《Follow Your Bliss， Follow your Heart》歌词

[00:00:02] Follow Your Bliss, Follow your Heart - 英语演讲

[00:00:07] Anderson Cooper Delivers Yale Class Day Speech

[00:00:11] Members of the Class of 2006,

[00:00:15] friends, faculty, parents,

[00:00:17] members of the Taliban:

[00:00:19] Thank you very much.

[00:00:21] What? What? Oh, come on. Come on.

[00:00:26] What are you going to do,

[00:00:28] bury me up to my head in the sand?

[00:00:31] Hey, I’ve been there, I’ve been there.

[00:00:35] I have to be honest,

[00:00:39] I was a bit nervous to come back to Yale.

[00:00:41] I graduated with the Class of 1989,

[00:00:46] 17 years ago, and I still have this recurring nightmare …

[00:00:50] Trumbull, yes, thank you, Trumbull.

[00:00:54] Sure, why not? (referring to Trumbull College)

[00:01:00] I still have this recurring nightmare

[00:01:03] that there’s some exam I haven’t completed

[00:01:05] in one of those throwaway science courses like Intro.

[00:01:10] to Psych or something. Oh, come on, I love Intro.

[00:01:14] to Psych. I just really didn’t want to

[00:01:17] take a science course. And actually last night

[00:01:21] I literally had a dream

[00:01:23] that the campus police had an outstanding warrant

[00:01:26] for my arrest if I returned to Yale.

[00:01:28] So I was a little bit nervous.

[00:01:32] And the other reason I was reluctant

[00:01:37] to return to campus is that being here actually

[00:01:40] allows the Yale Alumni Association to

[00:01:43] get a pinpoint on me. Because you don’t know

[00:01:49] this about the Yale Alumni Association yet,

[00:01:50] but let me just warn you: for the rest of your life,

[00:01:53] they will hunt you down. No matter where you go,

[00:01:58] no matter what country you live in,

[00:02:00] they will find you, and they will write you letters

[00:02:04] and they will squeeze you for every cent you make.

[00:02:08] Seriously, enjoy the next 24 hours because right

[00:02:14] now you are still students.

[00:02:15] Tuesday morning they will have all your numbers,

[00:02:19] all your addresses in the database

[00:02:22] and they will start tracking you.

[00:02:25] If Osama bin Laden was a Yale graduate

[00:02:28] they would know what cave he was in, exactly.

[00:02:31] It’s true.

[00:02:34] President Bush should get the Yale Alumni Association on the case.

[00:02:39] I was actually very excited to meet many of you today

[00:02:44] until I actually did meet you and realized

[00:02:48] how young you are all and how old it makes me feel.

[00:02:52] Tre Borden (Class of 2006 Secretary) informed me

[00:02:58] that actually most of you were born the year

[00:03:01] I graduated from high school,

[00:03:03] which is personally a terrifying prospect for me.

[00:03:07] Seriously, it is a pleasure to be here

[00:03:12] on what is a remarkable day.

[00:03:13] It’s a beautiful day if it doesn’t rain

[00:03:16] and a very special day in your lives.

[00:03:19] You’ve worked incredibly hard to get here,

[00:03:22] to get through here,

[00:03:24] and I hope you’re all very proud of yourselves.

[00:03:27] You should be. And I’m sure you’ve already done this,

[00:03:32] but I hope that at some point this weekend -

[00:03:34] I’m sure everybody’s encouraged you to do this -

[00:03:37] that you look your parents in the eye

[00:03:40] and hug them close and thank them for everything

[00:03:44] they have done to get you to this moment and this spot.

[00:03:48] Because as hard as it’s been for you,

[00:03:52] I guarantee you it’s been twice as hard for them.

[00:03:55] I wasn’t really sure what to talk to you

[00:04:01] about today and I asked Tre and he said,

[00:04:03] “Well, you know Class Day is such an important day,

[00:04:07] and I’m sure we’d love to hear some of your memories of it.”

[00:04:11] And that calmed me because the truth of the matter

[00:04:14] is I have absolutely no memories of this day.

[00:04:19] I thought back to my own graduation and,

[00:04:22] I mean I’m sure I was here

[00:04:25] because I have the little clay pipe and

[00:04:28] I remember I had the pipe because my mom found it

[00:04:32] my room that night and accused me,

[00:04:35] thinking it was a pot pipe.

[00:04:37] And so we got in a big argument about it

[00:04:41] and my roommate decided to solve the argument

[00:04:43] by taking out this two-foot water pipe

[00:04:47] that he had in a locked box in the living room

[00:04:50] and comparing it, to show that in fact,

[00:04:53] that was not a pot pipe.

[00:04:56] It went well, yeah, it went very well.

