经历失败的好处
编辑:zhangyanqing 成考报名 发布时间：07-19 阅读：
经历失败的好处
适当让孩子经历挫折的四大好处
父母会担心挫折让孩子失去信心，让他们产生消极心态。但是其实挫折对于孩子来说是有它的好处的，最起码来说有以下这四条。
挫折的好处：增强自立
孩子应该学习尽可能独立地解决身边发生的问题。然而这些说来容易做起来可不轻松。你的好办法：首先孩子们在积极地不断积累经验的过程中是可以获得勇气的，正是这种勇气使他们有足够的能力慢慢面对问题、接近问题。但前提是孩子们必须首先有足够的自信认定问题是可以解决的。
孩子们喜欢独立的感觉，他们希望自己拿奶瓶，拿勺子和小碗，他们想自己穿鞋，自己夹菜，就像爸爸妈妈那样。而且也只有大人允许他们尝试这些事情，他们才会有独立的感觉。比如说，孩子的纽扣系错了，毛衣穿反了，大多数父母立刻就会说“我来帮你”，或者是“这你还做不了。”父母不应该总给孩子这样一种暗示，“你做什么事情都笨手笨脚的”，最好给孩子一些成长的机会，让他们去发现自己的能力，去尝试新的东西。
挫折的好处：认识和发现错误
要想学会与问题周旋，最后还要涉及一种能力--认识和发现错误，并且知道什么时候已经是到了死胡同无力回天了。我们都不希望教育出不撞南墙不回头的人。
你的好办法：如果车钥匙不小心卡在车门上，我们需要停下来考虑一下：是拿错了钥匙，还是开错了车?这种停顿会给人一种沉稳的感觉。这种面对问题时先不操之过急地采取行动，而是用点时间冷静思考一下的性格，是需要我们从小培养的。
挫折的好处：培养合作能力
自立并不等于说在每种情况下都要单枪匹马解决问题，孩子们需要学习如何在自己力不能及的时候去调动别人帮助自己。要么是寻求父母的帮助，要么找其他的小朋友，找幼儿园的老师，甚至是找陌生人。
我们可不希望培养出自闭的孩子，或是一个万事不求人的孩子。而是要教育孩子有协作的能力，有团队工作的能力，并且懂得如何与他人交流，懂得如何体谅与关怀别人。
你的好办法：孩子越小就越容易发现自己许多事情做不好，尤其是在他们做游戏的时候。他们的哭闹总是求救信号。比如说：“我没法儿按照我想的把积木堆起来!”“我没法儿用勺子稳稳当当地喝汤!”
这时候如果父母显得不耐心，让孩子作别的游戏，或者是简单几下把他想做的替他做好，便会剥夺孩子在堆积木或者吃饭过程中所带来的成就感。我们的任何帮助都不应该让孩子感到他们的无能，而是要小心地引导孩子如何自己解决问题。对于孩子来说，重要的不是在他的玩具桌上堆一个最漂亮的积木塔，而是他能够通过大人的一些提醒来自己做成一件事情。哪怕是笨拙的。
挫折的好处：带来荣誉感
我们的孩子应当学会把挫折看成挑战，而不是看成马上放弃的原因。他们应当慢慢形成坚持和执着。进一步说：我们的孩子应该学会在解决问题的时候有一种像运动员一样的荣誉感。每一个问题的解决都会给意志坚强的人以独特的成功感受!换句话说，当挫折出现的时候，通常有两种反应。有人会说：“算了吧，下次再说!”也有人说：“来吧，困难，我一定把你搞定!”如果我们能成功地让孩子倾向于第二种态度，那么这也算是我们在孩子的人生路上送给他一个不可多得的礼物。
你的好办法：荣誉感是坏事吗?我不这么认为，有时我们可以适当刺激一下孩子的荣誉感。比如在散步的时候：“我们比一比谁能更快地跑到下一棵树那儿，我可以让你十米。”或者在浴盆里：“你看看能在水中憋多久气儿，我帮你看时间。”
小编总结：挫折是一味“苦口良药”，要想挫折显现出它的好处，需要家长在孩子遇上挫折的时候加以正确引导并且积极鼓励孩子战胜挫折。
失败的好处和想象力的重要性
JK 罗琳，哈利波特畅销系列小说的作者，在哈佛大学校友会的年会上做了题为“失败的好处和想象力的重要性”的毕业致辞。
J.K. Rowling, author of the best-selling Harry Potter book series, delivers her Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination,” at the Annual Meeting of the Harvard Alumni Association.
