Mindy Kaling’s new book, “Why Not Me,” is amazing. It will make readers laugh but also make them think about self-confidence, entitlement and hard work in a way they never have before. In Kaling’s words, “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?”
Kaling wrote her book in response to a young girl’s question: “Where do you get your confidence?” Kaling admits that when she was first asked this question, she was exhausted and provided some lame answer about her parents and never giving up. Now, however, she’s ready to give that girl a real answer.
To help the reader fully understand where she gets her confidence, Kaling takes readers all the way back to her college days and gives a brief history of her life since the moment she was first asked that question. From the first chapter, Kaling fans are regaled with hilarious stories of her experiences with sorority rush, her confusing relationship with office costar B.J. Novak and her love of TV makeouts.
Eventually, Mindy begins to answer the question of confidence in earnest, having sneakily built up to this moment throughout the whole book. While recounting hilarious stories of her life, she also tells the story of an immensely hard worker. It’s a tricky technique. Readers are so amused by her stories of office drama, they may miss the fact she works from 5 a.m. to past midnight, five nights a week, while filming her show. Her frank descriptions of college life are so entertaining, it is easy to forget she attended the prestigious Dartmouth College.
When Kaling writes, “Confidence is like respect. You have to earn it,” her audience realizes that Kaling has certainly earned her confidence. She notes that entitlement gets a bad rap — entitlement, by definition, is just the feeling that you deserve something.
In Kaling’s opinion, if you have done the work, there is nothing wrong with feeling like you deserve the results. She points out, often, no one wants to talk about hard work, but it is the fundamental basis of self-confidence. This collection of essays — Kaling’s response to the young, questioning girl — essentially boils down one key takeaway: confidence is the feeling of deserving what one has earned as a result of working hard for it. Just like Kaling, don’t be afraid to flaunt it.
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