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今天全國各地傑出人士正對著像你們一樣的畢業生展示他們輝煌的成就,向你們提出建議,在他們打開門閂、把你們放出校園之前,這是你們不得不遭受的恥辱。一般來說,在像今天的場合中,你會聽見來自全國各地許多主題相同的演講。做真實的自己、遵循你的熱情、你是未來的主人翁、別像我們一樣把世界搞得一團糟。我熟知這些話,因為我本身經常這麼說。這些都是很好的想法,只是有點含糊。每當我打算發表像這樣的演講時,就希望我能給你們一些對生活有幫助的好點子,就像去年一位發表畢業演講的海軍上將。他的建議相當具體、十分簡單,他說:「如果你想改變世界,就每天整理床鋪。」很神奇吧?我喜歡這個。我是指,這個建議簡單明瞭。如果你能藉由這樣簡單的紀律展開一天的生活,你面對困難時的發揮將無可限量。問題是我無法給你們像這樣的建議,因為我沒有每天整理床鋪。我會拉平床罩、把床罩拉起來蓋住枕頭,所以看起來還算整齊,但我做不到像海軍上將那樣一絲不苟。
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All around the country today, distinguished men and women are looking at graduates like you from the heights of our achievements and spraying advice at you. It’s an indignity you have to suffer before they lift the latch and release you into the wild.In settings like this today, you’re going to hear all over the country, many of the same themes. “Be true to yourself. Follow your passion. You are the future. Don’t make a mess of the world the way we did.” And I know these words because I’ve said many of them myself, often, and they’re good ideas. The only thing is they’re a little vague, I think, and every time I’m tempted to make a speech like that, I wish instead I could just give you a few good tips on how just to get through life.Like the admiral last year who gave one of these speeches, his advice was so concrete, so simple. He said, “If you want to change the world, make your bed every day.” Isn’t that wonderful? I love that. I mean, it’s utter simplicity. I mean, if you can start off a day with a little discipline like that, there’s no telling what you can accomplish when the hard stuff comes your way. The problem is I can’t really give you that advice myself, because I don’t make my bed every day. I do, I unscramble the covers, and I pull them up to the pillow so it looks sort of neat. But I don’t make it, you know, all so tight that you can bounce a quarter on it, the way the admiral does.
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我看見你們的表情,你們正想著:「為何找這個傢伙來談他怎麼鋪床?」其實我談這件事是有原因的,我認為這件事很重要。你們今天即將離開這裡,如果你還沒這麼做,開始注意自己的大腦如何運作。你知道那位海軍上將喜歡嚴格訓練方式,喜歡培養韌性的體驗。他喜歡這種方式,我確信不少人也從中受益,但我喜歡有點彈性。我會把床鋪得看起來過得去,當我下次看見它時就像給自己的一份小禮物,看著它會引發我的快樂激素,這對我有好處,這是我喜歡的方式。重點是,我認為展開一天的方式沒有好壞之分,但我認為你可以學習讓你的特質-你的大腦發揮最大作用,如果你注意大腦如何運作。我曾經鞭策我的大腦,就像騎師用鞭子抽馬,試圖讓馬跑得比應有速度還快。但現在我對大腦運作方式採取較寬容的態度,這讓我感到更加自在。我讓大腦朝特定方向運作,它在這樣的背景下自由發展,當它有好點子就會讓我知道。但重點是這需要時間。
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I’m looking at your faces. You’re thinking, “Why are they having this guy up here talk about making his bed?” There’s actually a reason for why I’m saying this.I think it’s important, as you leave here today, if you haven’t already done it, to start paying attention to how your own particular brain works. You know, the admiral likes a hard discipline approach, the experience of being tough. He likes that and I’m sure a lot of you benefit from that, too. But I’m a little more flexible. I pull the covers up just enough so the next time I look at them, it’ll be a little gift to myself and I’ll get a little jolt of some happiness hormones when I look at it, and that’s good for me. That’s the way I like it. The point is that there’s no good or bad way to start the day, I don’t think. But I think you can learn to get the most out of your particular– your own brain, if you pay attention to how it works. I used to push my brain. You know, sort of like the way a jockey would whip a horse, trying to make it run faster than it can run. But now I’m more tolerant of the way my brain works. I’m easier on it. I get it pointed in a certain direction, and it works in the background in its own time, and when it’s ready to come up with the goods, it lets me know.But the thing is, it takes time.
