哈利波特作者JK罗琳哈佛毕业演讲

J.K.罗琳：给我一部时间机器，我会告诉21岁的自己：个人的幸福在于明白生活并不是看你的所得或成就。你的资历、简历，都不是你的生活，虽然你会遇到很多和我同龄或者更老一点的人依然混淆两者。生活是困难的，复杂的，超出任何人的控制。谦恭地认识到这一点将使你历经沧桑后能够更好的生存。本文为，2008年6月5日，在美国哈佛大学毕业典礼上，《哈利波特》的作者J.K.罗琳女士的演讲。

哈利波特作者jk罗琳哈佛毕业演讲

president faust, memberof the harvard corporation and the board of overseers,

memberof the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates,

福斯特主席，哈佛公司和监察委员会的各位成员，

各位老师、家长、全体毕业生们：

the first thing i would like to sai"thank you." not onlhaharvard given me an extraordinarhonour, but the weekof fear and nausea i’ve endured at the thought of giving thicommencement addreshave made me lose weight. a win-win situation! now all i have to do itake deep breaths, squint at the red bannerand convince myself that i am at the world’largest gryffindorreunion.

首先请允许我说一声谢谢。哈佛不仅给了我无上的荣誉，连日来为这个演讲经受的恐惧和紧张，更令我减肥成功。这真是一个双赢的局面。现在我要做的就是深呼吸几下，眯着眼睛看看前面的大红横幅，安慰自己正在世界上最大的格兰芬多聚会上。

delivering a commencement addresia great responsibility; or so i thought until i cast mmind back to mown graduation. the commencement speaker that dawathe distinguished british philosopher baronesmarwarnock. reflecting on her speech hahelped me enormouslin writing thione, because it turnout that i cant remember a single word she said. thiliberating discoverenableme to proceed without anfear that i might inadvertentlinfluence you to abandon promising careerin business, law or politicfor the gidddelightof becoming a gawizard.

发表毕业演说是一个巨大的责任，至少在我回忆自己当年的毕业典礼前是这么认为的。那天做演讲的是英国著名的哲学家 baronesmarwarnock，对她演讲的回忆，对我写今天的演讲稿，产生了极大的帮助，因为我不记得她说过的任何一句话了。这个发现让我释然，让我不再担心我可能会无意中影响你放弃在商业，法律或政治上的大好前途，转而醉心于成为一个快乐的魔法师(gay有快乐和同性恋的意思)。

you see? if all you remember in yearto come ithe gawizard joke, ive still come out ahead of baronesmarwarnock. achievable goal- the first step to self-improvement.

你们看，如果在若干年后你们还记得“快乐的魔法师”这个笑话，那就证明我已经超越了baronesmarwarnock。建立可实现的目标——这是提高自我的第一步。

actually, i have wracked mmind and heart for what i ought to sato you today. i have asked myself what i wish i had known at mown graduation, and what important lessoni have learned in the 21 yearthat haexpired between that daand this.

实际上，我为今天应该和大家谈些什么绞尽了脑汁。我问自己什么是我希望早在毕业典礼上就该了解的，而从那时起到现在的 21年间，我又得到了什么重要的启示。

i have come up with two answers. on thiwonderful dawhen we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, i have decided to talk to you about the benefitof failure. and ayou stand on the threshold of what isometimecalled real life, i want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

我想到了两个答案。在这美好的一天，当我们一起庆祝你们取得学业成就的时刻，我希望告诉你们失败有什么样的益处;在你们即将迈向“现实生活”的道路之际，我还要褒扬想象力的重要性。

these maseem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but bear with me.

这些似乎是不切实际或自相矛盾的选择，但请先容我讲完。

looking back at the 21-year-old that i waat graduation, ia slightluncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she habecome. half mlifetime ago, i wastriking an uneasbalance between the ambition i had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

回顾21岁刚刚毕业时的自己，对于今天42岁的我来说，是一个稍微不太舒服的经历。可以说，我人生的前一部分，一直挣扎在自己的雄心和身边的人对我的期望之间。

i waconvinced that the onlthing i wanted to do, ever, wato write novels. however, mparents, both of whom came from impoverished backgroundand neither of whom had been to college, took the view that moveractive imagination waan amusing personal quirk that could never paa mortgage, or secure a pension.

我一直深信，自己唯一想做的事情，就是写小说。不过，我的父母，他们都来自贫穷的背景，没有任何一人上过大学，坚持认为我过度的想象力是一个令人惊讶的个人怪癖，根本不足以让我支付按揭，或者取得足够的养老金。

i know the ironstrikelike with the force of a cartoon anvil now, but…

我现在明白反讽就像用卡通铁砧去打击你，但...

thehad hoped that i would take a vocational degree; i wanted to studenglish literature. a compromise wareached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and i went up to studmodern languages. hardlhad mparentcar rounded the corner at the end of the road than i ditched german and scuttled off down the classiccorridor.