Faust主席，哈佛大学，监察委员会,各学院的同仁们，自豪的父母，以及所有的毕业生们，
President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.
首先我想要说的是谢谢你们。不仅仅因为哈佛大学给了我如此荣幸的荣誉，更因为想到要在如此重要的场合作毕业致辞给我带来的巨大紧张和压力让我在短短数周中瘦了不少。一个双赢的局面!现在我能做的就是深呼吸，瞄着红色的横幅，然后自欺欺人地让自己相信，我眼下参加的是哈利波特大会，只不过是世界上学历最高的。
The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I’ve experienced at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and fool myself into believing I am at the world’s best-educated Harry Potter convention.
对我而言，致毕业辞是一项重大的责任，使我不自禁回想起自己毕业的时候。当天致毕业辞的是英国杰出的哲学家Baroness Mary Warnock。反思她的演讲大大有助于构思自己的，因为我发觉自己完全想不起她说的任何一个字。这项革命性的发现使我释然，不那么害怕我的致辞会在无意中影响到你们，让你们为了成为一个快乐巫师的美好而放弃在商业，法律，政治领域的大好前途。
Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.
你们瞧?多年以后你们都记得这个“快乐巫师”的玩笑，那我就已经赢了Baroness Mary Warnock。
You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve still come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step towards personal improvement.
事实上，我纠结着今天应该对你们说点什么。我问过我自己，我毕业那会儿想要知道什么，而我毕业后的21年里学到了哪些重要的教训。
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.
我找到了2个答案。今天我们相聚在此庆祝你们学业上的成功，我却决定跟你们谈谈失败的好处。而鉴于你们都站在所谓真实生活的起点上，我想要颂扬一下想象力的重要性。
I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.
这两个答案看上去有些不切实际和自相矛盾，但请容我讲下去。
These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.
对于已然42岁的我，要回顾21岁毕业时的确有小小不快。我的前半生，始终挣扎于如何平衡我自己想要实现的目标和周围的人对我的期望。
Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.
我告诉自己唯一想要做的事情就是写小说。然而，我的父母，都来自贫困家庭，没有接受过高等教育，他们认为我过度活跃的想象力只是个人怪癖，无法帮我偿还房屋贷款或者支付养老金。
I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.
他们曾经希望我可以获取一项职业文凭。而我却要学习英国文学。我们终于达成了一项此后看来没有一方满意的妥协，那就是我选择学习现代语言。但是我甚至没等到父母的车消失在街角，就迫不及待地申请修读古典文学。
They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.
我不记得自己是如何把自己学古典文学的事情告诉父母的。他们可能是直到我毕业那天才发现的。在这个地球上的所有科目中，我想他们很难再找到一门比希腊神话更没用的课程了。
I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.
必须说明的是，我并没有因为他们的不同观点而抱怨他们。现在已经过了抱怨父母引导你们走错方向的时候了，一旦你能决定未来想要走什么路，就必须自己承担责任。更重要的是，我不能因为父母想要我摆脱贫穷而责怪他们。他们自己曾经经受贫穷，而我因为也曾经历过，所以同意他们认为贫穷并不高尚的看法。贫穷总是伴随着恐惧，压力，有时候甚至是沮丧。这意味着小心眼，卑微和艰苦。通过自己的努力摆脱贫困，才是真正值得自己引以为傲的事情。但是只有傻瓜才会纠缠于贫困二字。
I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.
在你们那个年纪我最害怕的不是贫困，而是失败。
What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.
在你们的年纪，尽管在大学缺乏动力，花很多的时间在咖啡店写小说而不是在课堂听课，我总是有诀窍能通过各门考试。这多年来，也是衡量我和我的同事是否成功的标准。
At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.
