Why Not Me?

by Mindy Kaling

I’m the kind of person who becomes silent when I get scared, because I hope Death will not notice me if I am very still and very quiet. It has worked well so far. And then, after a few minutes, something weird happened. There was a certain inevitability that made me actually relax. If this plane was going down, there was nothing I could do.

And if I died, at least I wouldn’t have to figure out how to get this red wine stain out of my shirt.

He’s the kind of person who knows the coolest new place to have dinner and the best new songs on the radio. He knows the most interesting facts about famous people like Steve Wynn, Mark Twain, and Mia Farrow, and can insert them into conversations without seeming like he just looked them up on Wikipedia. It always seems like he’s read the entire New Yorker, not just the cartoons and those ads for Adirondack chairs.

If quoting The Catcher in the Rye right off the bat scares you, you’re really not going to like when I reference The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and Animal Farm later. Basically, I stopped reading after ninth grade. Just kidding! Just keep reading!

My perception of people in the White House has been shaped 100 percent by Aaron Sorkin.

The idealism and adorability of Rob Lowe and Bradley Whitford had made me long for a civic-minded beau who is constantly making long, important speeches and taking principled stands.

their hard work must be rewarded with soul-replenishing gossip.

(excited to be considered a person who doesn’t scare children).

It’s funny when you decide you don’t like someone. I am the kind of person who, if my feelings are unrequited, can completely detach from someone emotionally if I simply put my mind to it.

Just that slightly crazy, embarrassing stuff you think about the night after you first sleep with someone.

It felt to me like I was making more of an effort than he was, and when I sensed that, I pulled back, not returning his calls or texts because I felt hurt.

There weren’t a lot of us who took Latin in high school, but our small group felt very cool.

My deep dark secret is that I absolutely do try to conform to normal standards of beauty. I am just not remotely successful at it.

In our writers’ room, someone tossing a half-eaten container of French fries is like someone at a Wall Street IPO announcement party declaring that they were just going to throw away a bag of high-quality cocaine.

I think James Franco is a very mysterious and sexy weirdo

The idea is that we must seem glamorous to them because they are from some girl-less forest, and they are perfect for us because a) they’re impossibly rich, b) they’re nerds with probably not that many sexually transmitted diseases, and c) they have not been corrupted by godless Los Angeles, where if you’re a guy with a car and health insurance, you don’t have to settle down until you’re sixty.

As a young teenager I was obsessed with small talk. Something about mastering it made me feel grown-up and like an “old soul.”

This quality has continued into adulthood, such that my friends sometimes call me a “talky-talky say-nothing.”

And then I realized that I had paid someone to have lunch with me, and I stopped seeing Joy.

Hell is Whole Foods on a Sunday.

The problem is that I lack all basic skill. For instance, my dad had to come over to show me how to turn my oven on. It is sad when your hopes and your abilities do not line up.

I feel it when I wake up in the morning and try on every single pair of my jeans and everything looks bad and I just want to go back to sleep.

I will leave you with one last piece of advice, which is: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. And if you don’t got it? Flaunt it. ’Cause what are we even doing here if we’re not flaunting it?

1 I’ve never been to one of these but I have seen The Wolf of Wall Street three times.

And I’ll have you know, I know a ton about the law. I sue everybody.

I graduated in 2001 from Dartmouth College, an academic institution located in lawless rural New Hampshire where, when you arrive, you are given a flask of moonshine and a box of fireworks and simply told: “Go to town.” Only, there is no town; there is only a forest and a row of fraternity houses.

Dartmouth has a law school. It’s just one semester and its coursework is entirely centered on how to beat a DUI.

tried to buy a commencement address off of MovingCommencementSpeeches.com. My credit card was declined, so I wrote this thing myself, and here we are.

She has published over fifteen books, such as Not Only for Myself: Identity, Politics, and Law. Dean Minow and I have a lot in common. I too wrote a book. It’s called Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? You can buy it right around the

corner at Urban Outfitters, next to a novelty book called The Stoner’s Delight: Space Cakes, Pot Brownies, and Other Cannabis Creations, and Cat Hats: Sixteen Paper Hats to Put on Your Unsuspecting Kitty.

company. You will defend BP from birds. You will spend hours arguing that the well water was contaminated before the fracking occurred. One of you will sort out the details of my prenup. A dozen of you will help me with my acrimonious divorce.

The Harvard Law School crest has the word veritas, which means “truth” in Latin. I know this because though I have been known as Mindy all my life, my first name is Vera, which also means truth. That’s true! Too boring to be made up.

The only difference is that you’re the nerds who are going to make some serious bank. Which is why I’m here today. To marry the best-looking amongst you.

Across the campus right now, Harvard Business School graduates are receiving diplomas, and you will need to defend them. For insider trading or possession of narcotics, or maybe both, if The Wolf of Wall Street is to be believed.

I SHOULD START OFF by saying that I am one of the only television writers I know who is not depressed.

don’t know why the funniest people I know are also depressed. In my mind I’ve romanticized it as the tragic price you pay to be gifted, like Mozart dying at thirty-five.

When I was a writer on season 1 of The Office I probably slept an average of three hours a night because I was so worried about being fired.

“Workaholic mom comes home to find that her entire family hates her. It’s not until she cuts back on work, smokes a little pot, and takes up ballroom dancing classes with her neglected husband that she realizes what is truly important in life. Not work.”

You aren’t hostages to the words of your peers. You aren’t the victims that even your well-meaning teachers and advocates think you are.

We just assume boys will be confident, like how your parents assume you will brush your teeth every morning without checking in on you in

the bathroom. With girls, that assumption flies out the window. Suddenly, your parents are standing in the bathroom with you, watching you brush your teeth with enc...

The good news is that, as a country, we are all about telling girls to be confident. It’s our new national pastime.