10 Promises to My Dog is a Japanese movie (based on book written by Hare Kawaguchi) I've never heard of until Phenny told me about it. (Thank you, Phenny :-))
The plot, as taken from www.eiga.wikia.com is about a 12-year-old girl named Akari gets a puppy and names it Socks. She loves Socks and spends practically every moment with him. However, as she gets older she's able to spend less and less time with him, due to a busy life and having to move away. She leaves socks with a childhood friend but eventually she's reminded of the promises she made to him as a child.
Simple and straightforward story and I believe most will know what the ending will be. I have been warned to prepare tissue for the show and .... yep, let me warn any of you who are going to watch this show, please bring tissue and get it ready on your hand. I must admit I tried really hard not to burst into tears (I TRIED SOOOO HARD) and I failed miserably! It's one of the show that I was on that thin line to cry like a baby. Lucky I didn't do that if not I must been kicked out from the cinema. Don't be ashamed of the crying, you can trust me, you'll not be the only one. You will soon hear and observe the following:
people unzipping their bags for tissue
the sound of a packet of tissue crunching somewhere
people's hands tend to be doing the movement of wiping tears away
and occasionally you may hear someone who really cried it out loud in silence (erm, go figure)
Why it was such a emotional roller coaster to me it's because there are so many points in the movie that I can personally can relate to:
the main character's dad is a doctor (my parents are doctors)
she's the only child (ME TOO!!!!)
she got her dog when she was 12 (I was 11 ... almost around the same lar)
at one point of her life she needed to be away from her dog and couldn't do anything about it (Yes, it happened to me when I was 17)
As you know I love my Kiky dearly. She is above all else. And the fact that this show has so much in common with my own lives just made me cringed inside but I'm glad I went through that and it's another chance to relive the memory and say thank you Kiky for all the beautiful time you've given me.
In the show, the main emphasis was put on the 10 promises that were made to the dog - initialized by the late mother of the main character. As she was reading out the 10 promises, I was silently checking whether I was doing all the things mentioned. The promises (speaking from the dog's point of view) are:
Give me time to understand what you want of me
Place your trust in me. It's crucial to my well-being.
Be aware that however you treat me, I'll never forget it.
Before you scold me for being lazy, ask yourself if something might be bothering me.
Talk to me sometimes. Even if I don't understand your words, I do understand your voice when it's speaking to me.
Remember before you hit me, I have teeth that could hurt you, but that I choose not to bite you.
Take care of me when I get old.
You have your work, your entertainment, and your friends. I have only you.
My life is likely to last 10-15 years. Any separation from you will be painful for me.
Go with me on difficult journeys. Everything is easier for me when you are there. Remember I love you ...
So, how do I fare?
#1: I wonder if I've given her time to understand what she really wants, may be sometimes I don't. I know she always wanted food but I really played that hard on her. :p
#2: I do trust her except when the time I stepped on her pee. Hmm ... I don't trust her in that area.
#3: She remembers the way I treat her ...? No wonder she prefers my dad than me because I always made it hard on her to get food. Aiyah!!!!!
#4: I never scold her for being lazy. Hmm ... She's never lazy except when she was really old. :( She can hardly climb up and down the stairs. That, I understand. So, I didn't scold her for being lazy. :-)
#5: Talk to her sometimes??? I talked to her all the time! Literally. When I studied, I'd ask her to help me revised. I even asked her to study what I studied. Sometimes she got it right. Sometimes she got it wrong. They were multiple choice questions, you see. I even talked to her on the phone especially when I'm so far away from her since 1998-2005. :( :( :(
#6: Hitting her ... I definitely did. Yep, when she's pooing and peeing everywhere. But well, after a while I'll play with her again. How can you not forgive when you see those droopy eyes?????
#7: I didn't pass this one for sure. I didn't really take care of her when she got old. I have both of my parents to thank in this area. I failed as I was too far away to take care of her. Sorry, Kiky. I wish I could. :(
#8: Yes. I have my other areas of my life to count on and she only had me but then again, she had my family. Again, I have to thank my parents for the best work they've done in taking care of Kiky.
