你要過什么樣的生活?

▌The question my title poses, of course, is the one that is classically aimed at humanities majors. What practical value could there possibly be in studying literature or art or philosophy? So you must be wondering why I'm bothering to raise it here, at Stanford, this renowned citadel of science and technology. What doubt can there be that the world will offer you many opportunities to use your degree?

我的題目提出的問題，當然，是一個經典的面向人文科學的專業所提出的問題：學習文學、藝術或哲學能有什么實效價值？你肯定納悶，我為什么在以科技聞名的斯坦福提出這個問題呢？大學學位當然是給人們帶來眾多的機會，這還有什么需要質疑的嗎？

▌But that's not the question I'm asking. By "do" I don't mean a job, and by "that" I don't mean your major. We are more than our jobs, and education is more than a major. Education is more than college, more even than the totality of your formal schooling, from kindergarten through graduate school. By "What are you going to do," I mean, what kind of life are you going to lead? And by "that," I mean everything in your training, formal and informal, that has brought you to be sitting here today, and everything you're going to be doing for the rest of the time that you're in school.

但那不是我提出的問題。這里的“做”并不是指工作，“那”也不是指你的專業。我們的價值不僅僅是我們的工作，教育的意義也不僅僅是讓你學會你的專業。教育的意義大于是上大學的意義，甚至大于你從幼兒園到研究生院的所接受的所有正規學校教育的意義。我說的“你要做什么”的意思是你要過什么樣的生活？我所說的“那”指的是你得到的正規或非正規的任何訓練，那些把你送到這里來的東西，你在學校的剩余時間里將要做的任何事。

▌We should start by talking about how you did, in fact, get here. You got here by getting very good at a certain set of skills. Your parents pushed you to excel from the time you were very young. They sent you to good schools, where the encouragement of your teachers and the example of your peers helped push you even harder. Your natural aptitudes were nurtured so that, in addition to excelling in all your subjects, you developed a number of specific interests that you cultivated with particular vigor. You did extracurricular activities, went to afterschool programs, took private lessons. You spent summers doing advanced courses at a local college or attending skill-specific camps and workshops. You worked hard, you paid attention, and you tried your very best. And so you got  very good at math, or piano, or lacrosse, or, indeed, several things at once.

我們不妨先來討論你是如何考入斯坦福的吧。你能進入這所大學說明你在某些技能上非常出色。你的父母在你很小的時候就鼓勵你追求卓越。他們送你到好學校，老師的鼓勵和同伴的榜樣作用激勵你更努力地學習。除了在所有課程上都出類拔萃之外，你還注重修養的提高，充滿熱情地培養了一些特殊興趣。你參加了許多課外活動，參加私人課程。你用幾個暑假在本地大學里預習大學課程，或參加專門技能的夏令營或訓練營。你學習刻苦、精力集中、全力以赴。所以，你可能在數學、鋼琴、曲棍球等方面都很出色，甚至是個全能選手。

▌Now there's nothing wrong with mastering skills, with wanting to do your best and to be the best. What's wrong is what the system leaves out: which is to say, everything else. I don't mean that by choosing to excel in math, say, you are failing to develop your verbal abilities to their fullest extent, or that in addition to focusing on geology, you should also focus on political science, or that while you're learning the piano, you should also be working on the flute. It is the nature of specialization, after all, to be specialized. No, the problem with specialization is that it narrows your attention to the point where all you know about and all you want to know about, and, indeed, all you can know about, is your specialty.

掌握這些技能當然沒有錯，全力以赴成為最優秀的人也沒有錯。錯誤之處在于這個體系遺漏的地方：即任何別的東西。我并不是說因為選擇鉆研數學，你在充分發展話語表達能力的潛力方面就失敗了；也不是說除了集中精力學習地質學之外，你還應該研究政治學；也不是說你在學習鋼琴時還應該學吹笛子。畢竟，專業化的本質就是要專業性。可是，專業化的問題在于它把你的注意力限制在一個點上，你所已知的和你想探知的東西都限界于此。真的，你知道的一切就只是你的專業了。

▌The problem with specialization is that it makes you into a specialist. It cuts you off, not only from everything else in the world, but also from everything else in yourself. And of course, as college freshmen, your specialization is only just beginning. In the journey toward the success that you all hope to achieve, you have completed, by getting into Stanford, only the first of many legs. Three more years of college, three or four or five years of law school or medical school or a Ph.D. program, then residencies or postdocs or years as a junior associate. In short, an ever-narrowing funnel of specialization. You go from being a political-science major to being a lawyer to being a corporate attorney to being a corporate attorney focusing on taxation issues in the consumer-products industry. You go from being a biochemistry major to being a doctor to being a cardiologist to being a cardiac surgeon who performs heart-valve replacements.