[00:05:00] So I have no actual memory of sitting here

[00:05:07] in a funny hat listening to a speaker,

[00:05:09] which I actually find calming because,

[00:05:13] frankly, it doesn’t matter what I say,

[00:05:16] because you all are not going to remember this by,

[00:05:20] you know, tomorrow.

[00:05:22] But your parents are going to remember this

[00:05:25] because they paid through their noses for it,

[00:05:29] so I will try to make it memorable for them,

[00:05:32] if for no one else. I do remember Commencement ceremony:

[00:05:37] I remember the cap and gown, the polyester,

[00:05:41] I remember the procession,

[00:05:44] I remember being excited and nervous

[00:05:47] and completely confused about my future -

[00:05:49] feelings, I imagine, that most of you

[00:05:53] are experiencing in some form.

[00:05:55] When I graduated, when I was sitting here I imagine,

[00:06:00] I hadn’t actually applied for any jobs

[00:06:03] and I really had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.

[00:06:07] Yeah, that’s right.

[00:06:09] Raise your hand if you’re in that position.

[00:06:12] I remember asking my mom for advice,

[00:06:16] something I rarely did growing up

[00:06:19] because my mom is not the most practical person on the planet.

[00:06:24] The last time I’d done that was in middle school,

[00:06:27] when I was having problems in math class

[00:06:30] and I asked her for some advice

[00:06:33] and she told me to wear vertical stripes

[00:06:36] because they’re slimming.

[00:06:38] I didn’t know what that meant.

[00:06:40] But her advice to me at Yale graduation was “Follow your bliss” .

[00:06:48] I was hoping for something a little more specific,

[00:06:51] like plastics. What, plastic? You like plastic? All right.

[00:06:59] But in retrospect, follow your bliss was pretty good advice.

[00:07:04] My mom didn’t actually coin the phrase -

[00:07:07] actually it was a professor at Sarah Lawrence College

[00:07:11] named Joseph Campbell who did -

[00:07:13] and my mom had seen a taped interview on TV.

[00:07:16] It kind of shows you our relationship -

[00:07:20] she was giving advice she had gotten off of television.

[00:07:24] I’m thankful she wasn’t watching Montel Williams or something,

[00:07:29] or Fox News. I kid, because they have huge ratings. They kill me.

[00:07:37] The problem, of course,

[00:07:40] with follow your bliss (and I actually think that’s pretty good advice),

[00:07:44] but the problem with follow your bliss

[00:07:47] is actually trying to figure out what your bliss is,

[00:07:51] and that’s not an easy thing to do.

[00:07:54] Like many of you, I have a liberal arts degree,

[00:07:58] which is to say, I have no actual skill.

[00:08:02] And I majored in political science.

[00:08:04] You’re excited about it now,

[00:08:07] but believe me, it doesn’t go very far.

[00:08:13] It means you can read a newspaper,

[00:08:14] but other than that, I’m not really sure what else.

[00:08:17] I also focused a lot of my studies on communism,

[00:08:22] which when the Berlin Wall fell,

[00:08:25] I was totally screwed. I know,

[00:08:28] it was a happy occasion for a lot of people,

[00:08:30] but believe me, on this campus,

[00:08:33] believe me, all of the Russian studies majors

[00:08:36] were very down in the dumps.

[00:08:39] The one thing I knew I liked was television

[00:08:42] and particularly television news.

[00:08:45] I watched a lot of it growing up so I figured okay,

[00:08:49] I’ve got a Yale degree, I’ll go give that a shot,

[00:08:54] I’ll apply for an entry-level job at ABC News,

[00:08:58] a gopher position. Like I’m totally qualified for this:

[00:09:03] answering phones, I’ll go do whatever Peter Jennings wants.

[00:09:07] I could not get this job. It took six months;

[00:09:11] they strung me along; I did interviews.

[00:09:14] I could not get the job,

[00:09:19] which shows you the value of a Yale education.

[00:09:22] But it actually was the best thing

[00:09:24] that ever happened to me.

[00:09:25] I decided that if no one would give me a chance,

[00:09:28] I’d have to take a chance,

[00:09:33] and if no one would give me an opportunity,

[00:09:33] I would have to create my own opportunity.

[00:09:36] So I came up with this plan to become a reporter.

[00:09:41] I figured if I went places

[00:09:43] where there weren’t many Americans,

[00:09:45] I wouldn’t have much competition.

[00:09:47] So I decided to start going to wars,

[00:09:51] which my mom was thrilled about.

[00:09:53] It was a very simple plan, but it was moronic,

[00:09:58] but it actually worked.

[00:10:00] I made a fake press pass on a Macintosh computer -

[00:10:04] actually, I didn’t even make it to be honest,

[00:10:07] a friend of mine made it because I’m computer illiterate -

[00:10:11] and I got a home video camera

[00:10:14] that I borrowed and I just decided to go to wars.