我不至于愚蠢到认为你们年轻，天赋异秉，受过良好的教育，就从不知道艰难和痛苦。天赋和智商从未使任何人逃避命运无常的折磨。我从不认为这里的每个人都已然安享平静和知足。
I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.
然而，从哈佛大学毕业多少意味着你们还不熟知失败的味道。你们或许曾经因为对于成功的渴望而害怕失败。事实上，你们对于失败的概念可能跟一般人对于成功的定义差不多，在学术上你们已经足够领先。
However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.
最终，我们都需要自己决定什么是构成失败的要素，当然如果想要的话世界会很愿意给你一堆标准。我可以这么说，在我毕业之后的第七年，就经历了人生中一次巨大的失败。意外结束的一次短暂婚姻，让我成为一个失去工作的单亲妈妈。在现代英国，除了无家可归外，我可以说有多穷就多穷。我父母和我自身对于自己的担心都变成现实，无论以何标准来看，这都是我人生最大的失败。
Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.
现在，我不会站在这里告诉你们失败是好玩的。那段时间是我人生的灰暗期，我对未来毫无把握，也不曾想到自己的书有一天会被媒体视作童话故事的革命。我不知道这样的灰暗会持续多久，很长一段时间里，任何终结灰暗的光芒只存在于希望而非现实。
Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.
那么为什么我要在这里讨论失败的好处?其实很简单，因为失败意味着我可以赶走非我。我停止扮演另一个自己，而是集中精力来完成真正对我有意义的工作。假若我在一些其他的方面成功过，或许我就不会有决心在那个自己真正属于的领域获取成功。我得以重获自由因为我最大的恐惧得以释放，而我依然或者，依然有引以为豪的女儿，依然有一台旧的打字机和一个伟大的构思。失败构筑的决心坚如磐石，帮助我重塑人生。
So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
你们可能从未像我这样如此失败，但是生命中的有些失败是不可避免的。永远不失败是不可能的，除非你生活得过度小心谨慎，以至于像根本没有实实在在的生活过一样，而这样的生活根本上就是一种失败。
You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
失败给了我一种内心的安全感，这是无法从通过考试中获得的。失败教会我认识自己，而这些是无法从其他地方学到的。我发现我有比自己想象中更强的意志力和自制力。我也发现自己有比红宝石更宝贵的朋友。
Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.
认识到你因挫折变得更聪明和顽强意味着你有更强的能力面对之后的困境。如果没有逆境的考验，你永远不会认识到真正的自己和友谊有多牢固。如此痛苦赢得的认知才是真正的礼物，对我而言，比我获得的任何一张资格证书都值得。
The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.
倘若给我可以逆转时空的时间机器，我会告诉21岁的自己，个人的幸福不仅仅来自于获取和成就。你的学历资质，你的履历，不是你生命的全部，尽管你遇到的很多和我年龄相仿或者年长过我的人经常将他们混为一谈。生活是艰难和复杂的，是不受任何人全权掌控的，虚心认识到这一点可以让你能在困境中生存。
Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.
你可能认为我选择在第二部分讨论想象力的重要性是因为想象力在我重塑人生的过程中起了重要的作用，但是并不完全是这样。尽管我会不遗余力地捍卫睡前故事的存在价值，我懂得从更宽泛的层面来评价想象力。想象力不仅仅是人类拥有的可以预见那些未知的独特能力，不仅仅是发明创造的源泉。想象力，大概是最具变革和启示作用的能力，使我们能够对那些我们从未经历的事物产生共鸣。
You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.
我生命中最重要的一段经历是在创作哈利波特之前，尽管之后我将这段时间中的很多记录书中。这段经历的启示来自于我最早工作之一。那时候我尽管经常在午餐时间逃出去写小说，在我二十几岁的时候需要一份工作来支付房租，而我那时就职于总部位于伦敦的国际特赦组织的研究部门。
One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.
在我狭小的办公室里，我匆忙阅读者从各地集权政权偷传来的潦草信笺，这些信是那些冒着囹圄之险也要向外界传播他们亲身经历惨剧的人们偷运出来的。我看到了无故失踪的人的照片，这些照片是他们的家人或朋友送来的。我读着被酷刑折磨的受害者的证据和他们受伤的照片。我打开手写的目击者对审讯和行刑以及对绑架和强奸的摘要叙述。
There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.