專業化的問題是它只能讓你成為專家，切斷你與世界上其他任何東西的聯系，不僅如此，還切斷你與自身其他潛能的聯系。當然，作為大一新生，你的專業才剛剛開始。在你走向所渴望的成功之路的過程中，進入斯坦福是你踏上的眾多階梯中的一個。再讀三年大學，三五年法學院或醫學院或研究型博士，然后再干若干年住院實習生或博士后或者助理教授?？偠灾?，進入越來越狹窄的專業化軌道。你可能從政治學專業的學生變成了律師或者公司代理人，再變成專門研究消費品領域的稅收問題的公司代理人。你從生物化學專業的學生變成了博士，再變成心臟病學家，再變成專門做心臟瓣膜移植的心臟病醫生。

▌Again, there's nothing wrong with being those things. It's just that, as you get deeper and deeper into the funnel, into the tunnel, it becomes increasingly difficult to remember who you once were. You start to wonder what happened to that person who played piano and lacrosse and sat around with her friends having intense conversations about life and politics and all the things she was learning in her classes. The 19-year-old who could do so many things, and was interested in so many things, has become a 40-year-old who thinks about only one thing. That's why older people are so boring. "Hey, my dad's a smart guy, but all he talks about is money and livers."

我再強調一下，你這么做當然沒有什么錯。只不過，在你越來越深入地進入這個軌道后，再想回憶你最初的樣子就越發困難了。你開始懷念那個曾經談鋼琴和打曲棍球的人，思考那個曾經和朋友熱烈討論人生和政治以及在課堂內容的人在做什么。那個活潑能干的19歲年輕人已經變成了只想一件事的40歲中年人。難怪年長的人總是顯得那么乏味無趣。“哎，我爸爸曾經是非常聰明的人，但他現在除了談論錢和肝臟外再無其他。” 

▌And there's another problem. Maybe you never really wanted to be a cardiac surgeon in the first place. It just kind of happened. It's easy, the way the system works, to simply go with the flow. I don't mean the work is easy, but the choices are easy. Or rather, the choices sort of make themselves. You go to a place like Stanford because that's what smart kids do. You go to medical school because it's prestigious. You specialize in cardiology because it's lucrative. You do the things that reap the rewards, that make your parents proud, and your teachers pleased, and your friends impressed. From the time you started high school and maybe even junior high, your whole goal was to get into the best college you could, and so now you naturally think about your life in terms of "getting into" whatever's next. "Getting into" is validation; "getting into" is victory. Stanford, then Johns Hopkins medical school, then a residency at the University of San Francisco, and so forth. Or Michigan Law School, or Goldman Sachs, or Mc Kinsey, or whatever. You take it one step at a time, and the next step always seems to be inevitable.

還有另外一個問題，就是或許你從來就沒有想過當心臟病醫生，只是碰巧發生了而已。隨大流最容易，這就是體制的力量。我不是說這個工作容易，而是說做出這種選擇很容易?；蛘撸@些根本就不是自己做出的選擇。你來到斯坦福這樣的名牌大學是因為聰明的孩子都這樣。你考入醫學院是因為它的地位高，人人都羨慕。你選擇心臟病學是因為當心臟病醫生的待遇很好。你做那些事能給你帶來好處，讓你的父母感到驕傲，令你的老師感到高興，也讓朋友們羨慕。從你上高中開始，甚至初中開始，你的唯一目標就是進入最好的大學，所以現在你會很自然地從“如何進入下個階段”的角度看待人生。“進入”就是能力的證明，“進入”就是勝利。先進入斯坦福，然后是約翰霍普金斯醫學院，再進入舊金山大學做實習醫生等?；蛘哌M入密歇根法學院，或高盛集團或麥肯錫公司或別的什么地方。你邁出了這一步，似乎就必然會邁出下一步。

▌Or maybe you did always want to be a cardiac surgeon. You dreamed about it from the time you were 10 years old, even though you had no idea what it really meant, and you stayed on course for the entire time you were in school. You refused to be enticed from your path by that great experience you had in AP history, or that trip you took to Costa Rica the summer after your junior year in college, or that terrific feeling you got taking care of kids when you did your rotation in pediatrics during your fourth year in medical school.

