向前一步:第72期 职业生涯中的长远梦想及短期目标(4)

 When I tried to execute my final calculations, I took down the entire system. 当我试着执行最后的运算时，整个系统竟突然崩溃了。

That's right. Years before Mark famously crashed that same Harvard system, I beat him to it. 没错，众所周知，扎克伯格也曾让哈佛大学的同一个系统崩溃，但我早在几年前就下手了。

When I graduated from college, I had only the vaguest notion of where I was headed. 当我大学毕业时，对于自己想要做什么，我脑子里并不十分清晰。

This confusion was in deep contrast to my father's clear conviction of what he wanted to do from a young age. 和我的父亲完全相反，他在少年时就明白自己想要做什么了。

When my dad was sixteen, he felt a sharp abdominal¹ pain during a basketball practice. 父亲16岁那年，一次在篮球训练中，他感到一阵剧烈的腹痛。

My grandmother—good Jewish mother that she was—assumed it was hunger and fed him a big dinner. That made it worse. 我的祖母以为他是肚子饿了，便做了一顿丰盛的晚餐。这简直是雪上加霜。

He ended up in the hospital, where he was diagnosed with acute appendicitis², 最后它被医院诊断为急性阑尾炎。

but because he had eaten, they couldn't operate for twelve excruciating hours. 由于刚吃过饭，必须得熬过痛苦的12个小时之后才能做手术。

The next morning, a surgeon removed his appendix and, along with it, the pain. 第二天早晨，大夫切除了他的阑尾。痛苦也随之解除。

My father chose his career that day, deciding that he would become a physician so he could help ease other people's suffering. 就在那天我的父亲决定了自己的职业方向。他决定当一名内科医生，帮助别人解除痛苦。

My mother shared my father's desire to help others. 在帮助他人方面，我的母亲和父亲的想法一样。

She was only eleven when she heard her rabbi give a sermon on the importance of civil rights and tikkun olam, a Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world." 她在11岁时，听到过拉比（即犹太教教士）的一次布道，倡导市民权利的重要性和“tikkun olam”（希伯来语，意为“修缮世界”）。

She responded to the call, grabbing a tin can and knocking on doors to support civil rights workers in the South. 她响应了号召，立即抓起一只锡罐挨家挨户敲门为支持南部的民权工作者筹款。

1 abdominal   

adj.腹（部）的，下腹的；n.腹肌

参考例句：

• The abdominal aorta is normally smaller than the thoracic aorta.腹主动脉一般比胸主动脉小。
• Abdominal tissues sometimes adhere after an operation.手术之后腹部有时会出现粘连。

2 appendicitis   

n.阑尾炎，盲肠炎

参考例句：

• He came down with appendicitis.他得了阑尾炎。
• Acute appendicitis usually develops without relation to the ingestion of food.急性阑尾炎的发生通常与饮食无关。