#9: Separation is painful for both parties. I seriously dreaded every time I parted with her. When I knew she was really aging, every moment I held in mind that she might just leave me. Hence every single second is cherished dearly. The last time I saw her I took 100 over photos of her. My parents called me nuts. I call myself a genius though I wish I would have taken better pictures though. But I didn't regret what I've done. I wish I had videotaped her even though her brown hair had turned white which made her looked like a mini inverted Siberian Husky. :p
#10: Go with her in difficult journey. This ... is one of the thing I regretted the most. My gut was telling me to go back 1 week earlier, should I have done so, I would have been there for her when she moved on. But I went back 1 week later when she's already resting well in her grave. No use. I'm sorry for not being there when you said bye bye. What more can I ask? You chose Sunday to be your parting day and yet I was not there :(
To remember her once again, I decide to put the passages I used to write on my friendster when she died on 17th April 2005 in this blog.
Hope you don't mind the nostalgic path I'm taking today. Thanks for reading. ;-)
When Death Simply Can't Wait
Kiky
(17 August 1991 - 17 April 2005)
An 8-year-old boy and 11-year-old gal saw a pair of miniature pinscher at the backyard. Fighting for food, running away from water and hiding from the fierce maid. Knowing that they were brothers and sisters, the boy and gal decided to name them Kiky and Koko after more than 10 minutes of name-picking discussion.
Kiky, the younger one, a female 1 year old minpin when I discovered her. My uncle decided to give it to my family, since her brother, Koko, seemed to always bully her as she was smaller in size. That's when my journey with my first ever dog began and I will never regret nor forget a single moment I've spent with her. She has been marvellous.
Kiky travelled by car for 3 days and 3 nights from Jakarta to Pematangsiantar, the place where she eventually called her home. She has been a great quiet passenger, even though she has to sleep at such a strange place, she knows she's in for a great journey. It's such a relief when she found out we have stopped by at some eating place or a hotel where she could get more comfort than the crummy car. But well, the journey paid off and she arrived at my house happily.
My family has never had any dog before. Well, we seriously have no idea how we are supposed to bring up a dog, but guess, it shouldn't be much different from treating a human ... so since then Kiky has been part of our family. We spoke Mandarin to her and even gave her Chinese herbal soup, and she simply loves it. She slept on the bed with me every night but sometimes she prefered my parents bed as it's so much bigger -_-!
Time after time, there are so many things to be discovered from this little soul. She could sing ... well, when I was howling like a wolf for fun, she actually copied me and howled along ... and since then the whole town know there's a singing dog exists. People actually flock at my parents' clinic to look at her performance. Haha ... :-)
She knows how to kiss when you ask her too ... and she definitely know who's the best person to get food from. And that's definitely not me :) It's my dad who has transformed her from a skinny underweight minpin to a small little piglet!!! -_-! Overweight by 3x the standard weight she's supposed to be. Aih ...
Despite of the fame and pamper she's received, she has never been arrogant for once! She is still the humble and strong little Kiky we have seen when she fought with her brother. She never back out. She stood still and fought on and that's how she fought with her death. For one month she refused to eat and her bleeding won't stop too but she persisted. Until this morning, she woke my dad up by making some noise, guess she knew her time's almost up. My dad fed her some milk, wiped her face ... and she fainted. The end ....
She chose a Sunday early morning to say goodbye because she knows Sunday is the only day my parents don't need to work and able to bring her to the burial straightaway without leaving the clinic. Even at the point of her death, she's still such a understanding soul.
Thank you, Kiky for what you've given to my family and me personally. I'm really sorry for not being able to spend more time with you as I've to study and work overseas. But all these while you've always been in my thought and heart. I love you more than anyone and anything you can ever imagine. Guess we won't be able to find anyone like you in this life. No way. It's almost impossible to replace you. I can't wait to see you again, Kiky. To see your cheeky smile and nottie pee-ing all over places activities. I even miss the time when I did step on your pee pee as you found a new place to do that -_- ... and I never notice. But well, you've been great and it's time for you to rest well and stop suffering from any illness. I'll visit your small little "tomb" soon, Kiky.
Sunday. A day when D.D. is normally at her best mostly by doing NOTHING! But that Sunday, 29 June 2008, it was truly a Sunday to remember.
It's a different start and this time D.D. was finally moving her lazy arse and actually doing something different with her friends. I woke up early (well, 8AM on a Sunday is indeed early, you know!) and off we went to Hougang Avenue 1. 5 of us, we were doing a volunteer work. My friends joined me just by me asking them,"HEY, wanna be a volunteer to distribute food for poor people?" Most of them said yes without even blinking their eyes (if I could see their eyes at that moment, I believe they were not blinking).
Though the start was a bit shaky as we were late -.-" .. yep, not proud of that .. but we were finally there. It was a shaky start to be honest as when we arrived, 99% of the volunteers were already there and they were already briefed!!!!! ARGH! So, I was kneeling on the floor (trying to squeeze among the crowd) to go to the registration book and trying to make sense of what the organizer was saying. Honestly, most of the time I was looking at my friends and they were looking at me ... we were lost!
