.

When I went to college I went to a very small college called Sarah Lawrence, back in the middle ages. I had a professor who became very well known. His name was Joseph Campbell and he exhorted us all to follow our bliss. Do what you love, follow your bliss and you will truly be successful. It was great advice, except when I graduated from college I hadn't a clue what I really loved. I had no bliss to follow. When I look at all of you today I think many of you do know what your bliss is. Graduate school, or medicine or law or biology, ecology, sociology. How about none of the above? How many of you in this graduating class truly know what your bliss is? Raise your hands. Isn't that interesting. Not that great a number. How many of you do not know what your bliss is? Raise your hands. Don't be afraid. Most of us don't. I didn't find my bliss until I was in my 30s and then by luck. That's another story.

When you walk out of here and everybody, every friend, every family member says, "What are you going to do? What are you going to do?" Just tell them you haven't yet found your bliss. I did finally find my bliss and I have had a professionally blessed life. As you learned I've interviewed every US president and first lady since Abraham Lincoln. The terrible thing is, is that there are some of you out there who really believe that. It's really been since Richard Nixon. I have interviewed world leaders from Fidel Castro to Vladimir Putin and this past December Syria's Bashar Assad. I should know something about leadership and some message that I could give you. I decided that what I could offer you most today is the wisdom and the stories of some of the most thoughtful people that I have been fortunate enough to talk with over the years. I think their words, rather than just mine, may help to answer your own questions and your own quest for bliss.

Much of what I will talk to you about has to do with choices and much of what you will be facing tomorrow and in the years ahead are choices. Let's start at the top with President Barack Obama, as it happens, as you heard, I interviewed him on the view just this past Tuesday. I asked privately if he had followed his bliss. He said yes. He became a community organiser. Then I asked what jobs does he think are available during these tough economic times. He said the best jobs right now are in science and engineering. If that is your bliss you are fortunate. You will be among the few with a job open for you. In the newer interview I asked the president what, as a young man, he thought he would be doing.

This is what he answered; "I had a bunch of different schemes. For a while I thought I might end up being an architect. I like the idea of building buildings. I didn't know what happened to that. I still really admire architects and I love looking at buildings. Then for a while I thought that I might be a basketball player until I realised that I wasn't good enough to be a professional basketball player. I thought I might be a judge, but then I decided after going to law school that I was probably a little too restless to sit on the bench all day long. The one thing I know I didn't expect was that I was going to be president of the United States." I said, "Well, when you've named all the things you couldn't be, the only thing left is to be president. Isn't it?" He said, "Yeah, I guess if you've got to find some use for yourself this isn't a bad way of doing it."

From president to a woman who wanted to be president, one day she still may be, and that is our secretary of state, Hillary Clinton; One of the most admired women in the world and her personal story is very much about choices. At one point in her history she had one of the biggest choices a person could make. A president's fall from grace, a marriage in shambles, a nation embraced. This from an interview with Hillary Clinton in 2005; "You're life has been about taking chances and making choices Mrs. Clinton. What is the biggest choice that you had to make?"

She said, "Staying married to my husband. I'm often asked why Bill and I stayed together. All I know is that nobody understands me better. No one can make me laugh the way Bill does. Even after all these years he is still the most interesting, energising and fully alive person I have ever met. Everyone has a choice every single day about how to live your life. I know that many people looking at my life would say, 'Oh my goodness. How tough.' I look at it differently. I look at the lessons that I've learned, the opportunities that I've had." I ask, "What's the most important lesson you learned?"

She said that life is a gift and that we learn as we go and that love and hope and faith are truly the most important gifts that we can have and that we can give to one another and that when something difficult happens you have to decide what's important to you, what your priorities are. You have to listen hard to your own heart. There are always going to be people who have different ideas about decisions and choices that you should make, but ultimately we are born alone, we die alone and the life we make, the journey we take is really up to us. From Hillary Clinton to the Dalai Lama. He's one of my all time favourite leaders. A man without a country, a man regarded by many as a God who calls himself a teacher and was given his title when he was two years old, the exiled Dalai Lama of Tibet. I went to talk with him and Dharamsala in India. As you know he's been exiled from Tibet.

