Kaling shared how she made an ambitious checklist as a freshman — crew, a cappella, improv, writing — and completed every item. But her post-college checklist (married by 27, kids at 30, an Oscar, size 2) went very differently. She told the story of bringing her newborn daughter home alone, without a mother or spouse present, and feeling a flash of fear. But then realizing she was surrounded by love and that the joy of her daughter eclipsed any checklist. Life, she said, rarely follows the plan.