At this point you must be asking me,"HEY! What on earth are you talking about? What charity work are you doing? What? Who? Why? How?" Trust me I thought it was straightforward apparently it was but with a slight twist.
You see, I was amazed with the work of Teresa Hsu (pictured above), a lady of 111 year of age and still can't stop giving her life to others. Can you believe that at one point she had S$10,000,000 on her hand and she chose to give it all away by building a home for the aged and sick? Yes, she's that special soul that still exists in Singapore. Touched by her story and her work, I found her website at www.HeartToHeartService.org. I saw they have regular volunteer work where they gave food and necessities to the poor people. So, I signed up for it and asked a few of my friends too.
So, when we were there (yes, we were late), we found out that the places we need to distribute were not of walking distance from the meeting point. Most of them were far far away. We definitely need some kind of transport besides our beautiful legs. Looking at our super puzzled faces while announcing the destination, the organizer quickly said that we need to grab a destination if not we could sit there whole day just looking at his face. ARGH ... PANIC ATTACK!
Then, realizing we have no cars at all he did ask other volunteers (with cars) if we could tag along and thanks to a few kind souls, namely Raymond, Xue Yu (assuming her name is spelled this way) and Audrey, who took us along. Thank God both cars were going to the same location just different units. Hence, we began our volunteering journey with them.
We arrived at one of the prime location in Singapore, center of the city, somewhere in Chinatown. I was surprised the place is so near to the city center. Well, it's my first day, I was there with open eyes and minds.
Our first stop was supposed to be a gentleman but he's out working, so only saw his pregnant wife. Didn't spend much time there, only managed to give the necessities to the wife and off we go. Then we moved on to our second unit. This one was actually not part of the list. But Uncle Raymond chose to help this person on his personal account. At first the grandma refused to open the door even though she knew we brought something for her. Uncle Raymond knocked for sooooooooooooooooooo long, then she lowered down her barrier and pride, she opened the door for us. We went in.
It's a 1-Room apartment. In Singapore, basically 1 room means ... there's no bedroom, the whole place is a room by itself. Once you open the door, it's the room/living room/dining room, all together. There's a small little kitchen with small little bathroom (I believe, I didn't manage to see the bathroom). Aunty Wong spoke only Cantonese. Most of them spoke only Cantonese and hence I was limping in that area, I can't communicate! URGH! ... Anyway, doesn't mean I can't be there and be present.
So, we were in Aunty Wong's apartment and first thing you couldn't miss was the pile of papers everywhere. At every corner of the apartment. PAPERS! PAPERS! PAPERS! Newspapers, envelopes, letters, brochures, card boxes, etc. I believed she is in her 90s? or late 80s. Then she blabbered and complained about her life and stuff ... I couldn't really understand. Then the part I understood was when she mentioned - may be if I commit suicide will be better. HUAH!!!! I used my super basic Cantonese and said "can not!!!! you got new friends. can not commit suicide." -.-" GEEZ ....
Then we moved on to the next aunty, I think this one she's 92 years old. Aunty Chong? (Erm, can't remember, she belongs to the other group, our group was nosey and we also paid a visit). Wow, this aunty even though she's old and has arthritis, compared to the first one, her place was much neater. And you could tell in her youth she must be quite pretty!!!! Anyway, her Cantonese was like from another realm ... I couldn't catch a word at all! Even my Hongkie friend was scratching her head most of the time. Anyway, Aunty Chong mentioned her place was robbed! -.-" Yes! Some idiot broke into her place and took some of her belongings! Thank God she's personally okay! She's pretty traumatized by that. She said it happened twice. Once they barely managed to open the door but the second time they managed to get in! Horrible! Who will do such things to old helpless people??? CRAZY! Anyway, Aunty Chong too has given up on life most of the time. :( But she's pretty much able to let go and most of the time spoke with smile. She's quite a somebody. :-) When we were leaving, we asked her to stay inside. All of us want to make sure she's safe inside the house before we left, but she ran out again and wanted to say bye bye to us. So sweet and really heart breaking to leave her alone there but ... oh well ...
