Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this. I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called “real life”，I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

其實，為了考慮今天該跟你們講些什么，我已經(jīng)絞盡腦汁。我曾問自己，從畢 業(yè)到現(xiàn)在的21年里，我學(xué)會和知道了哪些重要的教訓(xùn)，收獲了什么重要的教訓(xùn)。我 現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)得出了兩個答案。在這樣一個美好的日子，我們匯聚一堂，慶祝你們學(xué)業(yè) 上的成功，而我卻決定與你們談?wù)勈〉暮锰帲灰驗槟銈冋驹?ldquo;現(xiàn)實生活”的門 檻上，我要贊揚一下發(fā)揮重要作用的想象力。

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

我向你們這么大的時候，最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

然而，你們是哈佛大學(xué)的畢業(yè)生，這個事實意味著你們可能不是很熟悉失敗。你們對失敗的恐懼可能像你們對成功的渴望一樣強(qiáng)烈。你們的失敗可能在一般人眼 里就是成功，因為你們巳經(jīng)站在一個如此高的起點。

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me，and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard，I was the biggest failure I knew.

最終，我們所有人都必須自己判斷什么才算是失敗，但是，如果你愿意的話， 這個世界可以給你提供一套評判標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。所以我認(rèn)為，以任何傳統(tǒng)的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來看，說我 在畢業(yè)后的七年里失敗得一塌糊涂一點也不為過。我經(jīng)歷了一段非常短暫的婚姻， 失去了工作，成了一個單親媽媽，除了還沒到無家可歸之外，我成了現(xiàn)代英國社會 窮得不能再窮的人。父母對我的擔(dān)心和我對自己的擔(dān)心，接踵而至。無論以何種標(biāo) 準(zhǔn)來進(jìn)行衡量，我都是我所知道的最徹底的失敗者。

Now，I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

現(xiàn)在，我不打算在這里告訴你們失敗多么有趣。那段時間我的生活暗無天日， 當(dāng)時我也并不知道日后自己會寫出被新聞界稱為“童話故事界的革命”的東西。那 時，我不知道這樣暗無天日的日子還會持續(xù)多久。在很長一段時間里，所有的希望 都是虛無飄渺的。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged- I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realized，and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

既然如此，我為什么要談?wù)撌〉暮锰幠兀坷碛珊芎唵危驗槭【鸵馕吨鴣G棄那些不必要的東西。我們不用再自我偽裝，我就是我。我將自己全部的精力都 用在完成一件對我來說很重要的工作上。假如我真的在其他方面有所造詣，那我可 能永遠(yuǎn)也不會下定決心在自己真正喜歡的領(lǐng)域奮斗并獲得成功。我得到了解脫，因 為最讓我恐懼的事情已經(jīng)發(fā)生過了，而我依然在這里，我仍然擁有一個我深愛的女 兒，一臺舊打字機(jī)和一個宏偉的想法。在人生的低谷，這些為我重新開始自己的生 活打下了堅實的基礎(chǔ)。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all~in which case, you fail by default.

你們也許永遠(yuǎn)不會體驗我所遭受過的失敗，但在人生中或多或少的失敗是不可 避免的。人生中不可能沒有失敗，除非你活得足夠小心謹(jǐn)慎，但那樣你可能都不算 是在生活——如果真的如此，那你從一開始就已經(jīng)失敗了。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations.

失敗賦予我們一種來自內(nèi)心的安全感，這是我在通過學(xué)校考試時從未得到過的 感覺。

Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies. The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

失敗讓我學(xué)會很多，而這些不能通過其他任何途徑了解到。通過失敗，我發(fā)現(xiàn) 自己擁有了堅強(qiáng)的意志，并且比我想象的要更加嚴(yán)于律己。同時，因為失敗我還發(fā) 現(xiàn)我有一些比寶石更為珍貴的朋友。一旦你意識到自己已經(jīng)在挫折中變得更加明智 和堅強(qiáng)，那么從此之后，你就獲得了保證自己生存下去的能力。如果不在逆境中接 受考驗，你可能永遠(yuǎn)都無法真正了解自己或者了解你跟朋友間友情的穩(wěn)定程度。這些認(rèn)都是真正的饋贈，因為這都是在我們經(jīng)歷了痛苦之后才獲得的，并且對我來 說這些比曾經(jīng)獲得的任何證書都要彌足珍貴。