I went because we were doing a two hour special called Heaven; Where Is It And How Do We Get There? I talked to a great many religious leaders from the different faiths. Most said the purpose of life is to go to heaven or to paradise. The Dalai Lama, when I asked, said, "The purpose of life is to be happy. How do you get to be happy? Through compassion and warmheartedness. You achieve those qualities in part by abandoning all negative thoughts and feelings of competition." For about three days after the interview I practised what the Dalai Lama had taught me. I practised compassion. I was extremely warm hearted. I was not jealous. I had no negative thinking. I smiled a lot. I was so warmhearted and I was exceedingly boring. In truth, the Dalai Lama did give me a lot to aspire to. His was not a lesson lost. Compassion and warmheartedness. So simple and so hard to do. I've tried to practise both.

While I'm speaking of compassion I want to say a few words to this graduating class about friendship. Look around. Look at the people next to you, the people behind you. The people you say may be the most important take away of your years here. The friends that you have made here at Yale may be the best experience you could have. They will continue to be a part of your life long after you may, heaven forbid, forget the name of your professor and even whatever he taught you. I have little family. I have one daughter. My friends are my family and your friends have been the steady part of your growing experience here at Yale. Treasure them. Make the effort to stay in touch with them beyond Facebook. Treat them with compassion and warm heartedness. Do not lose your friends from your life.

Well, I want to talk now about having it all. Men and women today are faced with choices that a of your parents and grandparents didn't have that is you want to have a private life that's important as well as a career. You want to be involved with your children. You don't want to leave it up to daddy or leave it up to parents. How do you have it all? There are still choices that you will make. One of the greatest problems you will face and one of the greatest joys and perhaps triumphs is balancing this life. The career, the relationship, whatever it may be, the children. I thought what I would do, really because I just love it and it's fun, to tell you about Katharine Hepburn. Do you know who she is? Good. Well, some of you are saying, "Who? Which? What?" She was a great actress. She died in 2003 at the age of 96 and she was a beloved icon, in part because she was so definite about everything. She talked like this and she was very definite.

I remember coming back from the Middle East and we were talking about something. She said, "I see things in black and white. Don't you?" I said, "I've just gotten back from the Middle East. I'm afraid I see things in shades of grey." She said, "Well, I pity you." I talked with her. She had married once very young. Never married again and had a long affair with the actor Spencer Tracy. She had a great career. She never had children and she did not have a great marriage. I said, "Can you have a career and a marriage and children?" She said, "You couldn't when I started. At least you couldn't have a marriage that would please me because the ladies are going to have to be careful that they don't all marry morons." I said, "Why?"

She said, "Well, because they don't deliver the goods as wives. We're very confused. Sexually very confused. Look at the birds and the beast and the male and the female. There are very definite types. We're getting awfully confused. I put on pants 50 years ago and declared a middle road, but I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man." I said, "How so?" She said, "Well, I've just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself and I ain't afraid of being alone." I said, "Is it so hard to have it all? The marriage, the children, the career? I think myself it's very tough. Much of my life has been a balancing act."

She said, "It's impossible. If I were a man I would not marry a woman with a career and I would torture myself as a mother. Suppose little Johnny or little Katie had the mumps and I had an opening night? I'd want to strangle the children. I would really want to strangle the children. I'd be thinking to myself I've got to get into the mood. What's the matter with him. Then out of my way." You see? I said, "If you were a man you would not marry a woman with a career?" She said, "I wouldn't be that big a fool. I'd want her to be interested in me, not a career. A career is fascinating. I don't know what the hell the women are going to do, or the men, so welcome to the life of choices." Then my favourite part of the interview did not have to do with choices.

I said to her, "Do you remember the last time we talked? I did something that I have regretted ever since. We were talking about your getting on and you said, which people don't remember, you said, 'I'm like an old tree.' I said, 'What kind of a tree?' You said, 'I'm like an oak tree.' I said, 'Right, everybody forgets that you said you were like a tree.' On my obituary it's going to say she asked people what kind of tree they want to be. Why did she ask that wonderful Katharine Hepburn what kind of a tree, right?'"

She said, "I wonder what kind of a tree people are all the time. Don't you?" Do you ever wonder what kind of a tree your best friend is?" "Well," she said, "You didn't mean that question? I look out and I know I'm not that damn sycamore in the backyard that drops his branches and is liable to kill people. I'm not a silly piddling little tree. I am a wonderful oak tree. I saw one this big around in the woods. A while oak with branches that go right through the wall. Great like that." Symbolic. That's okay.

Speaker 2: I'll take it off.