我的许多同事以前都曾是政治犯，他们由于跟政府政见不合或持独立思考的观点，而被迫背井离乡，放逐在外。我们办公室的访客有来提供信息的，也有想要搞清楚那些被流放的人背后真相的人们。
Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to think independently of their government. Visitors to our office included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had been forced to leave behind.
我永远也无法忘记那个非洲的酷刑受害者，一个和当时的我年龄相仿的年轻人，因为在他祖国经历的酷刑而导致精神状态受损。他在镜头前叙述强加在他身上的暴行时，禁不住全身颤抖。他比我高一英尺，看上去却像孩子一样脆弱。之后我被委派护送他去地点站，这个被野蛮摧残的年轻人礼貌地握着我的手，祝福我未来幸福。
I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.
只要我还活着，就会记得当我走过一条空旷的走廊，忽然听到从身后关着的门里传出的一声从未听过的充满痛苦和恐惧的尖叫。门开了，一个研究员探出她的脑袋让我快去为坐在她身边的一个年轻人搞一杯热的饮料。这个年轻人刚被告知，受累于他公开作出反对国家的演讲，他的母亲被逮捕并处决了。
And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just given him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.
我二十几岁的每一个工作日都提醒着自己是如此幸运，可以生活在一个民主选举政府的国家里，在这里每个人都拥有合法陈述和公开审判的权力。
Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.
每一天，我看到更多的证据，证明邪恶的人类为了获取或维护权力而加害与他们同样的人类。我开始因为这些看到的，听到的和读到的做噩梦。
Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard and read.
然而在国际特赦组织，我也学到了之前从未了解的人类善良的一面。
And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.
国际特赦组织动员了数以千计的没有因为信仰而被拷问或入狱的人，让他们来代表那些受害者采取行动。让人类团结起来的同理心，可以挽救生命，让囚犯重获自由。那些生活得以保障的普通人，联合起来拯救那些他们从不认识，也不会遇见的陌生人。在这个过程中我小小的参与是我生命中最令人振奋的经历之一。
Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.
不同于地球上的其他生物，人类可以在从未亲身经历过的情况下学习和理解。他们能够从别人的角度思考问题，设身处地地为他人着想。
Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.
当然，这种力量，像我书中虚构的那些魔法一般，是道德中立的。有些人可以利用这样的力量来操纵和控制他人，也有更多的人用来理解和同情。
Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.
也有许多人宁愿压根儿不训练他们的想象力。他们选择在自己经验范围内维持舒适的状态，也从不麻烦地去考虑如果他们不是生来那样，会是什么感觉。他们可以拒绝听到尖叫，关注监牢;他们可以对那些无关自身的苦难关上心门，甚至拒绝了解。
And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.
我可能试图羡慕能够这样生活的人们，除了我不认为他们比我的噩梦少。选择在如此狭小的空间生活最终会导致精神上的恐旷症，形成另一种自身的恐惧。我认为这种故意缺乏现象力的人会看到更多的怪物。他们经常会更担心害怕。
I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.
更有甚之的是，那些选择没有同理心的人可以激发更多真正的恶魔。虽然我们没有亲自做出那些邪恶的行为，我们的冷漠却让我们成为共犯。
What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.
我在古典文学的世界里学到的众多事情之一，也是我18岁时冒险寻找却无法定义的是，如希腊作家Plutarch所写，我们内在的修为会改变外在的现实。
One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
这个惊人的定论在我们生命中的每一天不断地得到证实。这句话也部分说明了我们和外部世界不可分离的关系。我们的存在就能轻易触及他人的生活。
That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.
哈佛2008年的毕业生们，你们愿意感受触及到别人的生活吗?你们的智慧，应对困难的能力，接受的教育，赋予了你们独特的身份和责任。就连你们的国籍都让你们与众不同。你们中的大部分人属于世界仅存的超级大国(美国)。你们选举，生活，抗议的方式，你们给政府施加的压力，产生的影响是超越国界的。这是你们的特权，同样也是你们的责任。
But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.
