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  • I now call upon Meredith Vieira

  • to deliver the 142nd Commencement address

  • of Boston University.

  • Members of the Class of 2015, parents, President Brown,

  • trustees, honored guests, faculty, friends...

  • How cool is this?! This is pretty cool, right?! I only wish there had been

  • gin in my bottle instead of water, but hey...

  • And I know what was in yours! Alright...

  • I find it so fitting that Boston University started out as a school of

  • theology because today parents are saying,

  • "Thank you, God! We thought this day might never come."

  • After years of hard work and sacrifice

  • they sit here behind you clutching their tissues

  • while beaming with pride, and all they want in return is a simple hug

  • and "I love you, Mom, Dad. Thanks."

  • My youngest, Lily, graduates from Northwestern in a few weeks

  • and that's all I want. So this is a good day to show your parents how much you

  • really appreciate them

  • and hit them up for a loan while they're still vulnerable.

  • Do that. It'll work

  • I didn't attend BU, but I believe my presence here today

  • is kismet. Let me explain. Last February, after six long years and one Blizzard delay,

  • the Terriers took back what is rightfully theirs: the Bean Pot.

  • Alright, here's the kismet part. When my mother was a little girl, she had a

  • Boston Terrier named "Beans."

  • When I was a little girl, I was forced to eat franks and beans

  • every Saturday and they made me sick to my stomach,

  • which is exactly how I feel right now. Kismet. You see, I don't normally give

  • speeches, especially ones which require

  • offering advice and inspiration. I'm more your mother

  • than I am Mother Teresa. Just the thought of standing up here gave me such

  • agita that I originally said no. But the person asking me was my dear friend

  • and illustrious BU grad, Andy Lack, the new Chairman of

  • NBC News and MSNBC.

  • So in the end, I couldn't resist.

  • And by the way, I fully intend to remind him of this in a few months

  • when my contract comes up for renewal because at sixty-one, I need the job security.

  • So here I stand a nervous wreck,

  • worried I'll say the wrong thing, you're going to end up years from now drowning

  • your sorrows at Tavern in the Square...

  • ...wondering, "Where'd we go wrong? Oh yeah, it all started with that damn commencement speech."

  • Or perhaps even more humiliating, you won't remember the speech at all,

  • much less who gave it. But that's the future,

  • this is now, and if I'm nervous, maybe you are, too.

  • Maybe you're anxious about what comes next, feeling the pressure to have all the

  • answers,

  • to get it right right out of the box. Listen,

  • you do not know what's about to hit you. And that's the great thing about life.

  • How boring with the journey be if you already knew for sure the final

  • destination?

  • Listen, you're Terriers. When terriers go for a car ride, they don't know where they're

  • going. They don't care where they're going.

  • They stick their head out the window, they let the wind rush over them,

  • and they enjoy the ride.

  • That's faith. Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole

  • staircase.

  • I never intended to become a broadcaster. It wasn't even on my radar screen.

  • When I was a senior in college, I was a lost English major.

  • I think that's the same thing, right? Um, really didn't know what I was going to do.

  • My mother had actually sent me to secretarial school, Katie Gibbs, the summer before

  • because she said you're not coming home

  • no matter what. But I took a course my senior year, January,

  • in radio broadcasting a few months before graduation.

  • A visiting professor from CBS News after hearing my voice on tape

  • pulled me aside, and to my utter disbelief, told me I had a future

  • in broadcast journalism, and offered me an internship

  • at WEEI when it used to be an all news radio station.

  • For whatever reason, mostly because no one ever told me that

  • I would amount to anything basically, I said,

  • "Yeah, okay." I took the first step, albeit blindly,

  • and it put me on the path to where I am today.

  • So if you haven't found a job or decided on a career path yet,

  • don't freak out. Don't let fear or frustration,

  • or the fact that others around you seem to be all set

  • immobilize you. But do, from this day forward,

  • open yourself up possibilities you might never have considered.

  • Step up. Step out of your comfort zone. Consider saying "yes"

  • even when "no" feels much safer. I'm not suggesting that it's going to be easy.

  • Your journey forward comes with some built-in stumbling blocks.

  • When that radio internship ended, the News Director kept me on as his secretary--

  • thank you, Katherine Gibbs--for a few months while I tried to figure out my

  • next move.

  • A short stint reading news headlines at a top 40 station in Worcester

  • made me question what I was doing and why.

  • And then came the offer to be a weekend television reporter at WJAR in

  • Providence, Rhode Island,

  • my hometown. It didn't matter that I had no on-air experience.

  • It was 1976 and I filled

  • a quota. Women and African-Americans were suddenly

  • in hot demand. That is, until we were hired

  • and then almost no one rooted for us to succeed.

  • I learned pretty quickly that the only way to gain respect

  • would be to out work everyone else,

  • to actually earn what I felt I was entitled to.

  • That ethic has served me well and I highly recommend it.

