精美英文欣赏:兰迪教授对毕业生的激励演讲

Randy Pausch Inspires Graduates

September 18, 2007

I am glad to be here today, Hell, I am glad to be anywhere today.

President Cohon asked me to come and give the charge to the graduates. I assure you, it's nothing compared to the charge you have just given me.

This is an incredible place. I have seen it through so many lenses. I saw it when I was a graduate student that didn't get admitted and then somebody invited me back and said, OK, we'll change our mind.

And I saw it as a place that hired me back to be on the faculty¹ many years later and gave me the chance to do what anybody wants to do, which is ,follow their passion, follow their heart and do the things they they're excited about.

And the great thing about this university unlike almost all the other ones I know of is that nobody gets in your way when you try to do it. And that's just fantastic.

And to the degree that a human being can love an institution. I love this place and I love all of the people and I am very grateful to Jerry Cohon and everyone else for all the kindness that have shown me.

Last August I was told that in all likelihood I had three to six months left to live. I am on month nine now and I am gonna get down and do any push-ups…But there will be a short pick-up basketball game later.

Somebody said to me, in light of those numbers, wow, so you aer really beating the Grim Reaper². And what I said without even thinking about is that we don't beat the Reaper by living longer. We beat the Reaper by living well, and living fully³.

For the Reaper will come for all of us, the question is what do we do between the time we are born and the time he shows up.

'cause he shows up it is too late to do all the things that you're always gonna kind of "get round to". So I think the only advice I can give you on how to live your life well is, first off, remember, it's a cliche⁴, but love cliche, "it is not the things we do in life that we regret on our deathbed, it is the things we do not".

'cause I assure you I've done a lot of stupid things and none of them bother me. All the mistakes, all the dopy things and all the times I was embarrassed they don't matter. What matter is that, I can kind of look back and say, "pretty much anytime I got a chance to do something cool, I tried to grab for it." And that's where my solace⁵ come from.

The second thing I would add to that, and I didn't coordinate⁶ on the subject of this word but I think it's the right word that comes up, is passion. And you will need to find you passion. Many of you have already done it, many of you will later, many of you will take till your 30s or 40s. But don't give up on finding it. Alright? 'cause then all you're doing is waiting for the Reaper. Find you passion and follow it.

And if there's anything I have learned in my life, you will not find passion in things. And you will not find that passion in money. Because the more things and the more money you have, the more you will just look around and use that as the metric, and there will always be someone with more.

So your passion must come from the things that fuel you from the inside. And honors and awards are nice things but only to be the extent that they regard the real respect from your peers. And to be thought well of by other people that you think even more highly of is a tremendous honor that I've been granted.

Find you passion and in my experience, no matter what you do at work or what you do in official settings, that passion would be grounded in people. And it will be grounded in the relationships you have with people, and what they think of you, when you time comes. And if you can gain the respect of those around you, and the passion and true love, and I've said this before, but I waited till 39 to get married because I had to wait that long to find someone where her happiness was more important than mine. And if nothing else I hope that all of you can find that kind of passion and that kind of love in your life.

兰迪·波许在卡内基梅隆大学毕业典礼上的演讲

很高兴今天能够来到这里。天啊，今天不论在哪里我都很高兴。

柯汉校长邀请我来给毕业生一些鼓励。我向诸位保证，你们刚刚给我的鼓励更多。

这所学校棒极了！我可从很多方面了解它。我也曾从这里毕业，遗憾的是并没有申请上研究生。然而一位恩师邀我回来并说:我们改变主意啦，你被录取了。

许多年以后，我被聘回到这里执教。这是一个所有人都梦寐以求的机会。在这里，你可以追随热情，听从心灵的召唤，并能够做自己感到刺激的事。

这所学校胜过其他学校的地方在于当你尝试实现梦想时，没有人会阻拦你。这太美妙了！

我无比的热爱这所学校，也爱这里的所有人。我十分感激柯汉校长和我的同事，感谢他们给我的温暖。

去年8月，我被告知只能再活3到6个月了。可现在已是第九个月了。我想低下身来做俯地挺身（他在人生最后一课时，小试身手，还幽默地说不要同情他，除非也能做那麽多下的俯地挺身）...但一会将有来一小段报队篮球赛(一般打半场，三对三，先进十一分或十五赢)。

当我说完前面的那些数字后，有些人对我说:天啊，你真的战神了冷酷的死神。而我毫不犹疑的回答他：仅靠多活几天是不能战胜死神的。战胜死神最好的方式是活得好，活得充实。

人终会有一死，关键是从出生的那一刻起到死神降临的这一段时间内，我们都做了什麽。

当死神降临时，想要做些我们一直想做而没时间去做的事，却已为时晚矣。因此，关于如何才能活的好，我给大家的唯一建议是，马上去做，请千万牢记，虽说这是老生常谈，但我喜欢老生常谈，"临终时我们不会后悔做过某些事，而是后悔没有去做某些事。"

坦率地说，我也曾做过很多蠢事，但它们中没有一件令我烦恼。所有那些犯过的错，做过的蠢事，还有令我尴尬的时刻，其实它们都不重要。

真正重要的是，当我回首往事时，我会说：「只要有机会去做那些很酷的事，我将会毫不犹豫的去争取。」这才让我足堪告慰。

第二件我想说的事就是，我并没有规划用这个字眼。但我想这个字眼很合适，那就是“热情”二字。你们必须要找到自己的热情所在。你们当中有些人已经找到了，许多人将来也会找到，也许很多人要到三、四十岁时才找得到。但千万不要放弃寻找你的激情。好吗？因为你若放弃了，那你所能做的仅是等待死亡而已。去寻找你的热情所在，并追随它的脚步！

如果说我这一生中学到了什麽的话，那就是你不可能在物质中找到热情。你不会在金钱中找到热情。因为你拥有的财富越多，你就越有可能用它去衡量你周围的世界，然而总是有人比你更富有。

因此，热情必须来自于能从内在激发你。荣誉和奖赏是好事，但仅限于出于同行们真心的尊敬。或是像我一样能够被自己所尊敬的人所认同，这才是最大的荣幸。

去寻找你的热情吧。在我看来，无论你从事什麽样工作，处在怎样的环境当中，激情都是和人有关的。热情基于人与人之间的关系，基于当你离开人世时，人们对你的看法。如果你能赢的身边人的尊敬，正如我之前所说的你有热情和真爱。我等到39岁才结婚，是因为我必须等这麽久才能找到一位她的幸福比我的更重要的人。抛开一切其他不谈，我祝在座的各位，此生都能够找到那样的热情和真爱。

1 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

2 reaper   

n.收割者，收割机

参考例句：

• The painting is organized about a young reaper enjoying his noonday rest.这幅画的画面设计成一个年轻的割禾人在午间休息。
• A rabbit got caught in the blades of the reaper.一只兔子被卷到收割机的刀刃中去了。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 cliche   

n./a.陈词滥调(的)；老生常谈(的)；陈腐的

参考例句：

• You should always try to avoid the use of cliche. 你应该尽量避免使用陈词滥调。
• The old cliche is certainly true:the bigger car do mean bigger profits.有句老话倒的确说得不假:车大利大。

5 solace   

n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和

参考例句：

• They sought solace in religion from the harshness of their everyday lives.他们日常生活很艰难，就在宗教中寻求安慰。
• His acting career took a nosedive and he turned to drink for solace.演艺事业突然一落千丈，他便借酒浇愁。

6 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。