Third aunty, this one I really can't remember her name! -.-" I'm sorry, aunty. Her place had the most stuffs! I mean TV, 3 fans, red wine. HAHA! She even had some gold jewelleries. :p But she had one of the most tragic story, she was robbed S$2000 and even threatened to the knife-point! SIGH!!!! She still has her family too, in Malaysia I think. Well, but they are her nephews from her husband's side? Erm ... I'm not sure. But I think mostly from her husband's side. She said she didn't want to trouble them so she chose to stay alone. She too has given up in life. I don't think she see anything beautiful in life anymore. Then the volunteers will always use sister Teresa as example why they shouldn't give up in life. At 111 years old, she's still going strong. This example has made most of them paused and pondered for a while, but whether they chose to see it as a bright light ... that I'm not sure.
The difference between Teresa and the rest of the aunties are their take on life. Whether they are living for something bigger than themselves or not (like Oprah said in her speech to the Standford University graduates). Teresa's life has been based on the service for others and that goal itself has been bigger than herself. Equipped with her sense of humor, her love of knowledge (tons of books at her house) and finding joy in simple things (e.g. vanilla ice cream - her favourite), she has the reason to go on and stay happy despite her old age and fragility have also kept up with her. Even though she doesn't have blood-family anymore, but people that she has touched become her family.
On the other hands, surprisingly, those aunties who do have real family, are in fact being abandoned. :| What an irony. In the end, whether you have kids or not, you only have yourself to depend on. And the outlook on life is one of the most important thing to make sure one stays sane in this insane world. It's hard to see the beauty when all around you are the ugliest things ever ... I mean, come on! Someone who's younger and stronger were pointing a knife on a 90 year old lady, how sane can that be? How can one be jolly after going through that? Not only you almost lose your life but you lost SGD 2000 which is a lot for someone who's not working anymore. May be those are what she had until she died.
It's tough. And really. It's grim. And the fact is, anyone of us can fall to that lifestyle easily too if we are not careful with our own life. Yes, most of us who are reading this are definitely not 90yrs old or even 100 yrs old, we still have our "youth" (50s are the new 30s, don't you know? which means I am 7 :p) hence we may not see how those horrible things are even part of the reality. But to us who have seen it, it is real. It's an eye-opening experience. I'm not sure what my friends brought back with them with that life experience, to me, it's been a journey of compassion, a wake-up call, a mirror, a life lecture, a group of new teachers, a new perspective and a realistic discovery of the side of life I've never been.
To all of you who've involved in this activity, my friends who were willing to spare their beautiful Sunday morning, the organisers, the volunteers, the people who drove us there, the people who translated the lessons, the teachers of life, etc, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. I am looking forward to the next session though I still have no cars by then, but life somehow will work out by itself. :-)
I believe it may not be a new news to some of you but I just managed to watch the video today and I think everybody should listen to it. I've embedded the video and just in case you are receiving this as newsletter, you may view the video (duration: 30 minutes) go to my website directly. Here's the link -> www.donnadaritan.com/2008/06/oprahs-keynote-speech-to-standford.html
To sum up this speech, Oprah has 3 important points to share when it comes to life lessons that have helped her the most: 1. Feeling 2. Failure 3. Finding Happiness
Feeling Oprah believes that feeling has helped her in making the best and worst decisions in her life. It's said that feeling is like a GPS system for our life. When things feel right, we should do it. And when it feels wrong or even a tint of doubt lurking around, not only we don't do it, but we be still. Be still till the right things come along before we take an action.
Failure No journey is smooth forever. Sometimes we encounter bumps along the way. And if we do, Oprah advised us to ask the one question to make sure we get the lesson to progress to the next level: "What is this here to teach me?"
Finding Happiness The key to find happiness in life is the following quotes I've taken directly from her speech:
"...be a part of something. Don't live for yourself alone. This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself. Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back. And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back."
I hope everyone has gained something from the speech or at least from the 3 points that have been shared simply by Oprah. Enjoy the video and the full transcript below.
Thank you, President Hennessy, and to the trustees and the faculty, to all of the parents and grandparents, to you, the Stanford graduates. Thank you for letting me share this amazing day with you.
I need to begin by letting everyone in on a little secret. The secret is that Kirby Bumpus, Stanford Class of '08, is my goddaughter. So, I was thrilled when President Hennessy asked me to be your Commencement speaker, because this is the first time I've been allowed on campus since Kirby's been here.
You see, Kirby's a very smart girl. She wants people to get to know her on her own terms, she says. Not in terms of who she knows. So, she never wants anyone who's first meeting her to know that I know her and she knows me. So, when she first came to Stanford for new student orientation with her mom, I hear that they arrived and everybody was so welcoming, and somebody came up to Kirby and they said, "Ohmigod, that's Gayle King!" Because a lot of people know Gayle King as my BFF [best friend forever].
