少兒英語朗讀:《喬布斯在斯坦福大學(xué)的演講》

小小朗讀者：Harry（6歲）

 

 

喬布斯在斯坦福大學(xué)的演講

 

 

I am honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told，I never graduated from college，and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

今天，我很榮幸能參加你們的畢業(yè)典禮，斯坦福大學(xué)是世界上最好的大學(xué)之一。我從來沒有從大學(xué)畢業(yè)。說真的，今天也許是在我的生命中離大學(xué)畢業(yè)最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三個故事而已。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事是生命中的點點滴滴串連起來。

 

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

我在Reed大學(xué)讀了六個月之后就退學(xué)了,但是在十八個月以后——我真正地作出退學(xué)決定之前，我還經(jīng)常去學(xué)校。那么，我為什么要退學(xué)呢?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl.

故事從我出生的時候講起。我的生母當時是一個年輕的,尚未結(jié)婚的研究生，她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我。她十分想讓我被大學(xué)畢業(yè)生收養(yǎng)。所以在我出生的時候，她已經(jīng)做好了一切的準備工作，我將被一位律師和他的妻子收養(yǎng)。但是她沒有料到，當我出生之后，律師夫婦突然決定他們想要的是一個女孩。

So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We’ve got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start of my life.

所以我的養(yǎng)父母(他們在候選名單上)突然在半夜接到了一個電話:“我們現(xiàn)在這兒有一個親生父母無法撫養(yǎng)的男嬰,你們想要他嗎?”他們回答道:“當然!”但是我親生母親隨后發(fā)現(xiàn)，我的養(yǎng)母大學(xué)沒畢業(yè),我的父親甚至高中沒畢業(yè)。她拒絕簽這個收養(yǎng)合同。只是在幾個月以后,我的父母答應(yīng)她一定要讓我上大學(xué),那個時候她才同意。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.

在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學(xué)。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個幾乎和你們斯坦福大學(xué)一樣貴的學(xué)校, 而我父母只是藍領(lǐng)階層，我的學(xué)費幾乎要花光了他們所有積蓄。而六個月后, 我卻看不到其中的價值所在。我不知道我想要在生命中做什么,我也不知道大學(xué)能怎么樣幫助我找到答案。

And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

但是在這里，我?guī)缀趸ü饬宋腋改高@一輩子的所有積蓄。所以我決定要退學(xué),并且相信一切會有辦法的。我當時確實非常的害怕, 但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中曾經(jīng)做過的最棒的一個決定。在我退學(xué)的那一刻, 我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了，然后我還可以去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

但是事實并不是那么浪漫。我沒有了宿舍住,所以我只能睡在朋友房間的地板上,我去撿可樂瓶子，以五分一個的價格賣掉，這樣我就可以有點錢買吃的, 在每個星期天的晚上,我會走七英里的路程，到城市另一端的Hare Krishna寺廟(注：位于紐約Brooklyn下城),可以吃上每星期唯一一頓飽飯。我愛圣餐。我跟著我的直覺和好奇心走, 遇到了很多東西,此后被證明是無價之寶。我來舉個例子吧：

 

 

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.

在那時，Reed大學(xué)提供全美最好的美術(shù)字課程。在這個大學(xué)里，每張海報, 每個抽屜的每個標簽，全都是漂亮的手寫美術(shù)字。因為我退學(xué)了, 不用去上那些常規(guī)的課程, 所以我決定去參加這個課程，去學(xué)學(xué)怎樣寫出漂亮的美術(shù)字。

I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

我學(xué)到了san serif 和serif字體, 我學(xué)會了怎么樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空格的長度, 還有怎么樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。那是一種科學(xué)永遠不能捕捉到的、美麗的、歷史性的藝術(shù)精妙, 我發(fā)現(xiàn)那實在是太美妙了。

 

 

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.

當時這些東西好像都沒有什么會在我生命中實際應(yīng)用的可能。但是十年之后,當我們在設(shè)計第一臺Macintosh電腦的時候,它就回歸到我身邊。我把當時我學(xué)的那些家伙全都設(shè)計進了Mac。那是第一臺使用了漂亮的印刷字體的電腦。如果我在大學(xué)里從沒有學(xué)那門課，麥金塔電腦就不會有多種字體或者適當分隔的字體。

And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

因為微軟都是抄Mac電腦的，很可能在個人電腦上都不會有這些了。如果我沒有退學(xué)，那我就不會旁聽這門書法課，然后個人電腦就不會像現(xiàn)在這樣有神奇的排印術(shù)了。當然在大學(xué)的時候，我還不可能把未來的點點滴滴串連起來,但是當我十年后回顧這一切的時候,真的豁然開朗了。

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it lead you off the well-worn path and that will make all the difference.