如果你们选择运用你们的身份和影响力来声援那些没有话语权的人;如果你们选择不仅认同那些强势的群体，还有那些无权的;如果你维持着设身处地为那些弱势群体着想的能力，那么为你的存在感到自豪的将不仅仅是你的家人，还有成千上万的那些因为你的帮助得以改善生活的人们。我们不需要改变世界的魔法，我们的内心已经拥有足够的力量，我们有能力想像更好的世界。
If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
在我的演说接近尾声的时候，我对你们还有一个最后的期望，在我21岁的时候就有的。在我毕业那天坐在我身边的朋友成为我一生的朋友。他们是我孩子们的教父母。他们是我在困难时可以求助的人，是不会因为我在死亡复活节用了名字就控告我的人。我们毕业时，我们沉浸在巨大的感动中，沉浸在那段共度却一去不复返的时光里。当然，如果我们中的任何人有朝一日成为首相，我们也拥有极有价值的照片证明我们曾同窗。
I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
所以今天，我祝你们拥有同样珍贵的友谊。明天，我希望即使你们不记得我说的只字片语，你们依然记得塞内加，还有我在古典文学中学到的另一个古罗马哲人说过的一句话：“生活如同小说，关键不在于多长，而在于多好。”
So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
祝愿你们都拥有美好的生活。
I wish you all very good lives.
谢谢大家!
Thank you very much.
让孩子经历挫折的好处
独生子女在家里总是受到父母长辈的宠爱，家长想法设法为孩子排除成长中的各种困难，避免他们遭受委屈和挫折。“在这种家庭教育下，有相当数量的青少年学生在面对挫折和困难不知如何解决应对，耐挫能力差，遇事输不起。”一多年从事家庭教育的专家表示，孩子健康成长离不开挫折教育。
“输不起”是孩子的天性
孩子正在上小学的李女士说，儿子最近迷上了斗陀螺，小区里的男孩子一有时间就在楼底下聚在一起玩。一般来说价钱越贵的陀螺越容易获胜，然而这种轻则几十，动辄上百的小玩具买上几个花费颇高，“如果不买，或者斗陀螺输了，孩子就会发脾气。”李女士对此相当无奈。
李女士儿子的表现就是一个“输不起”的例子。其实，从儿童心理学角度来说，孩子“输不起”是一种正常现象。在成长阶段，孩子总希望自己能做得更好，并进一步获得周围人的认可。但是此时他们并不了解自己的强项和弱项，或者没有成熟的价值观，以自我为中心。所以在集体活动时，一旦不如他人或在竞争中失利，便会表现出不满情绪或将责任归罪到其他人身上。当出现这种问题时，家长应该及时疏导，正视对孩子的挫折教育。
父母别当孩子的面争强好胜
很多父母在日常生活中总会不经意间流露出争强好胜的心理，比如带着成年人功利的眼光看待孩子的输赢，要求孩子做“第一”或“最好”，不能比别人差等等。潜移默化中，孩子便也产生了只许成功，不许失败的心理暗示和压力。
父母鼓励孩子追求胜利和成功没有错，但是他们忽略了孩子在失败中也可以获取更多成长经验。不少老师表达了这样的观点：孩子的要求不能无限制满足，失败除了可以显露自身不足之处，还可以让人学习谦卑、顺服。生活中不可能事事如意，凡事尽力后即使失败也不代表没有努力和收获。当孩子输的时候，家长给予适当安慰和鼓励，引导他们正视失败，才能让孩子在失败和挫折中坚强起来，塑造更为完整的人格。
为孩子创设挫折情境
在德国，无论是家长还是学校，都会有意识地培养孩子的抗挫折能力。比如，家长经常给孩子设置一些顺境下的挫折，有时甚至还故意制造一些犯错误的机会。在德国家长看来，孩子总有一天要去更广阔的天地闯荡，所以要从小培养他们战胜困难的能力。
对于中国家长来说，平时不包办孩子的一切，不有求必应;让孩子参加各种劳动，锻炼他吃苦耐劳;在游戏中使他体验到失败和不如意等都可以实行。让孩子明白“天外有天，人外有人”的道理，鼓励孩子去参加各种体育竞技比赛，这样既可克服骄傲心理，催其奋进，又能让其在早期体验挫折，增强心理免疫力。