Barbara Walters: You'll take it off. We were talking earlier when I was having lunch with some of you about Margaret Thatcher. I didn't write down her interview because I didn't know how many of you would remember her, but then I realised that there was a movie, The Iron Lady. What I learned from Margaret Thatcher was how to live with failure. She had been the first female prime minister, the longest raining prime minister. Then her own party kicked her out. I interviewed her right after she was no longer prime minister. She was in a very depressed stage. She said, "The telephone rings and I think I must answer it and I must go back to Downing Street and then I realise that isn't me." She said it is so important, and you're so young now, and you're just beginning, but you will, I hope not, but you will perhaps have some failure. You will be able to go on, add a new chapter, have a more interesting time even. When I went to ABC to be the first female co-anchor of a network news programme I was a total flop.

The headlines in the paper said, "Barbara Walters, a flop." I was in anguish, but the best thing that happened to me was that I had to work my way back. That's when I did all the interviews that we've talked about. If you have a failure you will rise. You will be fine. You will work your way back. Do not sink into why me, woes me. It's not my fault. To give you an example of that I want to read to you the words of a man named Christopher Reeve. I'm reading this to you because life, sometimes, brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear, but bear them you can and bear them you will. Your life can have a purpose. Christopher Reeve's life did. Let me remind you of who he was. He was a fine actor. He was famous for playing Superman in films and he was superb athlete. He sailed, he skiied. Most of all he was a great horseman until 1995 when his horse failed to jump over a hurdle in a riding competition.

The horse fell, he fell with it. He found himself completely paralysed from the neck down, this man who had been this adventurer and actor and athlete. His wife came into him and she said, "Chris, if you want us we will find the way to pull the plug." He was lying in bed with the tubes, completely immobile. She said, "Remember, you are still you." Which had two connotations. You are still you and you are still you. She left the room and a doctor came in, in a white coat with a heavy accent. The doctor said, "I'm a proctologist. Turn over." Reeve looked at this doctor as if he were insane. The doctor said, "I told you. I told you. Turn over." As he was about to try to find some way of getting a nurse, or someone instead of this crazy doctor, he looked up and he realised it was Robin Williams. He had gone to Julliard with Robin Williams and he burst out laughing.

He said, "If I can laugh I can live." These are the words of Christopher Reeve. "You gradually discover, as I'm discovering, that your body is not you. The mind and the spirit must take over. That's the challenge as you move from obsessing about why me and it's not fair and when will I move again, and move into well, what is the potential. Now I see opportunities and potential I wasn't capable of seeing. Every moment is more intense and valuable then it ever was. I've received over 100,000 letters from all over the world. It makes you wonder why do we need disasters to really feel and appreciate each other? I'm overwhelmed by people's support of me. If I can help people understand that this can happen to anybody that's worth it right there, so I really think being in a journey." I said, "Do you think you will walk again?" He said, "I think it's very possible that I will walk again." "And if you don't?"

"Then I won't walk again. As simple as that. Either you do or you don't. It's like a game of cards," he said. "If you think the game is worthwhile then you just play the hand you're dealt. Sometimes you get a lot of face cards and sometimes you don't. I think the game is worthwhile. I really do." He got to the point, after years of doing exercise and experiments where he could breath without a respirator in this throat. For the first time, because he didn't have the tube in his throat, he could smell a rose or taste coffee. That was an enormous accomplishment. He had some feeling in his chest. When I hugged him, the last time I saw him, he could feel the pressure. He could feel the hug. He made a good life, Christopher Reeve did, with his wife Dana and their three children. He lectured, directed films, raised millions of dollars and the consciousness of scientists to promote research into stem cells hoping that he would be able to cure the thousands of people suffering from spinal cord injury.

His life, though very hard, had meaning and purpose. His death in October of 2004 was a great loss. What have I tried to say to you as you enter this brand new chapter of your life and what I hope is going to be a long and fulfilling life with a lot of different hats that you'll be wearing? Don't worry about finding your bliss right now. Not even our president knew what his bliss was, nor did I. One of these days, to your own surprise, your bliss will find you.

No matter what you do don't be like my grandma Lilly. Participate. Be there full force, full heart, full steam ahead. In making choices when in doubt trust your gut. Does this feel right? Does this feel good? Remember the decision is ultimately yours alone to make. Remember this today when you're talking with parents, friends, grandparents. The decision is ultimately yours alone to make. When jealous, angry or afraid try compassion and warmheartedness. Nourish your friends and finally whatever hand you are dealt I hope you will find the game worthwhile. I do. Rarely have I been happier with the hand that I have been dealt then I am today with the honour and pleasure of meeting you. I thank you and I hope that your life will be like a great white oak. I thank you.