再次說明下,你不可能將未來的片斷串連起來;你只能在回顧的時候?qū)Ⅻc點滴滴串連起來。所以你必須相信這些片斷會以某種方式在未來的某一天串連起來。你必須要相信某些東西：你的勇氣、命運、生命、因緣，隨便是什么。這種方法從來沒有令我失望(let me down)，只是讓我的生命更加地與眾不同。

My second story is about love and loss.

我的第二個故事是關(guān)于愛和損失。

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a 2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30.

我非常幸運, 因為我在很早的時候就找到了我愛做的事情。在我二十歲的時候，我和Woz就在我父母的車庫里面創(chuàng)立了蘋果公司。我們工作地很努力, 十年之后, 蘋果就從我們兩個人窩在車庫里發(fā)展到了擁超過四千名的雇員、價值超過十億美金的大公司。而在那之前一年,我們發(fā)布了我們最精美的產(chǎn)品,那就是Macintosh，而我也剛過了三十歲了。

And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

然后，我被炒了魷魚。你怎么可能被你自己創(chuàng)立的公司炒魷魚呢? 是這樣地,在蘋果快速成長的時候，我們雇用了一個我認為很有天分的家伙和我一起管理這個公司, 在第一年,公司運轉(zhuǎn)得很好。但是后來我們對未來的愿景發(fā)生了分歧, 最終我們大吵一通。當我們爭吵不可開交時, 董事會站在了他那邊。所以在三十歲的時候, 我出局了。是一種非常公開地出局。我作為一個成人，生命中的焦點在我眼前消失了，這對我真的是毀滅性的。

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly.

在最初的幾個月里，我真是不知道該做些什么。我感到我把從前的創(chuàng)業(yè)激情給丟了, 我把傳到我手里的接力棒整到了地上。我和David Pack和Bob Boyce見面，并試圖就如此悲慘地搞砸了向他們道歉。

 

 

I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

在公眾眼里，我非常地失敗，我甚至想著從硅谷跑掉。但是有些事情開始慢慢地照亮我--我仍然喜愛我從事的事情。在蘋果公司發(fā)生的轉(zhuǎn)折沒有改變它, 一點也沒有。我被驅(qū)逐了,但是我仍然熱愛它。所以我決定從頭再來。

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

我當時沒有意識到, 但是事后證明, 曾被蘋果公司炒魷魚是我這輩子發(fā)生的最棒的事情。因為，作為一個成功者的沉重感覺被作為一個創(chuàng)業(yè)者的輕松感覺所代替: 對任何事情都不再那么自信。這讓我覺得如此自由, 讓我得以進入我生命中最有創(chuàng)造力的一個階段。

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world.

在接下來的五年里, 我創(chuàng)立了一個名叫NeXT的公司, 還有一個叫Pixar的公司, 并和一位優(yōu)雅的女士相愛，她后來成為我的妻子。Pixar 制作了世界上第一個用電腦制作的動畫電影——“”玩具總動員”,Pixar現(xiàn)在也是世界上最成功的電腦制作工作室。

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

在后來的一系列運轉(zhuǎn)中,Apple收購了NeXT, 然后我回到了Apple公司。我們在NeXT發(fā)展的技術(shù)在Apple現(xiàn)在的復(fù)興之中發(fā)揮了關(guān)鍵的作用。我和Laurence 一起建立了一個幸福的家庭。

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. (Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love.)

我可以非?？隙?如果我不被Apple開除, 這其中任何一件事情都不會發(fā)生。這件事本身是一味非?？嗟乃?但是我猜病人需要它。有些時候, 生活會拿起一塊磚頭猛拍向你的腦袋。不要失去信心。我很清楚唯一使我一直走下去的，就是我無比鐘愛我做的事情。你得去找到你所愛的東西。

And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

對于工作是如此, 對于你的愛人亦然。你的工作將會占據(jù)生活中很大的一部分。讓自己真正滿意的唯一方式就是，只做那些你認為是杰出工作的事情。如果你還沒有找到, 那么就繼續(xù)找、不要停下來、全心全意的去找, 當你找到的時候你就會知道的。就像任何偉大的關(guān)系, 隨著歲月的流逝只會越來越好。所以繼續(xù)找，直到你找到它，不要停下來!

My third story is about death.