  • The fact is, your generation also has

  • and entitlement problem. Fairly or not, a large number of businesses

  • don't want to hire you because they perceive you to be self-entitled,

  • lazy, high maintenance, and disloyal. As a mother of three twenty-somethings and

  • host a show where 30% of the staff

  • are millennials, I know thats bull.

  • I have met some kids who are full of themselves, but numbskulls

  • span all generations, trust me. Most of the young people I know are incredibly

  • hard-working

  • and extremely motivated. As for loyalty,

  • it's a two-way street. Used to be you worked for a company for fifty years before

  • retiring with the send-off dinner and a fancy gold watch.

  • Somewhere along the way, employers began to see their employees

  • as replaceable widgets. Maybe you've seen it happen to your mom or dad.

  • Maybe you seen them struggle to balance home life with an inflexible

  • work environment. Maybe you want something more,

  • and I don't blame you. Companies can't expect your loyalty

  • unless they inspire it. [Applause]

  • However, you're not off the hook.

  • There is still no substitute for hard work and humility,

  • and if you want to get your foot in the door, it helps to get your fingers off the

  • smartphones, look people in the eye,

  • engage. You want people to actually like you and not just give you "likes."

  • Ultimately... those are the parents applauding...

  • Ultimately, your future is in the hands humans,

  • not electronic devices. Unless of course, people like Stephen Hawking,

  • Elon Musk, and Steve Wozniack are right about artificial intelligence,

  • in which case we'll all end up family pets to some android.

  • As for you graduates who already know what you're doing next, who have it all mapped out,

  • don't be so sure. Life is famous for throwing curveballs when you least

  • expect them.

  • My first big one came on a Friday afternoon.

  • After about a year at WJAR, I decided, "You know what?

  • Journalist might really be for me." I was happily typing up a story when my News

  • Director called me into his office,

  • told me I didn't have what it takes, and fired me.

  • I drove to my family's home, flung myself dramatically across my bed,

  • and sobbed. And that's how my dad found me.

  • When I explained what had happened, he asked me one question:

  • "Do you think you have what it takes?" I said,

  • "Yes," to which he replied, "Then it doesn't matter what

  • anyone else says. There will always be people putting you down,

  • always be people rooting for you to fail." The following Monday I went back to work

  • and I confronted that little weasel, I mean, my News Director,

  • and I told him I plan to succeed no matter what he thought.

  • I may have also pinned him up against the wall--like I said, he was little.

  • But he gave me my job back on the spot, and that's great that he did, but that's

  • not the point in the story.

  • The point is, you have to believe in yourself or no one else will.

  • In order to swim, you have to drown out

  • the naysayers. You're all smart, right? Or you wouldn't be here today.

  • I imagine you all strive for success and will undoubtedly find it.

  • But when you do, you just may discover does nothing to do with how much money

  • you make,

  • how big a house to live in, or how prestigious your job might sound

  • to someone else. I thought I'd found success

  • in 1989 when after several years in the business I arrived at 60 Minutes.

  • I just had our first son Ben and this was the only job I'd ever truly coveted.

  • I quickly became the media's poster woman for having it all.

  • Except for one thing, the only thing I had was a constant knot

  • in my stomach. When I was traveling the world covering stories, I literally

  • ached for my child. When I was home, I felt guilty

  • not hanging around the corridors of CBS and chatting up my boss

  • Don Hewitt. Eventually something had to give.

  • I became pregnant with our second son Gabe, and Don and I immediately butted

  • heads

  • over which baby should take precedence. His baby, 60 Minutes,

  • on mine? I remember sitting across from him when I suddenly had a flashback.

  • Several years earlier while still single and working my way up the ladder,

  • I had grabbed drinks with a seasoned and respected female producer.

  • After probably one too many, she confided in me that her biggest regret

  • was never marrying or having children. Something she could not

  • admit publicly. It just wouldn't look good, but she had given everything for her job

  • including herself. Flash forward,

  • Don probably thought I'd had one too many when I abruptly ended our heated

  • conversation.

  • I believe the words I uttered as I walked out the door were,

  • "I'm outta here." Not very mature, but that night

  • I slept like a baby as the knot in my stomach unraveled.

  • The fallout was fast incoming. On the one side, I had people, mostly women,

  • who were furious with me for destroying their dream of having it all.

  • For setting back the cause of feminism. On the other side were those who called me

  • brave for taking a stand for motherhood.

  • In fact, neither entered my thinking when I quit.

  • I left because it was the right decision for me and me alone.

  • [Applause]

  • There's a reason I've always loved Robert Frost's poem "The Road Not Taken,"

  • because I think he was onto something. Following the road less traveled

  • really does mean making all the difference. Heck, I'm still forging my own

  • way

  • trying to balance work and family. Throughout your life,

  • you'll have to set your own priorities, make your own decisions,

  • and they won't always be the best or the brightest ones, but that's how you learn

  • and come to understand who you really are and what matters to you.

  • I have to tell you, I've known plenty of people who have

  • sacrificed their values for instant gratification.