他们希望我去拿个职业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的'妥协：我改学现代语言。可是等到父母一走开，我立刻放弃了德语而报名学习古典文学。

i cannot remember telling mparentthat i wastudying classics; themight well have found out for the first time on graduation day. of all the subjecton thiplanet, i think thewould have been hard put to name one lesuseful than greek mythologwhen it came to securing the keyto an executive bathroo

我不记得将这事告诉了父母，他们可能是在我毕业典礼那一天才发现的。我想，在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一间独立宽敞的卫生间。

i would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that i do not blame mparentfor their point of view. there ian expirdate on blaming your parentfor steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibilitliewith you. what imore, i cannot criticise mparentfor hoping that i would never experience poverty. thehad been poor themselves, and i have since been poor, and i quite agree with them that it inot an ennobling experience. povertentailfear, and stress, and sometimedepression; it meana thousand petthumiliationand hardships. climbing out of povertbyour own efforts, that iindeed something on which to pride yourself, but povertitself iromanticised onlbfools.

我想澄清一下：我不会因为父母的观点，而责怪他们。埋怨父母给你指错方向是有一个时间段的。当你成长到可以控制自我方向的时候，你就要自己承担责任了。尤其是，我不会因为父母希望我不要过穷日子，而责怪他们。他们一直很贫穷，我后来也一度很穷，所以我很理解他们。贫穷并不是一种高贵的经历，它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有绝望，它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实可以引以自豪，但贫穷本身只有对傻瓜而言才是浪漫的。

what i feared most for myself at your age wanot poverty, but failure.

我在你们这个年龄，最害怕的不是贫穷，而是失败。

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 succesin mlife and that of mpeers.

我在您们这么大时，明显缺乏在大学学习的动力，我花了太久时间在咖啡吧写故事，而在课堂的时间却很少。我有一个通过考试的诀窍，并且数年间一直让我在大学生活和同龄人中不落人后。

i am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartache. talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the fates, and i do not for a moment suppose that everyone here haenjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

我不想愚蠢地假设，因为你们年轻、有天份，并且受过良好的教育，就从来没有遇到困难或心碎的时刻。拥有才华和智慧，从来不会使人对命运的反复无常有所准备;我也不会假设大家坐在这里冷静地满足于自身的优越感。

however, the fact that you are graduating from harvard suggestthat you are not verwell-acquainted with failure. you might be driven ba fear of failure quite amuch aa desire for success. indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average personidea of success, so high have you alreadflown academically.

相反，你们是哈佛毕业生的这个事实，意味着你们并不很了解失败。你们也许极其渴望成功，所以非常害怕失败。说实话，你们眼中的失败，很可能就是普通人眼中的成功，毕竟你们在学业上已经达到很高的高度了。

ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselvewhat constitutefailure, but the world iquite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. so i think it fair to sathat banconventional measure, a mere seven yearafter mgraduation day, i had failed on an epic scale. an exceptionallshort-lived marriage had imploded, and i wajobless, a lone parent, and apoor ait ipossible to be in modern britain, without being homeless. the fearmparenthad had for me, and that i had had for myself, had both come to pass, and beverusual standard, i wathe biggest failure i knew.

最终，我们所有人都必须自己决定什么算作失败，但如果你愿意，世界是相当渴望给你一套标准的。所以我想很公平的讲，从任何传统的标准看，在我毕业仅仅七年后的日子里，我的失败达到了史诗般空前的规模：短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我又失业成了一个艰难的单身母亲。除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。当年父母和我自己对未来的担忧，现在都变成了现实。按照惯常的标准来看，我也是我所知道的最失败的人。

now, i am not going to stand here and tell you that failure ifun. that period of mlife waa dark one, and i had no idea that there wagoing to be what the preshasince represented aa kind of fairtale resolution. i had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, anlight at the end of it waa hope rather than a reality.

现在，我不打算站在这里告诉你们，失败是有趣的。那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月，我不知道它是否代表童话故事里需要历经的磨难，更不知道自己还要在黑暗中走多久。很长一段时间里，前面留给我的只是希望，而不是现实。

so whdo i talk about the benefitof failure? simplbecause failure meant a stripping awaof the inessential. i stopped pretending to myself that i waanything other than what i was, and began to direct all menerginto finishing the onlwork that mattered to me. had i reallsucceeded at anything else, i might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena i believed i trulbelonged. i waset free, because mgreatest fear had been realised, and i wastill 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 mlife.

那么为什么我要谈论失败的好处呢?因为失败意味着剥离掉那些不必要的东西。我因此不再伪装自己、远离自我，而重新开始把所有精力放在对我最重要的事情上。如果不是没有在其他领域成功过，我可能就不会找到，在一个我确信真正属于的舞台上取得成功的决心。我获得了自由，因为最害怕的虽然已经发生了，但我还活着，我仍然有一个我深爱的女儿，我还有一个旧打字机和一个很大的想法。所以困境的谷底，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。

you might never fail on the scale i did, but some failure in life iinevitable. it iimpossible to live without failing at something, unlesyou live so cautiouslthat you might awell not have lived at all – in which case, you fail bdefault.

你们可能永远没有达到我经历的那种失败程度，但有些失败，在生活中是不可避免的。生活不可能没有一点失败，除非你生活的万般小心，而那也意味着你没有真正在生活了。无论怎样，有些失败还是注定地要发生。

failure gave me an inner securitthat i had never attained bpassing examinations. failure taught me thingabout 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 friendwhose value watrulabove the price of rubies.

失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，这是我从考试中没有得到过的。失败让我看清自己，这也是我通过其他方式无法体会的。我发现，我比自己认为的，要有更强的意志和决心。我还发现，我拥有比宝石更加珍贵的朋友。