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我提起這一點是因為,如果我今天打算傳達給你們任何東西,那必定是對我來說真實的東西。例如,我孫子Scott今天畢業,這是非常真實的,這對我來說是真實的。因此事實是,他即將進入我的世界,他將面臨許多「不確定」。但你知道,「不確定」並非總是壞事,事實上我還蠻喜歡「不確定」。我認為你不該抗拒「不確定」,而是應該樂在其中,保持平衡、保持靈活、期待意外的火花。當「不確定」如海嘯來襲時,這更加困難,但這是對生活有幫助的好原則。重點不僅在於Scott即將踏出校門,面對他所選擇之領域中的「不確定」,在座每個人都將面對「不確定」。它會找上你,無論你打算做什麼都不免面對它。有時它會讓你重新思考自己所做的事,這一點很有趣。「不確定」通常來自外界,但有時可能來自你的內心。如果你突然面臨違反自己的原則和價值觀的情況,有時候很難做出選擇。
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You know, I bring this up because if I’m going to pass anything on to you today it has to be real to me. For instance, my grandson, Scott, is graduating today and that’s very real. That’s real to me, and so is the fact that he’ll be entering my field. He’s going to be facing a lot of uncertainty. But, you know, uncertainty is not always a bad thing.
In fact, I kind of welcome uncertainty. I think, instead of resisting it, you can surf uncertainty. You know, keep your balance, stay agile. Expect the unexpected bumps. It’s harder to do when uncertainty comes at you like a tsunami, but it’s a good principle to live by.The thing is it’s not just Scott who’s going to be going out facing uncertainty in his chosen field. Every one of you here today is going to face uncertainty. It’s going to hit you. You’ll face it no matter what you do, and sometimes, it’ll make you rethink what you’re doing. And here’s an interesting thing. Uncertainty usually comes from the outside, but sometimes it can come from your own heart. If you, suddenly, are up against a situation where you remember what your own principles are, what your values are, sometimes the choice can be difficult.
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我舉個例子。我妻子剛寫了一本書,內容是關於成長於布朗克斯的人。而我-布朗克斯,是的,很好,非常好,好極了,不妨讀一下,你會喜歡的。因此我和她採訪的一位書中主角見面,他告訴我非常有趣的故事,與我剛剛談到的內容有關,就是雖瞭解自己的價值觀,卻遇上違反心意的情況。他來自工人階級家庭,他父親曾經歷景氣蕭條時期。他父親常對他說:「做個水管工,人總是需要通水管。」但他是個非常聰明的孩子,就讀醫學院。這位極聰明的年輕人發明了一種能拯救生命的設備,一家醫療公司出價上億美元購買那項設備的專利,唯一的問題是,出於某種原因,他們打算-他們打算在開始銷售前延遲上市一年,這意味著他可以選擇立刻公開這項發明,拯救生命,或接受那筆上億美元的專利費,等待一年。他曾經歷景氣蕭條時期的父親不斷對他說:「做個水管工。」他父親說:「別那麼做,別拿那筆錢。」他說:「想想所有人,若這家公司延遲上市時間,想想那些可能在這一年當中死亡的母親和孩子。現在就讓它上市。」然後,每天晚上準備入睡時,父親就對他說:「當你明天醒來,照著鏡子刮鬍子時,別看你自己,別想著你自己,想想如果你延遲上市一年,那些即將死亡的母親和孩子。」
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I’ll give you an example. My wife just wrote a book about people who were brought up in the Bronx, and I’m– the Bronx, right. Good. Very good. Excellent. Read the book. You’ll love it. So I met one of the people in the book that she interviewed, and he told me such an interesting powerful story about this thing I was just talking about, about knowing your values and coming up against them, coming up against something in your own heart. He came from a working class family, and his father had lived through the depression, and his father told him constantly, “Be a plumber. People will always need plumbing.” But this was a very smart kid and he went to medical school and he was so smart that as a young man, he invented a device that would save lives, and a medical company offered him hundreds of millions of dollars for the patent to the device. The only thing was, they were going– for some reason, they were going to hold it back from putting it on the market for a whole year before they started selling it. Now, that meant that he could, either, release it to the public right away and start saving lives, or he could take the hundreds of millions and wait a year, and his father, who had lived through the depression and kept telling him, “Be a plumber,” his father said, “Don’t do it. Don’t take the money.” He said, “Think of all the people, the mothers and children who will die during that year, while this company is waiting to put it on the market. Put it out there now.” And then, every night when he went to bed, the father would say to him, “When you wake up tomorrow and you look in the mirror to shave, don’t look at yourself. Don’t think about your own image. Think about those mothers and children who are going to die, if you wait for a year.”