我的第三個故事與死亡有關(guān)。

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

我十七歲時, 我讀到了一段引述，大致如下:“如果你把每一天都當作生命中最后一天去生活,那么有一天，你會非常確定你是正確的。”這句話給我留下了深刻的印象。從那時開始,過了33年,我在每天早晨都會對著鏡子問自己:“如果今天是我生命中的最后一天, 你會不會完成你今天將要做的事情呢?”當連續(xù)很多天答案都是“否”的時候, 我就知道自己需要改變一些事情了。

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

“記住我即將死去”是我一生中遇到的最重要箴言，它幫我做出了生命中重要的選擇。因為幾乎所有的事情, 包括所有外部的期待，所有的榮耀，所有的尷尬或失敗,這些在死亡面前都會消失。留下的只有真正重要的。你有時候會思考你將會失去某些東西,“記住你即將死去”是我知道的避免陷入這個思考迷局的最好方法。你已經(jīng)赤身裸體了, 你沒有理由不去追隨本心。

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

大概一年前, 我被診斷得了癌癥。我在早晨七點半做了一個掃描, 清楚地顯示在我的胰腺長了一個腫瘤。我當時甚至都不知道胰腺是什么。醫(yī)生告訴我那很可能是一種無法治愈的癌癥, 我還有三到六個月的時間。我的醫(yī)生建議我回家, 然后整理好我的一切, 那就是醫(yī)生們“準備死亡”的代號。意味著你要把未來十年對你小孩說的話在幾個月里面說完.;那意味著把每件事情都搞定, 讓你的家人會盡可能輕松的生活;那意味著你要說“再見了”。

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and thankfully I'm fine now.

那張診斷書伴隨了我一整天。那天晚上我作了一個活切片檢查，醫(yī)生將一個內(nèi)窺鏡從我的喉嚨伸進去,通過我的胃, 然后進入我的腸子, 用一根針在我的胰腺上的腫瘤上取了幾個細胞。我當時服了鎮(zhèn)定劑,不過我的妻子在那里, 她后來告訴我，當醫(yī)生在顯微鏡下觀察這些細胞的時候他們開始尖叫, 因為這些細胞最后竟然是一種非常罕見的可以用手術(shù)治愈的胰腺癌癥。我做了這個手術(shù), 現(xiàn)在我痊愈了。

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

那是我最接近死亡的時候, 我希望這也是以后的幾十年最接近的一次。死亡對我來說，曾經(jīng)只是一個有用但是純粹是知識上的概念，經(jīng)歷過這次的生死考驗, 我現(xiàn)在可以更肯定一點地對你們說，

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

沒有人愿意死, 即使人們想上天堂, 人們也不會為了去那里而死。但是死亡是我們每個人共同的終點。從來沒有人能夠逃脫它。也應(yīng)該如此。 因為死亡就是生命中最最好的發(fā)明。它是生命變更的媒介。它將舊的清除以便給新的讓路。你們現(xiàn)在是新的, 但是從現(xiàn)在開始不久以后, 你們將會逐漸的變成舊的然后被清除。我很抱歉這很戲劇性, 但是這十分的真實。

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

你們的時間是有限的，所以不要浪費時間在活成別人的生命上。不要被教條主義所困，教條主義是僅僅活在別人的思考結(jié)果的人。不要讓別人的意見淹沒掉你自己內(nèi)心的聲音。而最終喲啊的，要有勇氣追隨你自己的本心和直覺。他們已經(jīng)知道你真正想成為什么樣的人。其他事情都是次要的。

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notion。

 

 

當我還年輕的時候，有一個非常令人震驚的出版物，就是“完整地球目錄”，是我們那一代人的寶典之一。這是由Stewart Brand創(chuàng)建的，他就待在離這里不遠的Menlo 公園中。他用他詩人般的觸感給這個期刊帶來了生命。那是在60年代后期，還沒有個人電腦和桌面印刷系統(tǒng)，所以完全時靠打字機、剪刀和拍立得相機做出來的。有點像是Google誕生35年前的Google的平裝版，它充滿了理想主義，洋溢著靈巧的工具和偉大的見解。

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stewart 和他團隊做出了幾期的《完整地球目錄》，然后這本雜志就終結(jié)了，他們推出了最后一期。那是再20世紀70年代中期，我當時像你們這么大。在他們最后一期的封底，是一張早晨鄉(xiāng)間公路的照片，就是那種有點冒險精神的人在搭便車的時候會看到的那樣。在圖下面是這句話:"求知若渴，虛懷若谷"。這是他們停止廣播時的告別語。求知若渴，虛懷若谷。我也總是希望自己也能做到這些?，F(xiàn)在，你們要畢業(yè)了，開始新的生活，我也對你們衷心期待。

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

求知若渴，虛懷若谷

Thank you all very much.

非常感謝