今天我想和大家分享我人生的三个经验。你们难道不觉得高兴吗？你们是否会反感，当有人对你说：“我想分享一些”但事实上却是10个经验。你们肯定在想：“听着，这是我的毕业典礼，不是你的”。因此这里只有三个经验我想和大家分享。
The three lessons that have had the greatest impact on my life have to do with feelings, with failure and with finding happiness.
这三个经验对我的人生产生了很大影响，它们是关于感情，失败和追求幸福。
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.
当我离开大学一年后，在Baltimore我得到了一个共同主持6点新闻的机会。在那时媒体界的最大目标就是获得更大的市场，而Baltimore是一个比Nashville大得多的市场，因此在22岁时得到这个机会对我来说非常重要。它那时对我来说它仿佛是世界上最重要的事。 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!"
我非常自豪，因为我终于有机会去效法barbara Walters。而她正是我从业以来一直效法的对象。那时我22岁，每年挣22,000美元。我遇到了在电视台做实习生的Gayle，我们立刻成了好朋友。我们说：“我的天啊，真难以置信。你在22岁时挣每年能挣22,000美元。想象一下吧，当你40岁时你每年就会挣40,000美元”
When I turned 40, I was so glad that didn't happen.
当我真的40岁时，我很高兴这并没有成真。
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."
这就是我，22岁时每年挣22,000美元，然而，这种感觉并不好。首先，正如Hennessy校长所说，当他们试图让我改名字。那时导演对我说：“没人会记住Oprah这个名字。因此我们想让你改名字。我们已经为你想了一个大家都会记住和喜欢的名字——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.
Suzie，一个很友善的名字。你不会厌恶Suzie。记住Suzie吧。但是我的名字不是Suzie。你们可以看到，自小我就不怎么喜欢我的名字。因为当你在午餐箱和牌号寻找你的名字时，你永远也不会找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.
我从小就不怎么喜欢我的名字，但是当我被告知去改名字时，我想，好吧，那时我的名字，但是Suzie真的适合我吗？因此我想，它并不适合我。我不会改我的名字。我也不介意人们是否记得住我的名字，这没什么大不了的。
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.
然后他们还对我说他们不喜欢我的长相。那是在1976年，你的老板可以那么说。但是如果是现在的话，那就是一件很严重的事了。可是那时他们还是说：“我不喜欢你的造型。”我根本不像Barbara Walters。于是他们把我送到沙龙，给我烫了发。可是几天后我的头发一团糟。我不得不剃光我的头发。此时他们更不喜欢我的造型了。因为作为一个光头黑人坐在摄影机前，我肯定不漂亮的。
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.
比光头更令我讨厌的是我不得不把播报别人遭受的痛苦作为我的日常工作。我深知我期待去观察，我的内心告诉我，我应该做些什么了。我需要为他人提供帮助。
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.