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所以你怎麼想?他會收下那筆錢,還是立刻讓它上市?他必須做決定,這是非常艱難的決定。有時你必須做出相當艱難的決定,就像這種突如其來的情況,但你肯定能更適當的駕馭「不確定」,讓自己取得更佳的平衡,如果你知道如何回應自己的原則,所以我告訴你他怎麼做。他沒拿那筆錢,幾十年後,當他告訴我這個故事時,他確實非常高興,因為他做了他認為正確的事,知道這一點讓他感覺良好。重點是,那是很多年前的事,當時我們有時間仔細思考,我們有時間考慮這些事,現在你不再有如此充裕的時間。突然間,事物的發展變得相當迅速,我舉個例子讓你們瞭解事物發展的速度,我喜歡這個例子。幾年前,網路上充斥著庫爾特.馮內古特在麻省理工學院的畢業演講文稿,它傳播到全國各地,在網路上四處流傳、遍及世界各地。這發生在短短幾小時當中,這就是它傳播的速度。演講文的引用隨處可見,我想與你們分享一些其中的內容。我喜歡這篇演講,因為它提供非常簡單的建議,明確提出如何過生活的建議。他說:「以下是給畢業生的幾項建議。」
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So what do you think? Did he take the money or did he put it out on the market? He had to make a decision. It was a very tough decision. And sometimes, you have to make really tough ones and they come at you unexpectedly like that. But you can certainly surf uncertainty better, you can find your balance better, if you know how to respond to your own principles.So I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what he did. He didn’t take the money, and decades later when he told me the story, he was really happy about it because he did what he thought was right, and it makes him feel good to know that. Well, here’s the thing, that was many years ago. In those days, we had time to think things through. We had time to consider these things. You don’t have that luxury so much anymore. All of a sudden, now, things are going really fast. Let me give you an example of how fast things are going. I love this example. A few years ago, the Internet was flooded with copies of a graduation speech that Kurt Vonnegut had given at MIT. It spread across the country. It spread all over the Internet, all over the world, and it did that in just a few hours. That’s how fast it was. It was quoted everywhere. And I’d like to read some of it to you. I love it because it gives very simple advice, clear cut every day how to live your life advice. He said, “Here’s a few words for the graduating class:
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擦防曬油。如果我只能為你的未來提供一項建議,那就是擦防曬油。擦防曬油的長期益處已被科學家證實,然而我給你們的其他建議則和我的胡思亂想一樣不可靠,現在我開始分享這些建議。享受青春的力量和美妙。哦,算了吧!直到它們消逝,你才會瞭解青春的力量和美妙。但相信我,20年後你將觀看以前的相片,以你現在無法瞭解方式回想你曾擁有多少可能性、你看起來多美、你不像自己認為的那麼胖。唱歌。別不在乎他人的心意,別忍受不在乎你心意的人。使用牙線。記住你得到的讚美,忘記你受到的侮辱。如果你做到這一點,請告訴我方法。做伸展運動。多攝取鈣。善待你的膝蓋,當膝蓋不能用時,你會想念它們。瞭解你的父母,你永遠不知道他們什麼時候會離開人世。善待你的兄弟姐妹,他們是你過去最好的聯繫,也是未來最可能支持你的人。別指望任何人對你伸出援手,也許你有信託基金,也許你有個富有的配偶,但你永遠不知道何時會失去這一切。審慎考量他人的建議,建議是一種懷舊形式,提出建議就像從廢棄物中篩選舊事物,把它擦拭乾淨、在難看的部分上漆,然後以超越它本身價值的方式重新使用。但請相信我關於防曬油的建議。
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Wear sunscreen.If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proven by scientists. Whereas, the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering thoughts. I will dispense this advice now.Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagined.Sing.Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.Floss.Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, show me how.
