失败的额外收益(下) The Fringe Benefits of Failure(II) J.K. Rowling

The Fringe Benefits of Failure (II)

学习小提示：文中有不少生词，但语速适中，语言幽默，用词精妙。听原声之前要先克服词汇关，反复进行跟读练习，熟悉内容之后将全文背诵下来。

1)Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of 2)criteria if you let it. So I think it[‘s] fair to say that by any 3)conventional measure, a 4)mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an 5)epic scale. An 6)exceptionally short-lived marriage had 7)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.
最终，我们所有人都要自行判断何谓失败，但是如果你愿意的话，这个世界很愿意给你一堆失败的标准。因此基于任何传统标准，我完全可以说毕业不过七年的自己失败得一塌糊涂。一段异常短暂的婚姻破灭了，作为一个失业的单身妈妈，我成了这个现代化英国里最穷的阶层，只是还未到无家可归的地步。我父母的忧虑以及我自己的担心都成真了。从所有惯常标准来看，我知道的最失败的人就是我自己。

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 8)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.
我并不想在这里对你们说失败很好玩。我的那段人生非常灰暗，那时我并不知道等待着自己的是……媒体后来所说的“童话般的出路”。我并不知道这条隧道有多长，在一段相当长的时间里，隧道那头的光芒只是一个渺茫的希望，而不是现实。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the 9)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 10)arena where I believed I truly belonged. I was set free because my greatest fear had 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 11)rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
　　那么我为什么还要谈论失败的收益呢？简单来说，因为失败就意味着与“可有可无”进行决裂。我不再自欺欺人，做回真正的自己，开始集中全副精力完成我唯一重视的写作。如果我真的在其他方面成功了，我可能就不会下定决心，誓要在这个领域中取得成功——我相信这里才是自己真正的归属。我自由了，因为我最大的恐惧已经成真，而我活得好好的，还有一个心爱的女儿、一台旧打字机和一个好点子。于是人生最低点反而成了坚固的底座，我以此为基础重筑生活。

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is 12)inevitable. It is possible to live without failing at something, unless you live so 13)cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail 14)by default.
你们也许不会像我这样一败涂地，但生活中失败总是难免的。只要活着总会在哪儿栽跟头，除非你活得特别小心，但这么小心翼翼还不如不活呢——在这种情况下，你因放弃人生而败。

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 15)rubies.
失败让我的内心产生了一种顺利通过考试也无法获得的安全感。失败让我更了解自己，这些知识从其他途径无法获得。我发现自己意志坚定，自控能力也比想象中要强，我还发现自己拥有几个比红宝石更宝贵的朋友。

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from 16)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 17)adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any 18)qualification I ever earned.
你们在挫折中重新站起来，更有智慧，更加强大——当你们明白到这一点，就意味着你们今后更有生存能力。在面临逆境的考验之前，你们不会真正了解自己，也没法确定一段感情有多坚定。这样的认识是一份真正的礼物，比我任何一份证书都要珍贵，因为其获取的过程非常痛苦。

So given a Time-Turner注, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of 19)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 20)humility to know that will enable you to survive its 21)vicissitudes.
如果给我一个时间转换器，我会告诉21岁的自己——个人的幸福就是认识到生活并不是一张记录着“得到什么东西”和“取得什么成就”的清单。证书和简历都不是你们的人生，尽管你们会碰到许多和我一般年纪或者更年长的人，他们也没搞明白这一点。人生中难关重重，错综复杂，也没有人可以完全掌控自己的生活，只要谦逊地认识到这一点，你们就能顺利渡过生命的兴衰浮沉。