Despite the recent US election results, Hillary Clinton continues to shine in the limelight, and discussions about her life and achievements continue to saturate our media.
We’ve talked a lot about the presidential election and Hillary Clinton at Career Girl Daily. Clinton’s journey as a woman has been particularly riveting for us, as fellow career girls. And one of our favorite moments of her career has to be one of her first speeches, as a graduate of Wellesley College, in 1969.
Making The Impossible Possible
“And the challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible possible.”
The thread she begins with stands out throughout her speech. Hillary wants to highlight the powerful voice of the youth and their ability to make the “impossible possible” in politics. She wants to inspire young people to continue pushing against existing boundaries and dreaming bigger than ever – just like when they arrived in college “not knowing what was possible” and therefore “expected a lot”.
For her, the most important thing is constantly questioning and resisting the standards and thresholds that predate us, and instead, thinking outside these boxes. And Hillary also underscores the importance of not restricting this resistance to ourselves as individuals but also to “our lives as members of a collective group”. This idea of mutual support, especially among women, has especially come through in the past year during the election race. It’s clearly a significant value for Hillary.
“We arrived not yet knowing what was not possible. Consequently, we expected a lot.”
Try and Try and Try Again
“All we can do is keep trying again and again and again. There’s that wonderful line in ‘East Coker’ by Eliot about there’s only the trying, again and again and again; to win again what we’ve lost before.”
One of the final points from Hillary’s speech that really stands out is her encouragement to never give up, to “keep trying again and again and again”. This especially resonates given her recent defeat in the election.
How many times has she been defeated and beaten down? How many times has she tried, again, and again, and again? Her perseverance and determination are astounding and inspiring to all women everywhere. We definitely want to emulate that same resolution and toughness. We want to demonstrate that we can also “win again what we’ve lost before”, in any area of life that challenges us.
Fight Fear
Hillary rounds off her speech by describing her experience with a woman who expressed fear for the future and said that she wouldn’t want to be in her shoes “for anything in the world”. And Hillary’s brave response to this definitely shows up a character trait that is continuously visible in her career: “Fear is always with us but we just don’t have time for it. Not now.”
Fear is a paralysing emotion that can hold us back from achieving greatness in so many different areas of our lives. It can hold us back from resisting the frustrating existing boundaries that limit us. It can hold us back from loudly fighting for what we believe in. But in a world that’s constantly changing, where the unpredictable shocks us every day, it’s important we don’t let that fear take hold.
“Fear is always with us but we just don’t have time for it. Not now.”
These sentiments are so inspiring and encouraging. They are echoed in her concession speech from last week, where she cited the successes and failures of her career and advised her audience to always persevere despite everything. We definitely want to take on this Hillary attitude this week: we can make the impossible possible, we can keep trying, and we can fight the fears that hold us back from being the best career girls we can be!
“I’ve had successes and setbacks and sometimes painful ones. Many of you are at the beginning of your professional, public, and political careers, you will have successes and setbacks too. This loss hurts, but please never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it.”
What do you think of one of Hillary Clinton’s earliest speeches? What are some of your favorite Hillary Clinton moments?
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