TED演讲:内向性格的力量(2)(在线收听

   But the first time that I took my book out of my suitcase, the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me and she asked me, 但是当我第一次把书从行李箱中拿出来的时候,床铺中最酷的那个女孩向我走了过来,并且她问我:

  "Why are you being so mellow?" -- mellow, of course, being the exact opposite of R-O-W-D-I-E. “为什么你要这么安静?”安静,当然,是R-O-W-D-I-E的反义词,“喧闹”的反义词。
  And then the second time I tried it, the counselor came up to me with a concerned expression on her face 而当我第二次拿书的时候,我们的顾问满脸忧虑的向我走了过来,
  and she repeated the point about camp spirit and said we should all work very hard to be outgoing. 接着她重复了关于“露营精神”的要点,并且说我们都应当努力去变得外向些。
  And so I put my books away, back in their suitcase, and I put them under my bed, and there they stayed for the rest of the summer. 于是我放好我的书,放回了属于它们的行李箱中,并且我把它们放到了床底下,在那里它们度过了暑假余下的每一天。
  And I felt kind of guilty about this.  我对这样做感到很愧疚。
  I felt as if the books needed me somehow, and they were calling out to me and I was forsaking them. 不知为什么我感觉这些书是需要我的,它们在呼唤我,但是我却放弃了它们。
  But I did forsake them and I didn't open that suitcase again until I was back home with my family at the end of the summer. 我确实放下了它们,并且我再也没有打开那个箱子,直到我和我的家人一起回到家中,在夏末的时候。
  Now, I tell you this story about summer camp. I could have told you 50 others just like it 现在,我向你们讲述这个夏令营的故事。我完全可以给你们讲出其他50种版本就像这个一样的故事
  all the times that I got the message that somehow my quiet and introverted style of being was not necessarily the right way to go,  每当我感觉到这样的时候,它告诉我出于某种原因,我的宁静和内向的风格并不是正确道路上的必需品,
  that I should be trying to pass as more of an extrovert.  我应该更多地尝试一个外向者的角色。
  And I always sensed deep down that this was wrong and that introverts were pretty excellent just as they were. 而在我内心深处感觉得到这是错误的,内向的人们都是非常优秀的,确实是这样。
  But for years I denied this intuition, and so I became a Wall Street lawyer,  但是许多年来我都否认了这种直觉,于是我首先成为了华尔街的一名律师,
  of all things, instead of the writer that I had always longed to be 而不是我长久以来想要成为的一名作家,
  partly because I needed to prove to myself that I could be bold and assertive too.  一部分原因是因为我想要证明自己也可以变得勇敢而坚定。
  And I was always going off to crowded bars when I really would have preferred to just have a nice dinner with friends. 并且当我只是想要和朋友们吃一顿愉快的晚餐时,我总是去那些拥挤的酒吧。
  And I made these self-negating choices so reflexively, that I wasn't even aware that I was making them. 我做出了这些自我否认的抉择,如条件反射一般,甚至我都不清楚我做出了这些决定。
  原文地址:http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/TEDyj/jyp/455214.html