也許你可能確實想當心臟病學家。十歲時就夢想成為醫生，即使你根本不知道醫生意味著什么。你在上學期間全身心都在朝著這個目標前進。你拒絕了上大學預修歷史課的美妙體驗的誘惑，也無視你在醫學院第四年兒科病床輪流值班時照看孩子的可怕感受。

▌But either way, either because you went with the flow or because you set your course very early, you wake up one day, maybe 20 years later, and you wonder what happened: how you got there, what it all means. Not what it means in the "big picture," whatever that is, but what it means to you. Why you're doing it, what it's all for. It sounds like a cliché, this "waking up one day," but it's called having a midlife crisis, and it happens to people all the time.

但不管是那種情況，要么因為你使隨大流，要么因為你早就選定了道路，20年后某天你醒來，你可能會納悶到底發生了什么：你是怎么變成了現在這個樣子，這一切意味著什么。不是說在寬泛意義的事情，而是它對你意味著什么。 你為什么做它，到底為了什么呢。這聽起來像老生常談，但這個被稱為中年危機的“有一天醒來”的情況一直就發生在每個人身上。

▌There is an alternative, however, and it may be one that hasn't occurred to you. Let me try to explain it by telling you a story about one of your peers, and the alternative that hadn't occurred to her. A couple of years ago, I participated in a panel discussion at Harvard that dealt with some of these same matters, and afterward I was contacted by one of the students who had come to the event, a young woman who was writing her senior thesis about Harvard itself, how it instills in its students what she called self-efficacy, the sense that you can do anything you want. Self-efficacy, or, in more familiar terms, self-esteem. There are some kids, she said, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because it was easy." And there are other kids, the kind with self-efficacy or self-esteem, who get an A on a test and say, "I got it because I'm smart."

不過，還有另外一種情況，或許中年危機并不會發生在你身上。讓我告訴你們一個你們的同齡人的故事來解釋我的意思吧，即她是沒有遇到中年危機的。幾年前，我在哈佛參加了一次小組討論會，談到這些問題。后來參加這次討論的一個學生給我聯系，這個哈佛學生正在寫有關哈佛的畢業論文，討論哈佛是如何給學生灌輸她所說的“自我效能”，一種相信自己能做一切的意識。自我效能或更熟悉的說法“自我尊重”。她說在考試中得了優秀的學生中，有些會說“我得優秀是因為試題很簡單。”但另外一些學生，那種具有自我效能感或自我尊重的學生，會說“我得優秀是因為我聰明。”

▌Again, there's nothing wrong with thinking that you got an A because you're smart. But what that Harvard student didn't realize—and it was really quite a shock to her when I suggested it—is that there is a third alternative. True self-esteem, I proposed, means not caring whether you get an A in the first place. True self-esteem means recognizing, despite everything that your upbringing has trained you to believe about yourself, that the grades you get—and the awards, and the test scores, and the trophies, and the acceptance letters—are not what defines who you are.

我得再次強調，認為得了優秀是因為自己聰明的想法并沒有任何錯。不過，哈佛學生沒有認識到的是他們沒有第三種選擇。當我指出這一點時，她十分震驚。我指出，真正的自尊意味著最初根本就不在乎成績是否優秀。真正的自尊意味著，盡管你在成長過程中的一切都在教導你要相信自己，但你所達到的成績，還有那些獎勵、成績、獎品、錄取通知書等所有這一切，都不能來定義你是誰。

▌She also claimed, this young woman, that Harvard students take their sense of self-efficacy out into the world and become, as she put it, "innovative." But when I asked her what she meant by innovative, the only example she could come up with was "being CEO of a Fortune 500." That's not innovative, I told her, that's just successful, and successful according to a very narrow definition of success. True innovation means using your imagination, exercising the capacity to envision new possibilities.

她還說，哈佛學生把他們的這種自我效能帶到了社會上，并將自我效能重新命名為“創新”。但當我問她“創新”意味著什么時，她能夠想到的唯一例子不過是“當上世界大公司五百強的首席執行官”。我告訴她這不是創新，這只是成功，而且是根據非常狹隘的成功定義而認定的成功而已。真正的創新意味著運用你的想象力，發揮你的潛力，創造新的可能性。

▌But I'm not here to talk about technological innovation, I'm here to talk about a different kind. It's not about inventing a new machine or a new drug. It's about inventing your own life. Not following a path, but making your own path. The kind of imagination I'm talking about is moral imagination. "Moral" meaning not right or wrong, but having to do with making choices. Moral imagination means the capacity to envision new ways to live your life.

