>> President Hamlin, faculty, staff, honored guests, parents, students, family, and friends,

good morning and congratulations to the Dartmouth graduating class of 2014.

[ Applause ]

So, this is weird, me giving a speech.

In general I do not like giving speeches, giving a speech requires standing in front

of large groups of people while they look at you and it also requires talking.

I can do the standing part okay, but the you looking and the me talking, I am not a fan.

I get this overwhelming feeling of fear, terror really.

Dry mouth, heart beats super fast, everything gets a little bit in slow motion,

like I might pass out or die or poop my pants or something.

I mean don't worry, I'm not going to pass out or die or poop my pants, mainly because just

by telling you that it could happen I have somehow neutralized it as an option.

Like as if saying it out loud casts some kind of spell where now it cannot possibly happen.

Vomit, I could vomit.

See, vomiting is now also off the table, neutralized it, we're good.

Anyway, the point is, I do not like to give speeches.

I'm a writer, I'm a TV writer, I like to write stuff for other people to say.

I actually contemplated bringing Ellen Pompeo or Carrie Washington here to say my speech for me,

but my lawyer pointed out that when you drag someone across state lines

against their will the FBI comes looking for you [laughter].

So, I don't like giving speeches in general because of the fear and terror, but this speech,

this speech I really did not want to give.

A Dartmouth commencement speech, dry mouth, heart beats so, so fast,

everything in slow motion, pass out, die, poop.

Like it would be fine if this were 20 years ago,

if it were back in the day when I graduated from Dartmouth.

Twenty-three years ago I was sitting right where you are now, and I was listening

to Elizabeth Dole speak and she was great, she was calm

and she was confident and it was just different.

It felt like she was just talking to a group of people, like a fireside chat with friends,

just [inaudible] and like 9000 of her closest friends, because it was 20 years ago

and she was just talking to a group of people.

Now, 20 years later, this is no fireside chat.

It's not just you and me, this speech is filmed and streamed and tweeted and uploaded and PR has

like a whole site dedicated to commencement speeches,

a whole site just about commencement speeches.

There are sites that rate them and mock them and dissect them.

It's weird and stressful and kind of vicious if you're a [inaudible] perfectionist writer

who [inaudible] public in the first place [laughter].

When President Hamlin called me --

and by the way I would like to thank President Hamlin calling me way back in January,

thus giving me a full six months of terror and panic to enjoy.

When he called me I almost said no, almost.

Dry mouth, heart beats so, so fast, everything in slow motion, pass out, die, poop.

But I'm here, I'm going to do it, I'm doing it.

You know why, because I like a challenge, and because this year I made myself a promise

that I was going to do the stuff that terrifies me and because 20 plus years ago

when I was trudging uphill from the river cluster through all that snow to get

to the [inaudible] for play rehearsal, I never imagined that I would one day be standing here,

at the old pine lector, staring out at all of you about to throw down on some wisdom

in the Dartmouth commencement address [cheering].

So, you know, yeah, moments.

Also, I'm here because I really, really wanted some EBA's.

Okay, I want to say right now that every single time someone asked me what I was going to talk

about in this speech I would boldly and confidently tell them

that I had all kinds of wisdom to share.

I was lying.

I feel wildly unqualified to give you advice.

There is no wisdom here.

So, all I can do is talk about some stuff that could maybe be useful to you

from one Dartmouth grad to another.

Some stuff that would never show

up in a [inaudible] voice over or a [inaudible] monologue.

Some stuff that I probably shouldn't be telling you here now, because of the uploading

and the streaming and the tweeting.

But I'm going to pretend that it is 20 years ago, that it's just you and me,

that we're having a fireside chat.

Screw the outside world and what they think, I've already said poop like five times anyway,

things are getting real up in here [laughter].

Okay, wait, before I talk to you, I want to talk to your parents, because the other thing

about it being 20 years later is that I'm a mother now,

so I know some things, some very different things.

I have three girls, I've been to the show.

You don't know what that means what your parents do.

You think this day is all about you, but your parents, the people who raised you,

the people who endured you, they potty trained you, they taught you to read,

they've survived you as a teenager, they have suffered 21 years

and not once did they kill you [laughter].

This day, you call it your graduation day, but this day is not about you.

This is their day, this is the day they take back their lives [applause].

This is the day they earn their freedom.

This day is their independence day.

So, parents I salute you and as I have an eight month old,

I hope to join your ranks of freedom in 20 years.

Okay, so here comes the real deal part of the speech or you might call it some random stuff --

some random [inaudible] things I should know before I graduate.

You ready?

When people give these kinds of speeches, they usually tell you all kinds of wise

and heartfelt things, they have wisdom to impart, they have lessons to share.

They tell you, follow your dreams, listen to your spirit, change the world, make your mark,

find your inner voice and make it sing, embrace failure, dream, dream and dream big,

as a matter of fact dream and don't stop dreaming until all of your dreams come true.

I think that's crap.

I think a lot of people dream, and while they are busy dreaming the really happy people,

the really successful people, the really interesting,

engaged, powerful people are busy doing.

The dreamers, they stare at the sky and they make plans, and they hope,

and they talk about it endlessly, and they start a lot of sentences with I want to be or I wish.

I want to be a writer, I wish I could travel around the world and they dream of it.

