JK蘿琳2008年哈佛大學畢業典禮演講全文

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http://ericitworld.blogspot.com/2013/01/2008jk.html

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 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.

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 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.

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 been realised, 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.

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Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

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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.

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Poverty 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.

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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 discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

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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 than any qualification I ever earned.

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

給我一個時間機器或者時光隧道，我會告訴21歲的自己，個人的快樂不是建筑在資產或成就的清單上。你的文憑、簡歷，不是你的人生，雖然你可能遇到很多像我這般年紀或者更老一點的人，搞不清楚這兩者的差別。人生很難，很復雜，不受任何人的掌控，謙卑地認識到這個，會讓你在多變的逆境中挺過來。

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Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

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回首看你的失敗，你得到的那些更睿智、更強烈的經驗、想法，永遠會跟著你，扎根于你的求生能力之中。你將永遠不能真正了解自己，了解你和周圍人之間關係的力量，除非你都體驗過，在一種不幸的境遇之下。這些認知，真是禮物，因為，這些都是痛過所獲，對我來說，這比任何我拿過的文憑都要來得有價值。

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 than any qualification I ever earned.

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我要說明的是，打括號，我不因為父母的觀點而責怪他們。有一天，等你成人了，自己可以決定事情了，需要承擔責任了，那個時候，你就不再怨他們總是要違背你的意愿，把你領錯路了。而且，我的父母希望我永遠不要過上窮日子，我無法因為這個而批評他們。他們自己窮，我也窮過，和他們一樣，我也認為，這不是一個有尊嚴的體驗。貧窮帶來恐懼不安，帶來壓力，有時候還會帶來抑郁。貧窮意味著上千個小的屈辱、不幸。通過自己的努力擺脫貧困，是非常值得驕傲的事情，但是，只有傻子才會把貧窮浪漫化。

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 experience. Poverty 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.