但在這里我并不是想談論技術創新，不是發明新機器或者制造一種新藥，我談論的是另外一種創新，是創造你自己的生活。不是走現成的道路而是創造一條屬于自己的道路。我談論的想象力是道德想象力。“道德”在這里與對錯無關，而與選擇有關。道德想象力是那種能創造新的活法的能力。

▌It means not just going with the flow. It means not just "getting into" whatever school or program comes next. It means figuring out what you want for yourself, not what your parents want, or your peers want, or your school wants, or your society wants. Originating your own values. Thinking your way toward your own definition of success. Not simply accepting the life that you've been handed. Not simply accepting the choices you've been handed. When you walk into Starbucks, you're offered a choice among a latte and a macchiato and an espresso and a few other things, but you can also make another choice. You can turn around and walk out. When you walk into college, you are offered a choice among law and medicine and investment banking and consulting and a few other things, but again, you can also do something else, something that no one has thought of before.

它意味著不隨波逐流，不是下一步要“進入”什么名牌大學或研究生院。而是要弄清楚自己到底想要什么，而不是父母、同伴、學校、或社會想要什么。即確認你自己的價值觀，思考邁向自己所定義的成功的道路，而不僅僅是接受別人給你的生活，不僅僅是接受別人給你的選擇。當今走進星巴克咖啡館，服務員可能讓你在牛奶咖啡、加糖咖啡、濃縮咖啡等幾樣東西之間做出選擇。但你可以做出另外的選擇，你可以轉身而去。當你進入大學，人家給你眾多選擇，或法律或醫學或投資銀行和咨詢以及其他，但你同樣也可以做其他事，做從前根本沒有人想過的事。

▌Let me give you another counterexample. I wrote an essay a couple of years ago that touched on some of these same points. I said, among other things, that kids at places like Yale or Stanford tend to play it safe and go for the conventional rewards. And one of the most common criticisms I got went like this: What about Teach for America? Lots of kids from elite colleges go and do TFA after they graduate, so therefore I was wrong. TFA, TFA—I heard that over and over again. And Teach for America is undoubtedly a very good thing. But to cite TFA in response to my argument is precisely to miss the point, and to miss it in a way that actually confirms what I'm saying. The problem with TFA—or rather, the problem with the way that TFA has become incorporated into the system—is that it's just become another thing to get into.

讓我再舉一個不隨波逐流的例子。幾年前我寫過一篇涉及同類問題的文章。我說，那些在耶魯和斯坦福這類名校的孩子往往比較隨大溜，去追求一些傳統職業。（譯者：比如去投行，高級律師事務所等等）我得到的最常見的批評是：那些名校的孩子不都去參加“為美國而教”這個教育項目了嗎？從名校出來的很多學生畢業后很多參與這個教育項目，因此我的觀點是錯誤的。TFA，TFA我一再聽到這個術語。“為美國而教”當然是好東西，但引用這個項目來反駁我的觀點恰恰是不對的，而且實際上正好證明了我想說的東西。“為美國而教”的問題或者“為美國而教”已經成為體系一部分的問題，是它已經成為另外一個需要“進入”的門檻。

▌In terms of its content, Teach for America is completely different from Goldman Sachs or McKinsey or Harvard Medical School or Berkeley Law, but in terms of its place within the structure of elite expectations, of elite choices, it is exactly the same. It's prestigious, it's hard to get into, it's something that you and your parents can brag about, it looks good on your résumé, and most important, it represents a clearly marked path. You don't have to make it up yourself, you don't have to do anything but apply and do the work —just like college or law school or McKinsey or whatever. It's the Stanford or Harvard of social engagement. It's another hurdle, another badge. It requires aptitude and diligence, but it does not require a single ounce of moral imagination.

