TED演讲：我为什么划船横渡太平洋(3)

 　　And I remember looking at these two versions of my obituary¹ and thinking, "Oh boy, I'm on totally the wrong track here. 我记得我面对着我的这两份讣告，心想：“哦，天呐，我处在错误的人生轨道上，

　　If I carry on living as I am now, I'm just not going to end up where I want to be in five years, or 10 years, or at the end of my life." 如果我继续这样生活下去，我是不会完成我生命的终极目标的，不论是在5年还是10年内，甚至到生命走到尽头是，我都不会完成。

　　I made a few changes, let go of some loose trappings of my old life,  我做了一些改变，放弃了一些以前生活的奢华，

　　and through a bit of a leap of logic², decided³ to row across the Atlantic Ocean. 经过几次逻辑跳跃，然后决定去横渡大西洋。

　　The Atlantic Rowing Race runs from the Canaries to Antigua, it's about 3,000 miles, 划船横渡大西洋的行程从卡纳里亚斯群岛到安提瓜，行程大约3000英里，

　　and it turned out to be the hardest thing I had ever done. 而这次旅程也成为了我所完成的最困难的事。

　　Sure, I had wanted to get outside of my comfort zone,  的确，我曾很想摆脱我安逸的生活，

　　but what I'd sort of failed to notice was that getting out of your comfort zone is, by definition, extremely uncomfortable. 但是我确从来没意识到，跳出我的舒适生活之外，我却过得如此不舒服，

　　And my timing⁴ was not great either: 2005, when I did the Atlantic, was the year of Hurricane Katrina. 而且，我对时机的把握也不是很好，2005年，我正在横渡大西洋的时候，也正是卡特里娜飓风肆虐的那一年。

　　There were more tropical storms in the North Atlantic than ever before, since records began.  北大西洋上的热带风暴也多于史上有纪录的任何时候。

　　And pretty early on, those storms started making their presence known. 很快，这些风暴就显示出了它们的威力。

　　All four of my oars⁵ broke before I reached halfway⁶ across. 我的四个桨在我的行程还没有达到一半的时候就全坏了。

　　Oars are not supposed to look like this. But what can you do?  看上去桨不应该是这样的。但你又能怎么办？

　　You're in the middle of the ocean. Oars are your only means of propulsion.  你正处在大洋当中，这些桨是你唯一的动力来源。

　　So I just had to look around the boat and figure out what I was going to use to fix up these oars so that I could carry on. 我只好找遍了整条船，想办法找到能够修好这些桨的东西，这样才能继续我的旅程。

　　So I found a boat hook and my trusty duct tape and splintered the boat hook to the oars to reinforce it. 我找到了一个船竿和我信赖的多功能胶布，然后我把船竿弄断，用它们加固船桨。

　　Then, when that gave out, I sawed the wheel axles off my spare rowing seat and used those. 然后，等它们不起作用了，我又把我的备用划船座椅的轮轴锯了下来，用它们来修我的桨。

　　And then when those gave out, I cannibalized one of the broken oars. 当它们不起作用了，我又把我的一支坏桨拆下来使用。

　　I'd never been very good at fixing stuff when I was living my old life,  我以前并不是一个擅长修补的人，

　　but it's amazing how resourceful you can become when you're in the middle of the ocean and there's only one way to get to the other side. 但当你身处海洋之中的时候，你会惊奇地发现你变得能够随机应变，而这也是通向彼岸的唯一办法。

1 obituary   

n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的

参考例句：

• The obituary records the whole life of the deceased.讣文记述了这位死者的生平。
• Five days after the letter came,he found Andersen s obituary in the morning paper.收到那封信五天后，他在早报上发现了安德森的讣告。

2 logic   

n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性

参考例句：

• What sort of logic is that?这是什么逻辑？
• I don't follow the logic of your argument.我不明白你的论点逻辑性何在。

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

5 oars   

n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• He pulled as hard as he could on the oars. 他拼命地划桨。
• The sailors are bending to the oars. 水手们在拼命地划桨。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。