Stretch. Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.Be careful whose advice you buy. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts, and recycling it for more than it’s worth.But trust me on the sunscreen.”
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好,關於馮內古特這篇傑作的重點是,它不是馮內古特寫的。它是一位名叫Mary Schmich的芝加哥專欄作家所寫,某個不知名人士把它貼上網,說是馮內古特寫的。幾小時內這篇文章傳遍世界各地,還有他隨文章所附的名字。Schmich說:「它傳播到義大利、法國、以色列、巴西,以及我不知道有電的地方。」她說:「連馮內古特的妻子-攝影師Jill Krementz也收到這篇文章,她用電郵寄給幾位朋友,然後問她丈夫:『為何不告訴我你到麻省理工學院演講?』」他說:「因為我沒有。」有人說這是網路史上傳播最廣的一封電郵,但在世界各地傳播僅僅幾小時後,它被證實是一場騙局,一瞬間網路充斥著撤帖聲明。在這不平凡的一天結束時,許多人接受,然後拒絕了一個世界級騙局,使這個網路事件成為我們生活之時代的代表形象。或許目前正有同樣多的謊言四處流傳,但如今它們以光速傳播,藉由科技工具的幫助,以人類史上空前的規模進行複製。這些謊言歷久不衰,人們仍四處發送這篇演講,聲稱由庫爾特.馮內古特所寫。
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Now, the thing about this charming piece by Kurt Vonnegut is that it wasn’t written by Kurt Vonnegut.It was written by a newspaper columnist in Chicago, called Mary Schmich. Some unknown person had posted it on the Internet saying it was written by Kurt Vonnegut and it spread all around the world, in hours, with his name attached to it. Schmich said, “It went to Italy and France to Israel and Brazil to places I didn’t know had electricity.” And she said, “Even Mr. Vonnegut’s wife, the photographer Jill Krementz, received it, emailed it to several friends and then asked her husband, “Why didn’t you tell me you spoke at MIT?” And he said, “Because I didn’t.”Somebody said it was the most widely distributed piece of email in the history of the Internet.But after only a few hours of bouncing around the world, it was identified as a hoax, and in a flash, the Internet was flooded with retractions. By the end of one extraordinary day, vast numbers of people had accepted and then rejected a worldwide hoax, and that’s what makes this Internet event a great image for the age we live in now.There are probably just as many lies going around now as there ever were, but these days they’re traveling at the speed of light and with the help of an engine for repetition that works on a scale unheard of in human history. The lies stick. People are still sending around that talk, saying it was written by Kurt Vonnegut.
