Aew weeks ago we found ourselves once again at one of 1)Dr. Margaret’s high school reunions. Her large graduating class has gotten toge-ther every five years for three decades now, and it has always been an event that we enjoyed more than we thought we would. The opportunity to share memories of a lifetime ago, and the life lived since then, with people from the same background has a way of 2)grounding people. We are able to reflect on what has, and does, give life value.
几个星期以前，我们高中同学又一次在聚会上见面，当年教我们的玛格丽特博士也出席了。三十年来，她这个规模庞大的毕业班每五年聚一次。而每一次，我们都会觉得聚会给我们带来的欢乐远比预想的要多。背景相同的人重叙当年，谈说别后的生活，总能把人拉回到现实中来。我们可以仔细想想是什么让生活有了意义，什么可以让生活有意义。
As more time goes by, it becomes less important what our status was in that teenage social3)milieu, and more important simply that we shared a 4)slice of history——that our roots grow from the soil of a common time and place. Those of you who are beyond “a certain age” may have experienced the same evolution. At this point everyone is truly a grownup——gone are the days of fancy dresses and5)over-the-top efforts at looking younger, richer, more successful or important in order to impress each other. No more frantic shopping for just the right6)outfit to make us look one size smaller, or7)holding in your8)gut all weekend while taking9)shallow pleasure in the fact that the former10)cheerleader has put on some weight, or the handsome football star is11)balding and gray.
随着时间的推移，我们青少年时代在群体里的地位变得不那么重要。更重要的是我们共有一段历史—相同的时间地点是我们成长的共同土壤。已经过了“某个年龄段”的读者可能也经历过这种转变。在这个时候，每个人都是真正意义上的成年人了。我们不再为了哗众取宠而穿些花哨的衣服，做一些不可思议的事情让自己看起来更年轻、更富有，更像成功人士，或者更有地位。我们也不再为了让自己看起来比真正身材小一号而疯狂地选购称心的外套，不再整个周末做收腹运动；也不会因为以前的那个啦啦队队长胖了，或者哪位英俊的橄榄球明星已经头发灰白稀疏而暗自庆幸。
Now the question is not who or what you are, but “How are you—— 12)really?” After sharing the basic information about careers, children (or grandchildren) and location, people showed a greater interest in really understanding each other’s life experiences and lessons learned along the way.
现如今，问题不是你是谁、社会地位如何，而是“说实在话，你过得好不好？”在分享了各人在职业发展、儿女（或孙辈）及居住地方面的基本信息后，大家对他人的生活经历，以及一路走来的经验教训表现出更大的兴趣。
Whether the classmates were ones that we knew well then or simply familiar names and faces from the past, the conversations tended to be less reporting and more exploring13)the whys and wherefores of it all. People who have stayed in the same careers were learning from those who had changed directions, and those who had lost parents were sharing with the ones lucky enough to still have theirs. Just inside the door was a table with photos of those classmates no longer with us, and of course there were discussions of how each of them had died. More importantly though, we told stories of what they had shared with us, and what we could learn from their lives and their passing.
不管那些同学是我们以前非常熟悉的，还是仅仅觉得他们的名字和面孔似曾相识，我们的对话多半不是报告新讯息，而是探讨人生中的难题。一直在同一行业工作的人向那些改了行的人讨教；已经失去了父母的人和那些父母尚还健在的幸运儿分享自己的感受。在刚进门的一张桌子上，摆放着已故的同学的照片，不用说，人们会谈到他们的死因。不过，更重要的是，我们会说起他们与我们共同经历的故事，还有我们从他们的生活与死亡中学到的东西。
Dr. Margaret had to tell the story several times of the death last year of her best friend since age 12. This was the first reunion that they didn’t attend together, and it cast a14)poignant light on what is really important in life and relationships. All of this got us to reflecting on a quote from15)Norman Lear that16)Dr. Patrick keeps hanging above his desk at the office:
玛格丽特博士给我们说了好几次她的一个朋友去年离世的事情，那是她十二岁以后最要好的朋友。这是他们第一次没有一起出席聚会，这让我们深刻地体会到生命和人与人之间最重要的是什么。所有这一切，让我们回想起帕特里克博士在办公桌上方的那面墙上一直贴着的一张纸，那是诺尔曼·里尔的一段话：
Throughout the American scene——television, sports, government——the message seems to be that life is made up of winners and losers. If you are not number one or in the top five, you have failed. There doesn’t seem to be any reward for simply succeeding at the level of doing one’s best. Success is how you collect your minutes. You spend millions of minutes to reach one17)triumph, one moment, then you spend maybe a thousand minutes enjoying it. If you were unhappy through those millions of minutes, what good is the thousand minutes of triumph? It doesn’t equate. How many successful people end up suicides? Life is made of small pleasures. Good eye contact over the breakfast table with your wife. A touching moment with a friend. Happiness is made of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. If you don’t have all of those18)zillions of tiny successes, the big ones don’t mean anything.
“在美国的各种场合—电视界、运动界、政界—传递的信息似乎都是，生活中只有赢家和输家。如果你不是第一名，或者前五名，那就意味着你失败了。如果你只做到尽你所能，你不会得到任何奖赏。成功在于你怎样利用每一分钟。你用数百万分钟来取得一次成功，而成功只是一瞬间的事，然后，你可能用一千分钟来享受成功的滋味。如果你在那数百万分钟里不快乐，那么成功之际的一千分钟又有什么用呢？乐不抵苦。多少成功人士最后都自杀了？生活是由无数微小的快乐构成的。在早餐桌上与你妻子愉快的对视；与朋友相处的感人片刻。幸福就来源于这些微小的成功。大的成功并不经常到来。如果你没有这无数个微小的成功，那些大的成功就没有任何意义。”
Even though we read it often, this experience of reflecting over the many years of our lives and looking forward to the lesser number that are left gives the quote special emphasis. We realize that life’s most precious moments are a warm and funny lunch shared with friends, playing cards with the family in front of the fireplace, or sleeping in two extra hours on Saturday instead of working on the book that we are too busy to get out.
虽然我们经常看到这段话，可现在回顾过去漫长的岁月，展望余下不多的日子，这段话便有了一种特殊的况味。我们意识到生活中最珍贵的时刻是与朋友一起分享的温馨而又愉快的午餐，是与家人在壁炉前打扑克牌，或者周六多睡两个小时，而不是忙于研读我们来不及看完的某一本书。
Now we have returned to our over-busy and19)hectic lives, and we will likely have little or no contact with those folks we went to high school with so long ago. We’ll see them at the next reunion though, and in the meantime will try to remember, as quoted from20)Robert Brault, “Seize the moment and enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
如今，我们又回到异常繁忙、紧张的生活中，基本上不怎么会与那些很久以前一起读高中的人联系。不过，我们会在下一次聚会时见到他们。与此同时，我们会谨记罗伯特·布洛尔特的话：“把握此刻，享受细微的小事，因为终有一天回过头来你会发现，这些其实都是大事。”