And so somebody comes up to Kirby, and they say, "Ohmigod, is that Gayle King?" And Kirby's like, "Uh-huh. She's my mom."
And so the person says, "Ohmigod, does it mean, like, you know Oprah Winfrey?"
And Kirby says, "Sort of."
I said, "Sort of? You sort of know me?" Well, I have photographic proof. I have pictures which I can e-mail to you all of Kirby riding horsey with me on all fours. So, I more than sort-of know Kirby Bumpus. And I'm so happy to be here, just happy that I finally, after four years, get to see her room. There's really nowhere else I'd rather be, because I'm so proud of Kirby, who graduates today with two degrees, one in human bio and the other in psychology. Love you, Kirby Cakes! That's how well I know her. I can call her Cakes.
And so proud of her mother and father, who helped her get through this time, and her brother, Will. I really had nothing to do with her graduating from Stanford, but every time anybody's asked me in the past couple of weeks what I was doing, I would say, "I'm getting ready to go to Stanford."
I just love saying "Stanford." Because the truth is, I know I would have never gotten my degree at all, 'cause I didn't go to Stanford. I went to Tennessee State University. But I never would have gotten my diploma at all, because I was supposed to graduate back in 1975, but I was short one credit. And I figured, I'm just going to forget it, 'cause, you know, I'm not going to march with my class. Because by that point, I was already on television. I'd been in television since I was 19 and a sophomore. Granted, I was the only television anchor person that had an 11 o'clock curfew doing the 10 o'clock news.
Seriously, my dad was like, "Well, that news is over at 10:30. Be home by 11."
But that didn't matter to me, because I was earning a living. I was on my way. So, I thought, I'm going to let this college thing go and I only had one credit short. But, my father, from that time on and for years after, was always on my case, because I did not graduate. He'd say, "Oprah Gail"—that's my middle name—"I don't know what you're gonna do without that degree." And I'd say, "But, Dad, I have my own television show."
And he'd say, "Well, I still don't know what you're going to do without that degree."
And I'd say, "But, Dad, now I'm a talk show host." He'd say, "I don't know how you're going to get another job without that degree."
So, in 1987, Tennessee State University invited me back to speak at their commencement. By then, I had my own show, was nationally syndicated. I'd made a movie, had been nominated for an Oscar and founded my company, Harpo. But I told them, I cannot come and give a speech unless I can earn one more credit, because my dad's still saying I'm not going to get anywhere without that degree.
So, I finished my coursework, I turned in my final paper and I got the degree.
And my dad was very proud. And I know that, if anything happens, that one credit will be my salvation.
But I also know why my dad was insisting on that diploma, because, as B. B. King put it, "The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take that away from you." And learning is really in the broadest sense what I want to talk about today, because your education, of course, isn't ending here. In many ways, it's only just begun.
The world has so many lessons to teach you. I consider the world, this Earth, to be like a school and our life the classrooms. And sometimes here in this Planet Earth school the lessons often come dressed up as detours or roadblocks. And sometimes as full-blown crises. And the secret I've learned to getting ahead is being open to the lessons, lessons from the grandest university of all, that is, the universe itself.
It's being able to walk through life eager and open to self-improvement and that which is going to best help you evolve, 'cause that's really why we're here, to evolve as human beings. To grow into more of ourselves, always moving to the next level of understanding, the next level of compassion and growth.
I think about one of the greatest compliments I've ever received: I interviewed with a reporter when I was first starting out in Chicago. And then many years later, I saw the same reporter. And she said to me, "You know what? You really haven't changed. You've just become more of yourself."
And that is really what we're all trying to do, become more of ourselves. And I believe that there's a lesson in almost everything that you do and every experience, and getting the lesson is how you move forward. It's how you enrich your spirit. And, trust me, I know that inner wisdom is more precious than wealth. The more you spend it, the more you gain.
So, today, I just want to share a few lessons—meaning three—that I've learned in my journey so far. And aren't you glad? Don't you hate it when somebody says, "I'm going to share a few," and it's 10 lessons later? And, you're like, "Listen, this is my graduation. This is not about you." So, it's only going to be three.
The three lessons that have had the greatest impact on my life have to do with feelings, with failure and with finding happiness.
A year after I left college, I was given the opportunity to co-anchor the 6 o'clock news in Baltimore, because the whole goal in the media at the time I was coming up was you try to move to larger markets. And Baltimore was a much larger market than Nashville. So, getting the 6 o'clock news co-anchor job at 22 was such a big deal. It felt like the biggest deal in the world at the time.
