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 abdominal 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 appendicitis, 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。