12-4 能把握的只有当下（在线收听）

Today is the Only Guarantee You Get

It's a great honor for me to be the third member of my family to receive an honorary¹ doctorate from this great university. It's an honor to follow my Great-uncle Jim, who was a gifted physician, and my Uncle Jack, who is a remarkable businessman.

Both of them could have told you something important about their professions, about medicine or commerce. I have no specialized field of interest or expertise², which puts me at a disadvantage talking to you today. I'm a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is all I know.

Don't ever confuse the two, your life and your work. The second is only part of the first.

Don't ever forget what a friend once wrote Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator decided not to run for reelection because he had been diagnosed with cancer: “No man ever said on his deathbed, ‘I wish I had spent more time at the office.’”

Don't ever forget the words my father sent me on a postcard last year： “If you win the rat race³, you're still a rat.”

Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of his house in Dakota: “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”

You will walk out of here this afternoon with only one thing that no one else has.

There will be hundreds of people out there with your same degree; there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living, but you will be the only person alive who has sole custody⁴ of your life.

Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in a car, or at the computer.

Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account but your soul.

People don't talk about the soul very much anymore. It's so much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit. But a resume is a cold comfort on a winter night, or when you're sad, or broke, or lonely, or when you've gotten back the test results and they're not so good.

Here is my resume:

I am a good mother to three children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent.

I no longer consider myself the center of the universe.

I show up.

I listen.

I try to laugh.

I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make marriage vows mean what they say.

I am a good friend to my friends, and they to me. Without them, there would be nothing to say to you today, because I would be a cardboard cutout⁵. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I would be rotten, or at best mediocre⁶ at my job, if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first rate at your work if your work is all you are.

So here's what I wanted to tell you today:

Get a life. A real life, not a manic⁷ pursuit of the next promotion, the bigger paycheck, the larger house.

Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leisure, it is work. Pick up the phone. Send an e-mail. Write a letter. Get a life in which you are generous.

And realize that life is the best thing ever, and that you have no business taking it for granted.

It is so easy to waste our lives, our days, our hours, our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the color of our kids' eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again...

It is so easy to exist instead of to live.

I learned to live many years ago. Something really, really bad happened to me, something that changed my life in ways that, if I had my druthers⁸, it would never have been changed at all. And what I learned from it is what, today, seems to be the hardest lesson of all:

I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that it is not a dress rehearsal⁹, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

I learned to look at all the good in the world and try to give some of it back because I believed in it, completely and utterly. And I tried to do that, in part, by telling others what I had learned.

By telling them this: Consider the lilies of the field. Look at the fuzz on a baby's ear. Read in the backyard with the sun on your face. Learn to be happy.

And think of life as a terminal¹⁰ illness, because if you do, you will live it with joy and passion as it ought to be lived.

注释：

1. honorary [5CnErEri] a. （学位、称号等）作为一种荣誉而授予的，名誉的

2. expertise [7eksp:tiz] n. 专门知识（或技能等）

3. rat race [口] 无休止的激烈竞争，你死我活的竞争

4. custody [5kQstEdi] n. 监护

5. cutout [5kQtaut] n. 剪下的图样（或图形）

6. mediocre [7mi:di5EukE(r)] a. 中等（质量）的，普普通通的，平庸的

7. manic [5meinik] a. [医] 疯狂的，狂热的

8. druther [5drQTE(r)] [美方] n. [～s]（用作单）选择，偏爱

9. rehearsal [ri5h:sEl] n. 排练，练习；dress rehearsal彩排

10. terminal [5t:minl] a. 晚期的，致命的

能把握的只有当下

十分荣幸我成为我们家族第三个被这所伟大的学校授与荣誉博士学位的成员。先是我的吉姆伯祖，他是一位杰出的医生，然后是我的杰克叔叔，他是一位了不起的商人。

　　他们两位都能告诉你们一些有关他们职业——行医和经商——的重要体验。我没有专业领域或专业知识，这样今天我对你们讲话便处于一种劣势。我是个小说家。我的工作是人性。真实的生活是我所知的全部。