And I was so proud, because I was finally going to have my chance to be like Barbara Walters, which is who I had been trying to emulate since the start of my TV career. So, I was 22 years old, making $22,000 a year. And it's where I met my best friend, Gayle, who was an intern at the same TV station. And once we became friends, we'd say, "Ohmigod, I can't believe it! You're making $22,000 and you're only 22. Imagine when you're 40 and you're making $40,000!"
When I turned 40, I was so glad that didn't happen.
So, here I am, 22, making $22,000 a year and, yet, it didn't feel right. It didn't feel right. The first sign, as President Hennessy was saying, was when they tried to change my name. The news director said to me at the time, "Nobody's going to remember Oprah. So, we want to change your name. We've come up with a name we think that people will remember and people will like. It's a friendly name: Suzie."
Hi, Suzie. Very friendly. You can't be angry with Suzie. Remember Suzie. But my name wasn't Suzie. And, you know, I'd grown up not really loving my name, because when you're looking for your little name on the lunch boxes and the license plate tags, you're never going to find Oprah.
So, I grew up not loving the name, but once I was asked to change it, I thought, well, it is my name and do I look like a Suzie to you? So, I thought, no, it doesn't feel right. I'm not going to change my name. And if people remember it or not, that's OK.
And then they said they didn't like the way I looked. This was in 1976, when your boss could call you in and say, "I don't like the way you look." Now that would be called a lawsuit, but back then they could just say, "I don't like the way you look." Which, in case some of you in the back, if you can't tell, is nothing like Barbara Walters. So, they sent me to a salon where they gave me a perm, and after a few days all my hair fell out and I had to shave my head. And then they really didn't like the way I looked.
Because now I am black and bald and sitting on TV. Not a pretty picture.
But even worse than being bald, I really hated, hated, hated being sent to report on other people's tragedies as a part of my daily duty, knowing that I was just expected to observe, when everything in my instinct told me that I should be doing something, I should be lending a hand.
So, as President Hennessy said, I'd cover a fire and then I'd go back and I'd try to give the victims blankets. And I wouldn't be able to sleep at night because of all the things I was covering during the day.
And, meanwhile, I was trying to sit gracefully like Barbara and make myself talk like Barbara. And I thought, well, I could make a pretty goofy Barbara. And if I could figure out how to be myself, I could be a pretty good Oprah. I was trying to sound elegant like Barbara. And sometimes I didn't read my copy, because something inside me said, this should be spontaneous. So, I wanted to get the news as I was giving it to the people. So, sometimes, I wouldn't read my copy and it would be, like, six people on a pileup on I-40. Oh, my goodness.
And sometimes I wouldn't read the copy—because I wanted to be spontaneous—and I'd come across a list of words I didn't know and I'd mispronounce. And one day I was reading copy and I called Canada "ca nada." And I decided, this Barbara thing's not going too well. I should try being myself.
But at the same time, my dad was saying, "Oprah Gail, this is an opportunity of a lifetime. You better keep that job." And my boss was saying, "This is the nightly news. You're an anchor, not a social worker. Just do your job."
So, I was juggling these messages of expectation and obligation and feeling really miserable with myself. I'd go home at night and fill up my journals, 'cause I've kept a journal since I was 15—so I now have volumes of journals. So, I'd go home at night and fill up my journals about how miserable I was and frustrated. Then I'd eat my anxiety. That's where I learned that habit.
And after eight months, I lost that job. They said I was too emotional. I was too much. But since they didn't want to pay out the contract, they put me on a talk show in Baltimore. And the moment I sat down on that show, the moment I did, I felt like I'd come home. I realized that TV could be more than just a playground, but a platform for service, for helping other people lift their lives. And the moment I sat down, doing that talk show, it felt like breathing. It felt right. And that's where everything that followed for me began.
And I got that lesson. When you're doing the work you're meant to do, it feels right and every day is a bonus, regardless of what you're getting paid.
It's true. And how do you know when you're doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so. What I know now is that feelings are really your GPS system for life. When you're supposed to do something or not supposed to do something, your emotional guidance system lets you know. The trick is to learn to check your ego at the door and start checking your gut instead. Every right decision I've made—every right decision I've ever made—has come from my gut. And every wrong decision I've ever made was a result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself.
