1、Dare to Compete dare to compete. dare to care. dare to dream. dare to love. practice the art of making possible. and no matter what happens, even if you hear shouts behind, keep going. it is such an honor and pleasure for me to be back at yale, especially on the occasion of the 300th anniversary. i
2、have had so many memories of my time here, and as nick was speaking i thought about how i ended up at yale law school. and it tells a little bit about how much progress weve made. what i think most about when i think of yale is not just the politically charged atmosphere and not even just the superb
3、 legal education that i received. it was at yale that i began work that has been at the core of what i have cared about ever since. i began working with new haven legal services representing children. and i studied child development, abuse and neglect at the yale new haven hospital and the child stu
4、dy center. i was lucky enough to receive a civil rights internship with marian wright edelman at the childrens defense fund, where i went to work after i graduated. those experiences fueled in me a passion to work for the benefit of children, particularly the most vulnerable. now, looking back, ther
5、e is no way that i could have predicted what path my life would have taken. i didnt sit around the law school, saying, well, you know, i think ill graduate and then ill go to work at the childrens defense fund, and then the impeachment inquiry, and nixon retired or resigns, ill go to arkansas. i did
6、nt think like that. i was taking each day at a time. but, ive been very fortunate because ive always had an idea in my mind about what i thought was important and what gave my life meaning and purpose. a set of values and beliefs that have helped me navigate the shoals, the sometimes very treacherou
7、s sea, to illuminate my own true desires, despite that others say about what l should care about and believe in. a passion to succeed at what l thought was important and children have always provided that lone star, that guiding light. because l have that absolute conviction that every child, especi
8、ally in this, the most blessed of nations that has ever existed on the face of earth, that every child deserves the opportunity to live up to his or her god-given potential. but you know that belief and conviction-it may make for a personal mission statement, but standing alone, not translated into
9、action, it means very little to anyone else, particularly to those for whom you have those concerns. when i was thinking about running for the united states senate-which was such an enormous decision to make, one i never could have dreamed that i would have been making when i was here on campus-i vi
10、sited a school in new york city and i met a young woman, who was a star athlete. i was there because of billy jean king promoting an hbo special about women in sports called dare to compete. it was about title ix and how we finally, thanks to government action, provided opportunities to girls and wo
11、men in sports. and although i played not very well at intramural sports, i have always been a strong supporter of women in sports. and i was introduced by this young woman, and as i went to shake her hand she obviously had been reading the newspapers about people saying i should or shouldnt run for
12、the senate. and i was congratulating her on the speech she had just made and she held onto my hand and she said, dare to compete, mrs. clinton. dare to compete. i took that to heart because it is hard to compete sometimes, especially in public ways, when your failures are there for everyone to see a
13、nd you dont know what is going to happen from one day to the next. and yet so much of life, whether we like to accept it or not, is competing with ourselves to be the best we can be, being involved in classes or professions or just life, where we know we are competing with others. i took her advice
14、and i did compete because i chose to do so. and the biggest choices that youll face in your life will be yours alone to make. im sure youll receive good advice. youre got a great education to go back and reflect about what is right for you, but you eventually will have to choose and i hope that you
15、will dare to compete. and by that i dont mean the kind of cutthroat competition that is too often characterized by what is driving america today. i mean the small voice inside you that says to you, you can do it, you can take this risk, you can take this next step. and it doesnt mean that once havin
16、g made that choice you will always succeed. in fact, you wont. there are setbacks and you will experience difficult disappointments. you will be slowed down and sometimes the breath will just be knocked out of you. but if you carry with you the values and beliefs that you can make a difference in yo
17、ur own life, first and foremost, and then in the lives of others. you can get back up, you can keep going. but it is also important, as i have found, not to take yourself too seriously, because after all, every one of us here today, none of us is deserving of full credit. i think every day of the bl
18、essings my birth gave me without any doing of my own. i chose neither my family nor my country, but they as much as anything ive ever done, determined my course. you compare my or your circumstances with those of the majority of people whove ever lived or who are living right now, they too often are
19、 born knowing too well what their futures will be. they lack the freedom to choose their lifes path. theyre imprisoned by circumstances of poverty and ignorance, bigotry, disease, hunger, oppression and war. so, dare to compete, yes, but maybe even more difficult, dare to care. dare to care about pe
20、ople who need our help to succeed and fulfill their own lives. there are so many out there and sometimes all it takes is the simplest of gestures or helping hands and many of you understand that already. i know that the numbers of graduates in the last 20 years have worked in community organizations
21、, have tutored, have committed themselves to religious activities. you have been there trying to serve because you have believed both that it was the right thing to do and because it gave something back to you. you have dared to care. well, dare to care to fight for equal justice for all, for equal
22、pay for women, against hate crimes and bigotry. dare to care about public schools without qualified teachers or adequate resources. dare to care about protecting our environment. dare to care about the 10 million children in our country who lack health insurance. dare to care about the one and a hal
23、f million children who have a parent in jail. the seven million people who suffer from hiv/aids. and thank you for caring enough to demand that our nation do more to help those that are suffering throughout this world with hiv/aids, to prevent this pandemic from spreading even further. and ill also
24、add, dare enough to care about our political process. you know, as i go and speak with students im impressed so much, not only in formal settings, on campuses, but with my daughter and her friends, about how much you care, about how willing you are to volunteer and serve. you may have missed the las
25、t wave of the revolution, but youve understood that the munity revolution is there for you every single day. and youve been willing to be part of remarking lives in our community. and yet, there is a real resistance, a turning away from the political process. i hope that some of you will be public s
26、ervants and will even run for office yourself, not to win a position to make and impression on your friends at your 20th reunion, but because you understand how important it is for each of us as citizens to make a commitment to our democracy. your generation, the first one born after the social uphe
27、avals of the 60s and 70s, in the midst of the technological advances of the 80s and 90s, are inheriting an economy, a society and a government that has yet to understand fully, or even come to grips with, our rapidly changing world. and so bring your values and experiences and insights into politics
28、. dare to help make, not just a difference in politics, but create a different politics. some have called you the generation of choice. youve been raised with multiple choice tests, multiple channels, multiple websites and multiple lifestyles. youve grown up choosing among alternatives that were eit
29、her not imagined, created or available to people in prior generations. youve been invested with far more personal power to customize your life, to make more free choices about how to live than was ever thought possible. and i think as i look at all the surveys and research that is done, your choices
30、 reflect not only freedom, but personal responsibility. the social indicators, not the headlines, the social indicators tell a positive story: drug use and cheating and arrests being down, been pregnancy and suicides, drunk driving deaths being down. community service and religious involvement being
31、 up. but if you look at the area of voting among 18 to 29 year olds, the numbers tell a far more troubling tale. many of you i know believe that service and community volunteerism is a better way of solving the issues facing our country than political engagement, because you believe-choose one of th
32、e following multiples or choose them all-government either cant understand or wont make the right choices because of political pressures, inefficiency, incompetence or big money influence. well, i admit there is enough truth in that critique to justify feeling disconnected and alienated. but at bottom, thats a personal cop-out and a national peril. political conditions maximize the conditions for individual opportunity and responsibility as well as community. americorps and the peace corps exist because of political decisions. our air, water, land and food will be c