從其內容來看，“為美國而教”完全不同于高盛或者麥肯錫公司或哈佛醫學院或者伯克利法學院，但從它在精英期待的體系中的地位來說，完全是一樣的。它享有盛名，很難進入，是值得你和父母夸耀的東西，如果寫在簡歷上會很好看，最重要的是，它代表了清晰標記的道路。你根本不用自己創造，什么都不用做，只需申請然后按要求做就行了，就像上大學或法學院或麥肯錫公司或別的什么。它是社會參與方面的斯坦福或哈佛，是另一個門檻，另一枚獎章。該項目需要能力和勤奮，但不需要一丁點兒的道德想象力。

▌Moral imagination is hard, and it's hard in a completely different way than the hard things you're used to doing. And not only that, it's not enough. If you're going to invent your own life, if you're going to be truly autonomous, you also need courage: moral courage. The courage to act on your values in the face of what everyone's going to say and do to try to make you change your mind. Because they're not going to like it. Morally courageous individuals tend to make the people around them very uncomfortable. They don't fit in with everybody else's ideas about the way the world is supposed to work, and still worse, they make them feel insecure about the choices that they themselves have made—or failed to make. People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free. But stage a jailbreak, and everybody else freaks out.

道德想象力是困難的，這種困難與你已經習慣的困難完全不同。不僅如此，光有道德想象力還不夠。如果你要創造自己的生活，如果你想成為真正的獨立思想者，你還需要勇氣：道德勇氣。不管別人說什么，有按自己的價值觀行動的勇氣，不會因為別人不喜歡而試圖改變自己的想法。具有道德勇氣的個人往往讓周圍的人感到不舒服。他們和其他人對世界的看法格格不入，更糟糕的是，讓別人對自己已經做出的選擇感到不安全或無法做出選擇。只要別人也不享受自由，人們就不在乎自己被關進監獄。可一旦有人越獄，其他人都會跟著跑出去。

▌In A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce has Stephen Dedalus famously say, about growing up in Ireland in the late 19th century, "When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets."

在《青年藝術家的肖像》一書中，作者詹姆斯•喬伊斯讓主人公斯蒂芬•迪達勒斯就19世紀末期的愛爾蘭的成長環境說出了如下的名言“當一個人的靈魂誕生在這個國家時，有一張大網把它罩住，防止它飛翔。你們給我談論民族性、語言和宗教。但是我想沖出這些牢籠。”

▌Today there are other nets. One of those nets is a term that I've heard again and again as I've talked with students about these things. That term is "self-indulgent." "Isn't it self-indulgent to try to live the life of the mind when there are so many other things I could be doing with my degree?" "Wouldn't it be self-indulgent to pursue painting after I graduate instead of getting a real job?"

今天，我們面臨的是其他的網。其中之一是我在就這些問題與學生交流時經常聽到的一個詞“自我放任”。“在攻讀學位過程中有這么多事要做的時候，試圖按照自己的感覺生活難道不是自我放任嗎？”“畢業后不去找個真正的工作而去畫畫難道不是自我放任嗎？”

▌These are the kinds of questions that young people find themselves being asked today if they even think about doing something a little bit different. Even worse, the kinds of questions they are made to feel compelled to ask themselves. Many students have spoken to me, as they navigated their senior years, about the pressure they felt from their peers—from their peers—to justify a creative or intellectual life. You're made to feel like you're crazy: crazy to forsake the sure thing, crazy to think it could work, crazy to imagine that you even have a right to try.

這些是年輕人只要思考一下稍稍出格的事就不由自主地質問自己的問題。更糟糕的是，他們覺得提出這些問題是理所應當的。許多學生在高年級的時候跟我談論，他們感受到的來自同伴那里的壓力，他們想為為創造性的生活或獨特的生活正名。你生來就是為了體驗你自己的瘋狂的：瘋狂地打破常規，瘋狂地認為事事皆有可能，瘋狂地想到你有天賦之權去嘗試。

▌Think of what we've come to. It is one of the great testaments to the intellectual—and moral, and spiritual—poverty of American society that it makes its most intelligent young people feel like they're being self-indulgent if they pursue their curiosity. You are all told that you're supposed to go to college, but you're also told that you're being "self-indulgent" if you actually want to get an education. Or even worse, give yourself one. As opposed to what? Going into consulting isn't self-indulgent? Going into finance isn't self-indulgent? Going into law, like most of the people who do, in order to make yourself rich, isn't self-indulgent? It's not OK to play music, or write essays, because what good does that really do anyone, but it is OK to work for a hedge fund. It's selfish to pursue your passion, unless it's also going to make you a lot of money, in which case it's not selfish at all.