If it doesn't feel right, don't do it. That's the lesson. And that lesson alone will save you, my friends, a lot of grief. Even doubt means don't. This is what I've learned. There are many times when you don't know what to do. When you don't know what to do, get still, get very still, until you do know what to do.
And when you do get still and let your internal motivation be the driver, not only will your personal life improve, but you will gain a competitive edge in the working world as well. Because, as Daniel Pink writes in his best-seller, A Whole New Mind, we're entering a whole new age. And he calls it the Conceptual Age, where traits that set people apart today are going to come from our hearts—right brain—as well as our heads. It's no longer just the logical, linear, rules-based thinking that matters, he says. It's also empathy and joyfulness and purpose, inner traits that have transcendent worth.
These qualities bloom when we're doing what we love, when we're involving the wholeness of ourselves in our work, both our expertise and our emotion.
So, I say to you, forget about the fast lane. If you really want to fly, just harness your power to your passion. Honor your calling. Everybody has one. Trust your heart and success will come to you.
So, how do I define success? Let me tell you, money's pretty nice. I'm not going to stand up here and tell you that it's not about money, 'cause money is very nice. I like money. It's good for buying things.
But having a lot of money does not automatically make you a successful person. What you want is money and meaning. You want your work to be meaningful. Because meaning is what brings the real richness to your life. What you really want is to be surrounded by people you trust and treasure and by people who cherish you. That's when you're really rich.
So, lesson one, follow your feelings. If it feels right, move forward. If it doesn't feel right, don't do it.
Now I want to talk a little bit about failings, because nobody's journey is seamless or smooth. We all stumble. We all have setbacks. If things go wrong, you hit a dead end—as you will—it's just life's way of saying time to change course. So, ask every failure—this is what I do with every failure, every crisis, every difficult time—I say, what is this here to teach me? And as soon as you get the lesson, you get to move on. If you really get the lesson, you pass and you don't have to repeat the class. If you don't get the lesson, it shows up wearing another pair of pants—or skirt—to give you some remedial work.
And what I've found is that difficulties come when you don't pay attention to life's whisper, because life always whispers to you first. And if you ignore the whisper, sooner or later you'll get a scream. Whatever you resist persists. But, if you ask the right question—not why is this happening, but what is this here to teach me?—it puts you in the place and space to get the lesson you need.
My friend Eckhart Tolle, who's written this wonderful book called A New Earth that's all about letting the awareness of who you are stimulate everything that you do, he puts it like this: He says, don't react against a bad situation; merge with that situation instead. And the solution will arise from the challenge. Because surrendering yourself doesn't mean giving up; it means acting with responsibility.
Many of you know that, as President Hennessy said, I started this school in Africa. And I founded the school, where I'm trying to give South African girls a shot at a future like yours—Stanford. And I spent five years making sure that school would be as beautiful as the students. I wanted every girl to feel her worth reflected in her surroundings. So, I checked every blueprint, I picked every pillow. I was looking at the grout in between the bricks. I knew every thread count of the sheets. I chose every girl from the villages, from nine provinces. And yet, last fall, I was faced with a crisis I had never anticipated. I was told that one of the dorm matrons was suspected of sexual abuse.
That was, as you can imagine, devastating news. First, I cried—actually, I sobbed—for about half an hour. And then I said, let's get to it; that's all you get, a half an hour. You need to focus on the now, what you need to do now. So, I contacted a child trauma specialist. I put together a team of investigators. I made sure the girls had counseling and support. And Gayle and I got on a plane and flew to South Africa.
And the whole time I kept asking that question: What is this here to teach me? And, as difficult as that experience has been, I got a lot of lessons. I understand now the mistakes I made, because I had been paying attention to all of the wrong things. I'd built that school from the outside in, when what really mattered was the inside out.
So, it's a lesson that applies to all of our lives as a whole. What matters most is what's inside. What matters most is the sense of integrity, of quality and beauty. I got that lesson. And what I know is that the girls came away with something, too. They have emerged from this more resilient and knowing that their voices have power.
And their resilience and spirit have given me more than I could ever give to them, which leads me to my final lesson—the one about finding happiness—which we could talk about all day, but I know you have other wacky things to do.
Not a small topic this is, finding happiness. But in some ways I think it's the simplest of all. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children. It's called "Speech to the Young : Speech to the Progress-Toward." And she says at the end, "Live not for battles won. / Live not for the-end-of-the-song. / Live in the along." She's saying, like Eckhart Tolle, that you have to live for the present. You have to be in the moment. Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.
But I think she's also saying, be a part of something. Don't live for yourself alone. This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself. Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back. And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back.