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV，are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

如果我有一臺時光機(jī)的話，我會告訴21歲的自己，一個人的幸福在于知道人生 并非是一張寫著索取和成就目錄的清單。證書和簡歷并非你們的人生，盡管你們將 遇到很多跟我年紀(jì)相仿或是比我年長的人，他們往往將這兩者混為一談。生活是復(fù) 雜而艱難的，同時也是不受任何人掌控的，虛心地了解這些，你才能坦然面對人生 變化的無常。

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

在我20歲出頭的時候，每一個工作日我都提醒自己是如何的幸運，能夠生活在 一個民主選舉政府的國家里，在這個國家里合法地表達(dá)公民訴求是每個人的權(quán)利。

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read. And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

每一天，我都看到很多心腸惡毒的人加害于他們的同伴以獲得或維護(hù)自己的權(quán) 利。我開始作噩夢，一些逼真的噩夢，關(guān)于一些我看到、聽到讀到的事。我還在國 際特赦組織更多地了解了人心之善，這都是我之前所不知的。

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have.

特赦組織動員了上千名從未因自身信仰而遭受折磨或牢獄之苦的人為那些正在 遭受這些的人們貢獻(xiàn)一己之力。

The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

人們感同身受的力量，引導(dǎo)著統(tǒng)一的行動，拯救生命、釋放囚徒。個人幸福和 安全得到保障的普通人，以驚人的數(shù)量聚集起來去拯救那些他們從未相識，也不會 相識的人。我在那個行動中的小小作用已經(jīng)成為我人生中最謙恭也最鼓舞人心的一 段經(jīng)歷。

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places. Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

不同于這個星球上的其他生物，有些事就算沒有親身經(jīng)歷過，人類也能夠去理解 和領(lǐng)悟。人們可以設(shè)身處地的去體會別人的感受和處境。當(dāng)然，就像我小說中虛構(gòu)的 魔法一樣，它是一股在道德上保持中立的力量，并沒有所謂正邪之分。人可能會利用 這樣一種力量去操縱或控制他人，或者也可能用這種力量去理解或者同情他人。

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

許多人根本不喜歡運用自己的想象力。他們選擇舒適地生活在自己經(jīng)驗所及 的范圍內(nèi)，從來不想知道其他人的感受。他們拒絕聽到尖叫聲，不愿朝牢籠看上一 眼；對于跟自己無關(guān)的苦難，他們會視若無睹，不聞不問；他們拒絕知道這一切。

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the willfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

我難免有些羨慕能夠如此生活的人，但是我想他們的噩夢也不會比我的少。生 活在狹窄的空間里會使人患上某種“陌生環(huán)境恐懼癥”，還要承受這種恐懼癥帶來的恐懼感。我想那些可以逃避想象的人可能會見到更多的鬼怪。他們通常比我們更加害怕 恐懼。

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

更可怕的是，那些沒有同情心的人可能會成為真正的惡魔。因為盡管他們自身 不曾犯下滔天的罪行，但是他們對罪行的漠視已經(jīng)足以使他們成為罪犯的幫兇。

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better. So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor，in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom: As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

如果你們選擇憑借自己擁有的地位和影響力為那些沒有發(fā)言權(quán)的弱勢群體爭取 利益；如果你們不僅支持有權(quán)勢的人，也同樣支持那些無權(quán)無勢的人們；如果你們能 持續(xù)地切身感受那些劣勢群體的人生，那么不僅你們自己的家人會以你為傲，數(shù)以 百萬受益于你幫助而獲得更好生活的人們也會為你們喝彩。我們不需要用魔法來 改變這個世界，我們本身就擁有了改變世界的力量：我們擁有憧憬更美好明天的能 力。所以今天，我祝愿你們也擁有這樣的友誼。而將來，我希望你們即便不記得我 今天的演講，至少還能記得我為了尋找古代智慧而放棄職業(yè)學(xué)位的學(xué)習(xí)。改學(xué)古典 文學(xué)時學(xué)到古羅馬哲學(xué)家塞內(nèi)加所說的一句話:人生就像是一部小說，重要的不是有 多長，而在于是否有意義。

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

祝你們生活幸福,謝謝。
 

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