J·K·羅琳畢業典禮演講稿：失敗的額外收益

我們看到作者J·K·羅琳此時的光鮮，又知不知道他彼時的慘淡呢?而當初的失敗到底又給她帶來什麼額外收益呢?讓我們一起來看一下~

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J·K·羅琳：失敗的額外收益

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself and what those closest of…to me expected of me.

對於一個已經42歲的人來說，回顧自己21歲畢業時的情景並不是什麼愉快的事情。我的前半生一直在自己的志向與最親近的人對我的期望之間勉強維持着平衡。

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do—ever—was [to] write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from 1)impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal 2)quirk that never pay a 3)mortgage or secure a 4)pension.

我知道現在聽來這話就像卡通版的鐵砧那麼諷刺，不過……所以他們希望我報讀專業學位，而我則想讀英國文學。我們達成了一個現在回想起來雙方都不甚滿意的讓步，於是我改讀現代語言。可是父母的小車纔剛在大路盡頭拐彎，我立刻拋棄了德語，在古典文學的走廊上狂奔。

I know the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon 5)anvil now, but…so they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English literature. A 6)compromise was reached that 7)in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study modern languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and 8)scuttled off down the classics corridor.

我知道現在聽來這話就像卡通版的鐵砧那麼諷刺，不過……所以他們希望我報讀專業學位，而我則想讀英國文學。我們達成了一個現在回想起來雙方都不甚滿意的讓步，於是我改讀現代語言。可是父母的小車纔剛在大路盡頭拐彎，我立刻拋棄了德語，在古典文學的走廊上狂奔。

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek 9)mythology when it came to securing the keys to an 10)executive bathroom.

我忘了自己是怎麼把這件事告訴父母的，他們也可能是在我畢業那天才發現我讀的是古典文學。如果想得到通往豪華浴室的鑰匙的話，那麼在這個星球上的所有科目中，我想他們很難找到一門比希臘神話更沒用的課程了。

Now I would like to make it clear—in 11)parenthesis—that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an 12)expiry date on blaming your parents for 13)steering you in the wrong direction. The moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite…agree with them that it is not an 14)ennobling experience. Poverty 15)entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand 16)petty 17)humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is 18)romanticized only by fools.

我想插一句來說明——我並不責怪父母有這樣的觀點。抱怨父母引導自己走錯方向這件事有一個有效期限。一旦你們達到可以開車的(合法)年齡，就要自行承擔責任。而且我也不能因爲父母希望我不再貧窮而指責他們。他們自己嚐盡了沒錢的滋味，我一直以來的日子也不富足，我也……同意他們的觀點——貧窮並不能讓人高貴。貧窮會帶來一連串恐懼與壓力，有時甚至是沮喪;它意味着無數卑劣的羞辱以及各種艱難困苦。通過自己的努力擺脫貧窮確實是值得自豪的事情，但只有傻瓜纔會把貧窮當成美談。

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

和你們這麼大的時候，我最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。

At your age, in spite of a 19)distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

和你們這麼大的時候，儘管我明顯缺少在校園求學的動力——我花了太多時間在咖啡館寫故事，不怎麼聽課——我在應試方面很有一套，而這也是多年來評價我以及我的同齡人是否成功的標準。

Now I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known heartbreak…hardship or heartache. Talent and intelligence never yet 20)inoculated anyone against the 21)caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of 22)unruffled 23)privilege and 24)contentment.

你們還年輕，天資聰明，受過良好教育，但我並不會愚蠢地因此判定你們不懂得傷心難過……困難或者心痛的滋味。才華與智商未能使人免受命運無常的折磨，而我從不認爲這裏的所有人都已經享有平靜的恩典和滿足。

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very 25)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 removed from the average person’s idea of success. So high have you already flown!

然而，你們能從哈佛畢業，說明你們和失敗還不是老朋友。對你們來說，對於失敗的恐懼與對於成功的渴望可能有同等的驅動力。確實，你們對於失敗的概念或許與普通人對成功的看法相去無幾呢。你們的起點已經相當高了!

1)Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of 2)criteria if you let it. So I think it['s] fair to say that by any 3)conventional measure, a 4)mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an 5)epic scale. An 6)exceptionally short-lived marriage had 7)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，我們所有人都要自行判斷何謂失敗，但是如果你願意的話，這個世界很願意給你一堆失敗的標準。因此基於任何傳統標準，我完全可以說畢業不過七年的自己失敗得一塌糊塗。一段異常短暫的婚姻破滅了，作爲一個失業的單身媽媽，我成了這個現代化英國裏最窮的階層，只是還未到無家可歸的地步。我父母的憂慮以及我自己的擔心都成真了。從所有慣常標準來看，我知道的最失敗的人就是我自己。

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 8)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.

我並不想在這裏對你們說失敗很好玩。我的那段人生非常灰暗，那時我並不知道等待着自己的是……媒體後來所說的“童話般的出路”。我並不知道這條隧道有多長，在一段相當長的時間裏，隧道那頭的光芒只是一個渺茫的希望，而不是現實。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the 9)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 10)arena where 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 11)rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

那麼我爲什麼還要談論失敗的收益呢?簡單來說，因爲失敗就意味着與“可有可無”進行決裂。我不再自欺欺人，做回真正的自己，開始集中全副精力完成我唯一重視的寫作。如果我真的在其他方面成功了，我可能就不會下定決心，誓要在這個領域中取得成功——我相信這裏纔是自己真正的歸屬。我自由了，因爲我最大的恐懼已經成真，而我活得好好的，還有一個心愛的女兒、一臺舊打字機和一個好點子。於是人生最低點反而成了堅固的底座，我以此爲基礎重築生活。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is 12)inevitable. It is possible to live without failing at something, unless you live so 13)cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail 14)by default.

你們也許不會像我這樣一敗塗地，但生活中失敗總是難免的。只要活着總會在哪兒栽跟頭，除非你活得特別小心，但這麼小心翼翼還不如不活呢——在這種情況下，你因放棄人生而敗。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more disciplined than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of 15)rubies.

失敗讓我的內心產生了一種順利通過考試也無法獲得的安全感。失敗讓我更瞭解自己，這些知識從其他途徑無法獲得。我發現自己意志堅定，自控能力也比想象中要強，我還發現自己擁有幾個比紅寶石更寶貴的朋友。

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from 16)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 17)adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any 18)qualification I ever earned.

你們在挫折中重新站起來，更有智慧，更加強大——當你們明白到這一點，就意味着你們今後更有生存能力。在面臨逆境的考驗之前，你們不會真正瞭解自己，也沒法確定一段感情有多堅定。這樣的認識是一份真正的禮物，比我任何一份證書都要珍貴，因爲其獲取的過程非常痛苦。

So given a Time-Turner注, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of 19)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 20)humility to know that will enable you to survive its 21)vicissitudes.

如果給我一個時間轉換器，我會告訴21歲的自己——個人的幸福就是認識到生活並不是一張記錄着“得到什麼東西”和“取得什麼成就”的清單。證書和簡歷都不是你們的人生，儘管你們會碰到許多和我一般年紀或者更年長的人，他們也沒搞明白這一點。人生中難關重重，錯綜複雜，也沒有人可以完全掌控自己的生活，只要謙遜地認識到這一點，你們就能順利渡過生命的興衰浮沉。