The button up ones meet for cocktails and they brag about their dreams

and the hippie ones have vision words and they meditate about their dreams and maybe you write

in journals about your dreams or discuss it endlessly with your best friend

or your girlfriend or your mother and it feels really good.

You're talking about it and you're planning it kind of, you are blue skying your life

and that is what everyone says you should be doing, right?

I mean that's what Oprah and Bill Gates did to get successful, right?

No. Dreams are lovely but they're just dreams fleeting, [inaudible], pretty.

But dreams do not come true just because you dream them,

its hard work that makes things happen, it's hard work that creates change.

So, lesson one I guess is ditch the dream and be a doer not a dreamer.

Maybe you know exactly what it is you dream of being or maybe you're paralyzed

because you have no idea what your passion is.

The truth is, it doesn't matter, you don't have to know, you just have to keep moving forward,

just to keep doing something, seizing the next opportunity,

staying open to trying something new.

It doesn't have to fit your vision of the perfect job or the perfect life.

Perfect is boring and dreams are not real, just do, So you think, I wish I could travel.

Great, sell your crappy car, buy a ticket to Bangkok and go, right now, I'm serious.

You want to be a writer?

[Inaudible] so start writing.

You don't have a job?

Get one, any job.

Don't sit at home waiting for the magical opportunity, who are you, Prince William?

No, get a job, go to work [laughter].

Do something until you can do something else.

I did not dream of being a TV writer, never, not once when I was here in the hallowed halls

of the Ivy League did I say to myself, self I want to write TV.

You know what I wanted to be?

I wanted to be Nobel prize winning author Tony Morrison, that was my dream.

I blue skied it like crazy, I dreamed and dreamed,

and while I was dreaming I was living in my sister's basement.

Dreamers often end up living in the basements of relatives, FYI.

Anyway, there I was in that basement and I was dreaming

of being Nobel Prize winning author Tony Morrison and guess what?

I couldn't be Nobel Prize winning author Tony Morrison, because Tony Morrison already had

that job and she wasn't interested in giving it up.

So, one day I was sitting in that basement and I read an article that said --

it was in the New York Times and it said it was harder to get into USC film school

than it was to get into Harvard Law School, and I thought I could dream

about being Tony Morrison or I could do.

At film school I'd start an entirely new way of telling stories, a way that suited me,

a way that brought me joy, a way that flipped the switch in my brain

and changed the way I saw the world.

Years later I had dinner with Tony Morrison and all she wanted to talk

about was Grey's Anatomy [laughter].

That never would've happened if I hadn't stopped dreaming

of becoming her and gotten busy becoming myself.

Lesson two --

[ Applause ]

-- lesson two is that tomorrow is going to be the worst day ever for you.

When I graduated from Dartmouth that day in 1991, when I was sitting right where you are

and I was staring up at Elizabeth Dole speaking,

I will admit that I have no idea what she was saying, couldn't even listen to her.

Not because I was overwhelmed or emotional or any of that,

but because I had a serious hangover [laughter], like an epic, painful hangover.

And here is where I might want to apologize to President Hamlin because I know

that you are trying to build a better and more responsible Dartmouth and I applaud you

and I admire you and it is very necessary,

but I was really freaking drunk the night before [laughter].

And the reason I'd been so drunk the night before, the reason I'd done upside

down margarita shots at Bones Gate, was because I knew that after graduation I was going

to take off my cap and gown and my parents were going to pack my stuff in the car

and I was going to go home and probably never come back to Hanover again.

And even if I did come back it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't be the same

because I didn't live here anymore.

On my graduation day I was grieving.

My friends were celebrating, they were partying, they were excited, so happy, no more school,

no more books, no more teachers, dirty looks.

And I was like, are you freaking kidding me?

You get all the froyo you want here, the gym is free, the apartments in Manhattan are smaller

than my suite in North Mass., who cared if there was no place to get my hair done.

All my friends are here, I have a theatre company here, I was grieving.

I knew enough about how the world works, enough about how adulthood plays out to be grieving.

Here's where I'm going to embarrass myself

and make you all feel maybe a little bit better about yourselves.

I literally laid down on the floor of my dorm room

and cried while my mother packed up my room [laughter].

I refused to help her like, hell no, I won't go, I non-violent protested leaving here,

like a protestor only without the chanting, it was really pathetic.

If none of you lay down on a dirty hardwood floor and cry today while your mommy packs

up your room, you are already starting your careers out ahead of me [laughter].

You are winning.

The thing I really felt like I knew was that the real world sucks and it is scary.

College is awesome, you're special here, you're in the Ivy League, you are at the pinnacle

of your life's goals at this point.

Your entire life up until now has been about getting into some great college

and then graduating from that college and now today you have done it.

The moment you get out of college you think you're going to take the world by storm.

All doors will be open to you, it's going to be laughter

and diamonds and [inaudible] left and right.

What really happens is that to the rest of the world you are now at the bottom of the heap.

Maybe you're an intern, possibly a low paid assistant, and it is awful.

The real world, it sucked so badly for me, I felt like a loser all of the time

and more than a loser I felt lost.

Which brings me to clarify lesson number two, tomorrow is going to be the worst day ever

for you, but don't be an asshole [laughter].