I know you know that, because that's a lesson that's woven into the very fabric of this university. It's a lesson that Jane and Leland Stanford got and one they've bequeathed to you. Because all of you know the story of how this great school came to be, how the Stanfords lost their only child to typhoid at the age of 15. They had every right and they had every reason to turn their backs against the world at that time, but instead, they channeled their grief and their pain into an act of grace. Within a year of their son's death, they had made the founding grant for this great school, pledging to do for other people's children what they were not able to do for their own boy.
The lesson here is clear, and that is, if you're hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt. If you're in pain, help somebody else's pain. And when you're in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs. And in the process, you get to become a member of what I call the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.
The Stanfords had suffered the worst thing any mom and dad can ever endure, yet they understood that helping others is the way we help ourselves. And this wisdom is increasingly supported by scientific and sociological research. It's no longer just woo-woo soft-skills talk. There's actually a helper's high, a spiritual surge you gain from serving others. So, if you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.
But when you do good, I hope you strive for more than just the good feeling that service provides, because I know this for sure, that doing good actually makes you better. So, whatever field you choose, if you operate from the paradigm of service, I know your life will have more value and you will be happy.
I was always happy doing my talk show, but that happiness reached a depth of fulfillment, of joy, that I really can't describe to you or measure when I stopped just being on TV and looking at TV as a job and decided to use television, to use it and not have it use me, to use it as a platform to serve my viewers. That alone changed the trajectory of my success.
So, I know this—that whether you're an actor, you offer your talent in the way that most inspires art. If you're an anatomist, you look at your gift as knowledge and service to healing. Whether you've been called, as so many of you here today getting doctorates and other degrees, to the professions of business, law, engineering, humanities, science, medicine, if you choose to offer your skills and talent in service, when you choose the paradigm of service, looking at life through that paradigm, it turns everything you do from a job into a gift. And I know you haven't spent all this time at Stanford just to go out and get a job.
You've been enriched in countless ways. There's no better way to make your mark on the world and to share that abundance with others. My constant prayer for myself is to be used in service for the greater good.
So, let me end with one of my favorite quotes from Martin Luther King. Dr. King said, "Not everybody can be famous." And I don't know, but everybody today seems to want to be famous.
But fame is a trip. People follow you to the bathroom, listen to you pee. It's just—try to pee quietly. It doesn't matter, they come out and say, "Ohmigod, it's you. You peed."
That's the fame trip, so I don't know if you want that.
So, Dr. King said, "Not everybody can be famous. But everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service." Those of you who are history scholars may know the rest of that passage. He said, "You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato or Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love."
In a few moments, you'll all be officially Stanford's '08.
You have the heart and the smarts to go with it. And it's up to you to decide, really, where will you now use those gifts? You've got the diploma, so go out and get the lessons, 'cause I know great things are sure to come.
You know, I've always believed that everything is better when you share it, so before I go, I wanted to share a graduation gift with you. Underneath your seats you'll find two of my favorite books. Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth is my current book club selection. Our New Earth webcast has been downloaded 30 million times with that book. And Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future has reassured me I'm in the right direction.
I really wanted to give you cars but I just couldn't pull that off! Congratulations, '08!
Originated from a Korean site and then popularized and translated into Chinese, finally my friend, Jack the Beanstalk and I managed to do it in English as we were pretty much obsessed with this comic.
These cartoons are depicting how each blood types reacts to certain situation or what's their intrinsic attributes. Though it may not be all accurate but it is still a great entertainment.
Hope you'll enjoy it. If you want some explanations to all the images, you may visit Jack's blog at http://oneidea2day.wordpress.com. He does write a lot! :p
Do click on the individual image to view the bigger version.
1. When different blood types have a 3PM appointment
2. When different blood types are at the canteen
3. If the female blood type B is a cat
4. When blood type A communicates to blood type B
5. When blood type AB communicates to blood type O
6. Degree of patience for each blood type
7. When different blood types are driving
8. When different blood types are complaining about something unplesant
9. When different blood types are facing crisis
10. When different blood types gossip
11. When other blood types are trying to figure out what AB is doing
12. If the internal wold of each blood types is being represented as a house
13. When different blood types are given a set of rules
14. When different blood types are asked to hang a painting
15. When different bloody types are playing games
16. When blood type B is reading a book about blood type analysis
17. Different blood types as depicted as spaces
18. The internal world of different blood types
19. The reason why different blood types are unlikeable
20. When different blood types face with punctuality
21. When different blood types try to express themselves