[00:10:17] I snuck into Burma and hooked up with some students

[00:10:23] fighting the Burmese government

[00:10:24] and moved into Somalia in the early days of the famine.

[00:10:28] I spent really the next two years going

[00:10:32] from one war-torn country to another:

[00:10:34] Bosnia, South Africa for Mandela’s election.

[00:10:37] I was in Rwanda for the genocide,

[00:10:40] which makes ultimately doing “The Mole” a natural step,

[00:10:45] as you can see where I’m going.

[00:10:47] I may have gone to school at Yale,

[00:10:52] but I always think that in many ways

[00:10:52] I was educated on the streets of Johannesburg,

[00:10:56] in Kigali, in Sarajevo, in Port-Au-Prince.

[00:10:59] And I’ve learned when you go to the edges of the world,

[00:11:03] where the boundaries aren’t clear,

[00:11:05] where the dark parts of the human heart

[00:11:07] are open for all to see,

[00:11:08] you learn things about yourself

[00:11:11] and you learn things about your fellow human beings

[00:11:14] and what we’re all capable of.

[00:11:17] We’re capable, really, of anything,

[00:11:20] great acts of compassion and dignity,

[00:11:23] as we saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

[00:11:26] We’re also capable of great acts of cowardice

[00:11:30] and brutality and stupidity,

[00:11:32] which we also saw in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

[00:11:36] The funny thing is that just two years after doing this,

[00:11:41] of going on my own and going into wars,

[00:11:45] ABC News called me up and offered me a job as a correspondent.

[00:11:51] I was just about 27;

[00:11:53] I was the youngest correspondent they hired

[00:11:57] since they hired Jennings and Koppel years ago.

[00:12:00] For me, it was a lesson: two years

[00:12:03] before I tried to get an entry-level job

[00:12:06] and I thought that was the path,

[00:12:09] because that was the path that everyone took.

[00:12:12] And had I gotten that job there was no way

[00:12:16] I would have had the opportunities that I had;

[00:12:19] there was no way I would have seen

[00:12:22] the things I’ve been able to see.

[00:12:23] When I was graduating and trying to decide

[00:12:29] what to do with my life, I really felt paralyzed

[00:12:33] because I thought I had to figure it out all it once.

[00:12:38] I had to pick a career and start down a path

[00:12:41] that I’d be on for the rest of my life.

[00:12:43] I now know that it totally doesn’t work that way.

[00:12:48] It certainly didn’t for me.

[00:12:50] Everyone I know who’s successful,

[00:12:52] professionally and personally,

[00:12:55] could never have predicted

[00:12:57] when they graduated from college where they’d actually end up.

[00:13:01] My friends from Yale who are happiest

[00:13:04] are the ones who thought less of

[00:13:06] where they’d be in 10 years and what steps

[00:13:09] they’d have to do now in order to

[00:13:11] make partner 10 years from now in a law firm

[00:13:14] or build their 401K. My friends who are happiest now

[00:13:21] are the ones who kept taking steps based

[00:13:23] on what they felt right and what felt

[00:13:26] like them at the moment.

[00:13:28] If I had gotten that job on the set of ABC News

[00:13:32] there’s no telling where I’d be now.

[00:13:36] When I started going to wars I had no clear goal in mind.

[00:13:41] There was no path that promised me success or job security.

[00:13:48] But I was listening really to myself

[00:13:51] and followed my passion,

[00:13:53] and I’m more convinced than ever that if you do that,

[00:13:56] you will be successful. I’m not talking about rich -

[00:14:01] perhaps you will be - but you’ll be fulfilled,

[00:14:04] and that’s the greatest success you can have.

[00:14:07] I always wince …

[00:14:11] I’m kind of rushing because I see the skies darkening,

[00:14:14] which frankly happens wherever I go,

[00:14:17] so if I whip out my rain slicker,

[00:14:20] you all are totally screwed.

[00:14:22] I always wince when someone says

[00:14:26] that college is the best four years of your life,

[00:14:30] because, frankly, for me it wasn’t.

[00:14:34] I hope it’s not for you either.

[00:14:36] Every year after college just gets better.

[00:14:40] Your confidence grows;

[00:14:41] you’re living the life that you’ve chosen.

[00:14:44] It’s so interesting to me

[00:14:47] how real life has very little to do with

[00:14:49] what you’ve learned here, and yet,

[00:14:52] what you’ve learned here,

[00:14:54] what you’ve struggled to achieve,

[00:14:55] will help you. I can’t exactly say how:

[00:14:59] it’s not something that can necessarily be defined.

[00:15:03] When I first went to war in Somalia

[00:15:06] I was surrounded by teenagers with guns and grenade launchers,

[00:15:11] there was nothing particular

[00:15:13] that I’ve learned at Yale that allowed me to survive.