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好,你或許會想:有什麼大不了?你或許會想,這只是幾個關於青春、美好和瑣事的笑話。但試想一下,它可以向你灌輸任何事,它可能是足以讓你和家人朋友疏離的邪教,或足以讓你癱瘓的假藥,或足以左右選舉的假政治資訊。如今判斷資訊的真假更加困難,比以往更困難,因此你比以往更需要一個可信賴的夥伴、朋友或導師的智慧,某個能提醒你什麼可信的人。我認為你比以往更需要知道自己是什麼樣的人以及你的信念,瞭解自己是什麼樣的人比較困難,因為大多數人都有多種面貌。但在良好狀態下,你會追求有意義的事。即使在短暫精神不集中的情況下,你知道沿途將遭遇一些需要技術和能力解決的事,你知道你不能憑藉即興發揮,因此你必須做好準備。你知道,人生最大的樂趣之一來自瞭解如何解決一些困難的事。你將做好準備,你將花時間學習如何運用時間。現在我們面臨時間的挑戰,因此展現屬於你的所有面貌,但別讓聰明的你受到壓迫。至於你的信念,價值觀不在於你怎麼說,而在於你怎麼做。你越是言行如一,越容易達成目標。你知道,也許你說想去芝加哥,但如果你老是買前往拉斯維加斯的機票,很難抵達目的地。
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All right. So big deal, you may be thinking. You may be thinking it’s just a few jokes about youth and beauty and trivial things. But think about it. It could be selling you anything. It could be a cult religion that could separate you from friends and family, or a quack medicine that could leave you paralyzed, or bogus political information that could decide an election.Being able to know what’s true and what’s a lie is a lot harder to do now, harder than ever before.So now, more than ever, you need the wisdom of a trusted partner or a friend or a mentor, somebody who can remind you of what counts.Now, more than ever, I think, you need to know who you are and what you believe in, and who you are is a tough one. Because most of us have many people inside us. But in your finer moments, you aspire to things that make sense. Even while you’re enjoying a momentary distraction, you know that down the road, something’s going to come along that’s going to require skill, ability, and you’re going to know you can’t wing it. So you’re going to be prepared for it. You’re going to know that one of the deepest pleasures comes from knowing how to do something that’s hard well, and you’ll be prepared. You’ll take the time that it takes to learn it. We have a challenge about time now.So let yourself be all the you’s that you are. But don’t let them crowd out the smart one. And as for what you believe in, values are really not so much what you say as what you do. The more you bring those two things into line, the easier it’ll be to get where you’re going.You know, you may say you want to go to Chicago, but it’s going to be hard to get there if you keep buying tickets to Las Vegas.
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我認為我們不瞭解時間的重要性,當我們無法以光速通訊時就不會想那麼多。但凡事都需要時間,就像大腦解決問題需要時間,化學反應需要時間,哀悼損失需要時間。事實上生命所有的變化都需要時間。重塑你的大腦或身體需要超過一個週末的時間,無論那些手冊怎麼說。讓物種適應我們所造成的環境變化需要時間,這使得我們成為史上最危險的物種之一。我們以如此驚人的速度改變環境,使大自然來不及補充能在瞬息萬變的環境中生存的物種。我不想讓你們誤解我已瞭解這一切,或我知道如何著手。我仍在思索,但這是我渴望達成的目標,因此這對我來說是真實的。我將這些想法傳遞給你們,因此當你從人生這個篇章邁入下個篇章,我對你們的期許正如我對Scott的期許:我希望你們擁有健康、快樂、韌性、愛、歡笑、耐心、金錢、力量、大量時間、與大腦保持良好關係。如果以上建議都沒用,至少使用牙線和擦防曬油,謝謝。祝好運。
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I think we don’t realize how important time is. When we couldn’t communicate at the speed of light, we didn’t think about it that much.
But things do take time, like the time it takes for your brain to work on a problem, and chemical reactions take time. Mourning a loss takes time. In fact, all the transitions of our life take time. Getting your brain or your body in shape takes more than a weekend, no matter what they tell you in the brochure.It takes time for a species to adapt to changes in the environment that we cause, which makes us one of the most dangerous species that’s ever lived. We can make changes in the environment so rapid that nature doesn’t have time to replenish species that can live in that changed environment.And I don’t want to kid you into thinking I’ve got this all worked out, that I know how to do it. I’m still working on it myself. But this is what I aspire to, so this is real to me, and I’m passing it on to you.So as you make the transition from this page in your life to the next chapter, I wish all of you what I wish for Scott. I wish you health, happiness, resilience, love, laughter, patience, cash, strength, plenty of time, and a friendly relationship with your own brain, and if all else fails, floss and wear your sunscreen. Thank you and good luck.