　　一定不要把你的生活和你的工作混为一谈。后者只是前者的一部分。

　　永远不要忘记当保罗·聪格斯参议员因被诊断身患癌症决定不再竞选连任时，一位朋友在一封给他的信中写道：“没有人在临终之时说过：‘要是我能花更多的时间在办公室该多好。’”

永远不要忘记我父亲在去年给我的一张明信片上所写的：“即使你赢得了这场疯狂的竞争，你依然不过是只老鼠。”

永远不要忘记约翰•列侬在达科他州他家宅前的车道上被枪杀之前所写的：“生活就是你在忙于制定别的计划时所发生的一切。”

今天下午各位离开这里时，会只带着一样任何他人不会拥有的东西。

外边有好几百人拥有和你一样的学位；有好几千人做着你渴望得到的藉以谋生的工作，但你是此生此世惟一对你自己的生活拥有监管权的人。

你独一无二的生活，你全部的生活，不仅仅是你在案头前的生活，或在公共汽车里、在小汽车里、在计算机前的生活。

不仅仅是你头脑中的生活，而且还有你心中的生活。不仅仅是你银行里的存款，而且还有你的灵魂。

现在，人们不再多谈灵魂了。写一份履历比塑造一个灵魂要容易得多。但是一张履历不过是冬夜里一个冰冷的慰藉，不过是在你悲伤、身无分文、孤独一人时，或在你拿回考试成绩而它们不太令人满意时的一个冰冷的慰藉。

以下是我的简历：

我是3个孩子的好母亲。我尽力不让我的职业影响我做一位好家长。

我不再认为自己是宇宙的中心。

该到场的场合我都到场。

我倾听。

我设法开怀大笑。

我是我丈夫的好朋友。我努力履行结婚誓约。

我是我朋友们的好朋友，他们也是我的好朋友。如果没有他们，今天面对你们我会无话可说，因为那样的话，我不过是从一块纸板上剪下的纸板模型人。我给他们打电话，我跟他们约会，一起用餐。假如这一切都不是真实的，那我的工作必定干得糟糕透顶，最好也就是平庸罢了。如果你的工作就是你生活的全部，那么你在工作中也不会是真正的一流。

所以今天我想对你们说的是：

活得潇洒一点。过一种真实的生活，而不是孜孜追求一次又一次的提升、更丰厚的薪金、更大的房子。

不要孤独地生活，找到你爱的人和爱你的人。记住，爱不是闲呆着啥也不干，爱是工作。拿起电话。发一封电子邮件。写一封信。过一种慷慨付出的生活。

要意识到生命是最美好的，你应加以珍惜。

浪费生命真是太容易了。把一天、一小时、一分钟浪费掉真是太容易了。我们很容易把孩子眼睛的颜色视为当然而不知珍惜；很容易把交响乐中旋律的起伏变化视为当然而不知珍惜……

我们很容易仅仅是“生存”而不是“生活”。

我学会生活是很多年以前的事了。当时一件非常非常糟糕的事情发生了，它改变了我的生活，要是我当时可以选择的话，这个巨大的改变绝不会发生。而如今看来，从中我学到的是我一生中最艰难的一课：

我学会珍爱旅程，而不问目的地。我领悟到人生不是一次彩排，你能把握的只有当下。

我学会去看世界上的一切美好善良，并努力将我看到的美好之中的一部分再奉献出来，因为我对美好善良的信念是完全彻底的。我如何回馈呢？方法之一是将我所感悟到的告诉他人。

我会告诉人们：看看田间的百合。仔细观察婴儿耳朵上的绒毛。在宅后院子里读书，让太阳照在你的脸上。学会让自己快乐。

把有生之年看作某种不治之症的晚期，这样，你就会带着喜悦和激情享受这本该充满喜悦和激情的生活。