哈佛畢業典禮演講稿

各位老師、家長、全體畢業生們：

The first thing I would like to say is "thank you." Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red

banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindors reunion. 首先請允許我說一聲謝謝。哈佛不僅給了我無上的榮譽，連日來為這個演講經受的恐懼和緊張，更令我減肥成功。這真是一個雙贏的局面。現在我要做的就是深呼吸幾下，眯著眼睛看看前面的大紅橫幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的魔法學院聚會上。

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I cant remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

發表畢業演說是一個巨大的責任，至少在我回憶自己當年的畢業典禮前是這麼認為的。那天做演講的是英國著名的哲學家Baroness Mary Warnock，對她演講的回憶，對我寫今天的演講稿，產生了極大的幫助，因為我不記得她說過的任何一句話了。這個發現讓我釋然，讓我不再擔心我可能會無意中影響你放棄在商業，法律或政治上的大好前途，轉而醉心於成為一個快樂的魔法師。

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the gay wizard joke, Ive still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals - the first step to self-improvement.

你們看，如果在若干年後你們還記得“快樂的魔法師”這個笑話，那就證明我已經超越了Baroness Mary Warnock。建立可實現的目標——這是提高自我的第一步。

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 has expired between that day and this.

實際上，我為今天應該和大家談些什麼絞盡了腦汁。我問自己什麼是我希望早在畢業典禮上就該瞭解的'，而從那時起到現在的21年間，我又得到了什麼重要的啟示。

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.

我想到了兩個答案。在這美好的一天，當我們一起慶祝你們取得學業成就的時刻，我希望告訴你們失敗有什麼樣的益處；在你們即將邁向“現實生活”的道路之際，我還要褒揚想象力的重要性。

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.

這些似乎是不切實際或自相矛盾的選擇，但請先容我講完。

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 to me expected of me.

回顧21歲剛剛畢業時的自己，對於今天42歲的我來說，是一個稍微不太舒服的經歷。可以說，我人生的前一部分，一直掙扎在自己的雄心和身邊的人對我的期望之間。

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive

imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.

我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是寫小說。不過，我的父母，他們都來自貧窮的背景，沒有任何一人上過大學，堅持認為我過度的想象力是一個令人驚訝的個人怪癖，根本不足以讓我支付按揭，或者取得足夠的養老金。

I know the irony strikes like with the force of a cartoon anvil now, but…

我現在明白反諷就像用卡通鐵砧去打擊你，但...

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that 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 scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

他們希望我去拿個職業學位，而我想去攻讀英國文學。最後，達成了一個雙方都不甚滿意的妥協：我改學現代語言。可是等到父母一走開，我立刻放棄了德語而報名學習古典文學。 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 mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

我不記得將這事告訴了父母，他們可能是在我畢業典禮那一天才發現的。我想，在全世界的所有專業中，他們也許認為，不會有比研究希臘神話更沒用的專業了，根本無法換來一間獨立寬敞的衛生間。 I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for 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 criticise 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 ennobling

rty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

我想澄清一下：我不會因為父母的觀點，而責怪他們。埋怨父母給你指錯方向是有一個時間段的。當你成長到可以控制自我方向的時候，你就要自己承擔責任了。尤其是，我不會因為父母希望我不要過窮日子，而責怪他們。他們一直很貧窮，我後來也一度很窮，所以我很理解他們。貧窮並不是一種高貴的經歷，它帶來恐懼、壓力、有時還有絕望，它意味著許許多多的羞辱和艱辛。靠自己的努力擺脫貧窮，確實可以引以自豪，但貧窮本身只有對傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

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

我在你們這個年齡，最害怕的不是貧窮，而是失敗。

At your age, in spite of a 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.

我在您們這麼大時，明顯缺乏在大學學習的動力，我花了太久時間在咖啡吧寫故事，而在課堂的時間卻很少。我有一個通過考試的訣竅，並且數年間一直讓我在大學生活和同齡人中不落人後。

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and

intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of

uuffled privilege and contentment.

我不想愚蠢地假設，因為你們年輕、有天份，並且受過良好的教育，就從來沒有遇到困難或心碎的時刻。擁有才華和智慧，從來不會使人對命運的反覆無常有免疫（直譯）；我也不會假設大家坐在這裡冷靜地滿足於自身的優越感。

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 persons idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.

相反，你們是哈佛畢業生的這個事實，意味著你們並不很瞭解失敗。你們也許極其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失敗。說實話，你們眼中的失敗，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，畢竟你們在學業上已經達到很高的高度了。

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 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決定什麼算作失敗，但如果你願意，世界是相當渴望給你一套標準的。所以我承認命運的公平，從任何傳統的標準看，在我畢業僅僅七年後的日子裡，我的失敗達到了史詩般空前的規模：短命的婚姻閃電般地破裂，我又失業成了一個艱難的單身母親。除了流浪漢，我是當代英國最窮的人之一，真的一無所有。當年父母和我自己對未來的擔憂，現在都變成了現實。按照慣常的標準來看，我也是我所知道的最失敗的人。 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 how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

現在，我不打算站在這裡告訴你們，失敗是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗歲月，我不知道它是否代表童話故事裡需要歷經的磨難，更不知道自己還要在黑暗中走多久。很長一段時間裡，前面留給我的只是希望，而不是現實。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a

stripping away of the 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 already 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.

那麼為什麼我要談論失敗的好處呢？因為失敗意味著剝離掉那些不必要的東西。我因此不再偽裝自己、遠離自我，而重新開始把所有精力放在對我最重要的事情上。如果不是沒有在其他領域成功過，我可能就不會找到，在一個我確信真正屬於的舞臺上取得成功的決心。我獲得了自由，因為最害怕的雖然已經發生了，但我還活著，我仍然有一個我深愛的女兒，我還有一箇舊打字機和一個很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成為我重建生活的堅實基礎。 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.

你們可能永遠沒有達到我經歷的那種失敗程度，但有些失敗，在生活中是不可避免的。生活不可能沒有一點失敗，除非你生活的萬般小心，而那也意味著你沒有真正在生活了。無論怎樣，有些失敗還是註定地要發生。

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 rubies.

失敗使我的內心產生一種安全感，這是我從考試中沒有得到過的。失敗讓我看清自己，這也是我通過其他方式無法體會的。我發現，我比自己認為的，要有更強的意志和決心。我還發現，我擁有比寶石更加珍貴的朋友。

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 to me than any qualification I ever earned.

從挫折中獲得智慧、變得堅強，意味著你比以往任何時候都更有能力生存。只有在逆境來臨的時候，你才會真正認識你自己，瞭解身邊的人。這種瞭解是真正的財富，雖然是用痛。