想象我們現在面臨的局面吧。這是對我們個體，對道德，對靈魂的一個重要見證：美國社會思想的貧乏竟然讓美國最聰明的年輕人認為聽從自己的好奇心的行動就是自我放任。你們得到的教導是應該上大學去學習，但你們同時也被告知如果你想學的東西不是大眾認可的，那就是你的“自我放任”。如果你是自己學習自己感興趣的東西的話，更是“自我放任”。這是那個門子的道理？進入證券咨詢業是不是自我放任？進入金融業是不是自我放任？像許多人那樣進入律師界發財是不是自我放任？搞音樂，寫文章就不行，因為它不能給人帶來利益。但為風險投資公司工作就可以。追求自己的理想和激情是自私的，除非它能讓你賺很多錢。那樣的話，就一點兒也不自私了。

▌Do you see how absurd this is? But these are the nets that are flung at you, and this is what I mean by the need for courage. And it's a never-ending proc ess. At that Harvard event two years ago, one person said, about my assertion that college students needed to keep rethinking the decisions they've made about their lives, "We already made our decisions, back in middle school, when we decided to be the kind of high achievers who get into Harvard." And I thought, who wants to live with the decisions that they made when they were 12? Let me put that another way. Who wants to let a 12-year-old decide what they're going to do for the rest of their lives? Or a 19-year-old, for that matter?

你看到這些觀點是多么荒謬了嗎？這就是罩在你們身上的網，就是我說的需要勇氣的意思。而且這是永不停息的抗爭過程。在兩年前的哈佛事件中，有個學生談到我說的大學生需要重新思考人生決定的觀點，他說“我們已經做出了決定，我們早在中學時就已經決定成為能夠進入哈佛的高材生。”我在想，誰會打算按照他在12歲時做出的決定生活呢？ 讓我換一種說法，誰愿意讓一個12歲的孩子決定他們未來一輩子要做什么呢？或者一個19歲的小毛孩兒？

▌All you can decide is what you think now, and you need to be prepared to keep making revisions. Because let me be clear. I'm not trying to persuade you all to become writers or musicians. Being a doctor or a lawyer, a scientist or an engineer or an economist—these are all valid and admirable choices. All I'm saying is that you need to think about it, and think about it hard. All I'm asking is that you make your choices for the right reasons. All I'm urging is that you recognize and embrace your moral freedom.

唯一你能做出的決定是你現在在想什么，你需要準備好不斷修改自己的決定。讓我說得更明白一些。我不是在試圖說服你們都成為音樂家或者作家。成為醫生、律師、科學家、工程師或者經濟學家沒有什么不好，這些都是可靠的、可敬的選擇。我想說的是你需要思考它，認真地思考。我請求你們做的，是根據正確的理由做出你的選擇。我在敦促你們的，是認識到你的道德自由并熱情擁抱它。

▌And most of all, don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.

最重要的是，不要過分謹慎。去抵抗我們社會給予了過高獎賞的那些卑怯的價值觀的誘惑：舒服、方便、安全、可預測的、可控制的。這些，同樣是羅網。最重要的是，去提抗失敗的恐懼感。是的，你會犯錯誤。可那是你的錯誤，不是別人的。你將從錯誤中緩過來，而且，正是因為這些錯誤，你更好地認識你自己。由此，你成為更完整和強大的人。

▌It's been said—and I'm not sure I agree with this, but it's an idea that's worth taking seriously—that you guys belong to a "postemotional" generation. That you prefer to avoid messy and turbulent and powerful feelings. But I say, don't shy away from the challenging parts of yourself. Don't deny the desires and curiosities, the doubts and dissatisfactions, the joy and the darkness, that might knock you off the path that you have set for yourself. College is just beginning for you, adulthood is just beginning. Open yourself to the possibilities they represent. The world is much larger than you can imagine right now. Which means, you are much larger than you can imagine.

人們常說你們年輕人屬于“后情感”一代，我想我未必贊同這個說法，但這個說法值得嚴肅對待。你們更愿意規避混亂、動蕩和強烈的感情，但我想說，不要回避挑戰自我（，不要否認欲望和好奇心、懷疑和不滿、快樂和陰郁，它們可能改變你預設的人生軌跡。大學剛開始，成年時代也才剛開始。打開自己，直面各種可能性吧。這個世界的深廣遠超你現在想象的邊際。這意味著，你自身的深廣也將遠超你現在的想象。