[00:15:16] When I was in Rwanda in the genocide

[00:15:19] and was surrounded by bodies

[00:15:22] and had seen terrible things,

[00:15:24] there was no one particular class

[00:15:27] that I’ve taken that helped me get through.

[00:15:29] And yet something about the experience here -

[00:15:33] the friendships, the accumulating of facts and theories,

[00:15:37] the confidence I gained over the course of four years -

[00:15:40] allowed me to go to those places

[00:15:43] and helped me chart my own course.

[00:15:45] At Yale I met some of the smartest people I know

[00:15:52] but that kind of academic success really means

[00:15:55] very little once you’ve left this campus.

[00:15:58] I’ve never been asked what my grades were at Yale;

[00:16:03] that only happens if you run for president,

[00:16:05] and frankly, as we’ve all seen, it doesn’t even matter.

[00:16:09] No one has ever asked me to talk about

[00:16:13] my senior thesis paper and I’ve never gotten a job

[00:16:17] because I was on the lightweight crew team.

[00:16:19] All those things were hugely important to me at the time,

[00:16:24] but right now, in truth, they are kind of dim memories for me.

[00:16:29] And I’m not saying they’re frivolous or unimportant,

[00:16:33] they’re not, and I treasure

[00:16:36] all the opportunities I had here at Yale.

[00:16:38] But when you graduate,

[00:16:43] the slate is wiped clean.

[00:16:45] Outside of college campuses,

[00:16:48] I think we’re encouraged today to see things through

[00:16:52] a very limited lens. On cable news,

[00:16:55] anchors have become caricatures,

[00:16:57] wearing their politics on their sleeves or their lapels,

[00:17:01] claiming that they’re looking out for you

[00:17:04] and if you only watch their show

[00:17:07] or read their book, you’ll be able to understand

[00:17:10] how things really are.

[00:17:12] It would be kind of humorous if it weren’t,

[00:17:16] frankly, dangerous. On reality TV shows

[00:17:20] you watch people swapping lives,

[00:17:22] but a genuine swapping of ideas

[00:17:25] is something you rarely see outside of the college campus.

[00:17:29] We’re fighting not just a war of terror

[00:17:32] but a war of ideas, and I think it’s important

[00:17:37] that as a class, we all understand the importance

[00:17:40] of understanding other people’s ideas,

[00:17:43] our enemies’ as well as our friends’.

[00:17:46] I’m not very good at giving advice.

[00:17:51] We all know that’s Bill O’Reilly’s job

[00:17:55] and he does it very well.

[00:17:57] I actually Googled graduation speeches to see

[00:18:01] what kind of advice other people give

[00:18:03] at these kind of things, and believe me,

[00:18:06] they are incredibly cheesy.

[00:18:08] Goldie Hawn told graduates at AU, and I quote,

[00:18:13] “While you are continuing to walk down

[00:18:18] that sometimes bumpy road of life,

[00:18:19] develop the art of laughter and joy.

[00:18:22] Keep in your backpack of treasures the whole you,

[00:18:25] the best you, the you that won’t fear failure.”

[00:18:30] Yeah, think about it. Think about it.

[00:18:34] Backpack of treasures. Very true.

[00:18:38] Yoko Ono gave a commencement speech

[00:18:41] (she didn’t sing it, she actually talked at it.)

[00:18:45] She said: “I say you can’t stand if you’ve got

[00:18:50] too much muck in your head. Let it go,

[00:18:54] and dance through life.”

[00:18:55] So true, so much muck, you know?

[00:18:59] Muck is a big problem.

[00:19:01] Of course, it’s easier to dance through life

[00:19:05] if you have a billion dollars, but I digress.

[00:19:10] Since my mom gave me advice from television,

[00:19:15] I’m actually going to give you advice from a movie,

[00:19:19] because that’s the best I could come up with, frankly.

[00:19:22] It’s one of my favorite movies: “Lawrence of Arabia.”

[00:19:25] It’s a cool movie, I know. There’s a line in it

[00:19:31] where Lawrence says, “Nothing is written.”

[00:19:35] And for you, I think, on this day, at this moment in your lives,

[00:19:39] I think that is especially true. Nothing is written.

[00:19:45] You’ve been taught how to write for yourselves.

[00:19:48] This weekend, the slate is wiped clean.

[00:19:52] There are no words that you have to use.

[00:19:55] There are no sentences you must complete.

[00:19:58] You stand before a field of freshly fallen snow;

[00:20:02] there are no footprints that you have to follow.

[00:20:06] Nothing is written. And I hope you know

[00:20:10] that it is truly a rare and wonderful place to be.

[00:20:14] Congratulations, Class of 2006. You deserve it.