今年6月5日是哈佛大学的毕业典礼，请来的演讲嘉宾是《哈利波特》的作者J.K.罗琳女士。

她的演讲题目是《失败的好处和想象的重要性》（The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and th e Importance of Imagination）。

我读了一遍讲稿，觉得很好，很感染人。

她几乎没有谈到哈里波特，而是说了年轻时的一些经历。

虽然J·K·罗琳现在很有钱，是英国仅次于女皇的最富有的女人，但是她曾经有一段非常艰辛的日子，30岁了，还差点流落街头。

她主要谈的是，自己从这段经历中学到的东西。

去年的演讲嘉宾是比尔·盖茨，我翻译了他的演讲，影响挺大。

今年，我只翻译了一部分，有兴趣的朋友可以在网上找到全部原文和视频。

二、她首先回忆了自己大学毕业的情景：I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. Ho wever, 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 a n amusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.当时，我只想去写小说。

但是，我的父母出身贫寒，没有受过大学教育。

他们认为，我那些不安分的想象力只是一种怪癖，根本不能用来还房贷，或者挣来养老金。

They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English L iterature. 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 corr idor.他们希望我再去读个专业学位，而我想去攻读英国文学。

最后，达成了一个双方都不甚满意的妥协：我改学外语。

可是等到父母一走开，我立刻报名学习古典文学。

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 mytho logy when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.我不记得将这事告诉了父母。

他们可能是在毕业典礼那一天才发现的。

我想，在全世界的所有专业中，他们也许认为，不会有比研究希腊神话更没用的专业了，根本无法换来一间独立的宽敞卫生间。

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for th eir point of view. ... I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never ex perience 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 o n which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.我要申明，我并不责怪父母。

……他们只是希望我不要过穷日子，我不能批评他们。

他们自己很穷，我后来一度也很穷，所以我很理解他们，贫穷是一种悲惨的经历。

它带来恐惧、压力、有时还有抑郁。

它意味着许许多多的羞辱和艰辛。

靠自己的努力摆脱贫穷，确实让人自豪，但是只有傻瓜才会将贫穷本身浪漫化。

接着，她谈到了自己那些最悲惨的日子：A mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.我毕业后只过了7年，就失败得一塌糊涂。

An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone paren t, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. Th e 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.短命的婚姻闪电般地破裂，我还失业了，成了一个艰难的单身母亲。

除了流浪汉，我是当代英国最穷的人之一，真的一无所有。

我父母对我的担忧，我对自己的担忧，都变成了现实。

用平常人的标准，我是我所知道的最失败的人。

That period of my life was a dark one. 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.那段日子是我生命中的黑暗岁月。

我不知道还要在黑暗中走多久，很长一段时间中，我有的只是希望，而不是现实。

但是，J.K. 罗琳认为，没有那段日子的失败，就不会有后来的她。

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a strip ping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything ot her than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only wor k that mattered to me.为什么我说失败是有好处的？因为失败将那些非本质的东西都剥离了。

我不再伪装自己，我找到了真正的我，我将自己所有的精力，投入完成对我最重要的唯一一项工作。

Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determinatio n to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.要是我以前在其他地方成功了，那么我也许永远不会有这样的决心，投身于这个我自信真正属于我的领域。

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.我自由了，因为我最大的恐惧已经成为现实，而我却还依然活着，依然有一个深爱着的女儿，我还有一台旧打字机和一个大大的梦想。

我生命中最低的低点，成为我重建生活的坚实基础。

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examination s. 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 al so found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.失败使我的内心产生一种安全感，以前通过考试也没有的安全感。

失败让我看清自己，以前我从没认识到自己是这样的。

我发现，我比自己以为的，有更强的意志和决心。

我还发现，我有一些比宝石更珍贵的朋友。

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 painf ully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned. 只有到逆境来临的那一天，你才会真正了解你自己，了解你结识的人。