  • Do that enough, and you will lose yourself. Only authenticity will keep your head on

  • straight

  • and your feet firmly planted, so don't strive for somebody else's notion of

  • perfection.

  • It's an unattainable and ultimately ridiculous

  • goal. Strive instead to be uniquely yourself.

  • And when in doubt, listen to your gut because it already knows

  • what you want to become. We are so condition, all of us, to think in terms of

  • the big job, the big salary,

  • in the case of journalism, the big scoop, that we sometimes forget

  • to see the big picture. That came into focus for me on the campus of another college,

  • Virginia Tech, just days after the tragic shooting there in 2007.

  • A co-host of the Today Show at the time, I was part of the team sent

  • to cover the story. It was during a campus candlelight vigil for the 32

  • victims

  • when a young coed in tears approached me an asked if

  • I would hold her. She was scared and she needed a parent's embrace because

  • her family was so far from Virginia Tech at that point,

  • and I had come into your home every morning, I was the closest thing

  • available to her in that moment. As it turned out we held each other

  • and we cried together and it was an incredibly humbling experience for me

  • because I realized

  • what it means to be a journalist. It's not about the big scoop.

  • It's about giving people a voice,

  • connecting with human beings, and caring about somebody other than yourself.

  • I think I'm preaching to the choir here

  • I think I am preaching to the choir here

  • because in the past four years we've all learned a great deal about perspective,

  • both in and outside the classroom. You lost 10 fellow students in one

  • calendar year. That's not supposed to happen. It goes against the natural

  • order things. It's never easy to face the fragility of life...

  • easy to face the fragility of life, and you've been forced to confront it

  • at a very young age. And as painful as it

  • is, you leave this university understanding better than most

  • that every day truly is a blessing never to be squandered

  • are taken for granted. It was a BU graduate student, Lu Lingzi, who lost her

  • life along with two other innocent people on a beautiful

  • April day in your sophomore year while

  • simply watching the Boston Marathon. I doubt you will ever forget where you were when

  • those two backpacks exploded a few miles from here

  • and knocked a city to its knees. But the initial hurt an horror

  • gave way to something much more powerful: Boston Strong.

  • You held each other for support and rose back up together.

  • I may live in New York, but our city was a sea of

  • Boston baseball caps in the weeks that followed,

  • and the Red Sox clinched the World Series that fall,

  • the entire nation cheered. [Applause]

  • Yes, you bore witness to the worst to mankind, but you also experienced the best,

  • and will carry that with you forever. You learned what it means to be resilient,

  • to stand side by side against any adversity, you are part of Boston Strong

  • and it will always be part of you. So now you're off, and I have a few final words of

  • practical advice.

  • Don't ever lose your enthusiasm. Don't suddenly become self-conscious.

  • Don't be that person who puts on a suit and takes off his glasses like this

  • mid-sentence

  • because he thinks it makes him look smart. Trust me, unless you're the

  • incredible Ed Bradley--CBS correspondent Ed Bradley--who was really cool,

  • or maybe a TV lawyer... It looks good for them, with everyone else

  • it's just affect. Stay away from affects.

  • Better yet, be the left shark.

  • Remember last Super Bowl when the Patriots won?

  • Yeah, well...

  • well you may be thinking of Tom Brady's deflated balls right now, but I'm

  • thinking a Katy Perry's

  • half-time performance. She was on stage dancing with two sharks.

  • The shark on the right knew every dance move and performed perfectly,

  • but it was the left shark, the one who went rogue and danced to his own crazy beat

  • who stole the show. So don't ever be a conformist

  • for convenience sake.

  • Or as Mark Twain put it, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of majority,

  • it's time to pause and reflect." Be the left shark!

  • By the way, you can purchase that on Ebay tonight.

  • And while I'm on the subject of water creatures,

  • there's an expression they use a lot in the news business, "If it looks like a duck,

  • swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably

  • a duck. Unless it has been auto-corrected,

  • and then we're all ducked."

  • The message here,

  • pretty simple, life isn't all that complicated. Things are what they are.

  • Don't read into everything. Just do your best and try to do

  • no harm. So here are my hopes for you graduates:

  • When you take off your cap and gown today, I sincerely hope you have clothes

  • on underneath,

  • but I also hope you realize that just learning to navigate college fosters a

  • quality that social scientists call "grit."

  • It means when you fall down, and you will, you will dust yourself off

  • and keep going. As you travel through life,

  • I hope you the deep footprints behind.

  • Not as a result of all the people you've stepped on to get ahead,

  • but rather as a result of all the lives you have lifted

  • along the way. And twenty or thirty years

  • from now, I hope you sitting where your family is

  • today,

  • clutching tissues and beaming with pride, remembering your own graduation and

  • thinking,

  • "You know that commencement speaker wasn't half wrong. Whatever her name was..."

  • Congratulations and good luck!

I now call upon Meredith Vieira

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メレディス・ヴィエイラ:2015年ボストン大学コメンスメントスピーカー (Meredith Vieira: 2015 Boston University Commencement Speaker)

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    jack に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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