Now the commencement speakers will typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will not do that, and I’ll tell you why.
毕业典礼的致辞者通常会祝你们好运并送上祝福。但我并不打算这样做,原因如下。
From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice.
我希望你们在未来的岁月中,不时遭遇不公对待,这样才会理解公正的价值所在。
I hope that you will suffer betrayal cause that will teach you the importance of loyalty.
愿你们尝到背叛的滋味,这将教会你们领悟忠诚之重要。
Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted.
抱歉,我还希望你们时常会有孤独感,这样你们不会将良朋挚友视为理所当然。
I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not completely deserved either.
愿你们偶尔运气不佳,这样才会意识到机遇在人生中的地位,进而理解你们的成功并非命中注定,别人的失败也不是天经地义。
And when you lose, as you will from time to time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of sportsmanship.
当你们偶然失败时,愿你们受到对手的嘲讽,这才会让你们理解体育精神的重要性。
I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of listening to others. And I hope you will have just enough pain to learn compassion.
愿你们偶尔被人忽视,这样才能学会倾听;愿你们感受足够多的伤痛,这样才能对别人有同情的理解。
Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen. And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability to see the message in your misfortunes.
不管我怎么想,这些都迟早会发生。而你们能否从中获益,取决于你们能否参透这些人生苦难传递的信息。
The commencement speakers are also expected to give some advices. They give grand advice and they give some useful tips. The most common grand advice they give is for you to be yourself. It is an odd piece of advice to give people dressed identically. But you should, you should be your yourself, but you should understand what that means. Unless you are perfect, it does not mean don’t make any changes. The certain things you should not be yourself, you should try to become something better.
毕业典礼的致辞者们习惯给出很多建议,最常见的建议是做自己。但你得明白这其中的意义。如果你并非足够完美,就必须做出改变。这时,你就不能光想着做自己,必须不断自我完善,成为更好的自己。
People say be yourself because they want you to resist impulse conform to what others want you to be. But you can’t be yourself if you don’t learn who you are . And you can’t learn who you are unless you think about it.
别人说’做自己’是希望你抵制按他人意愿随波逐流的冲动。但如果连你自己都不知道自己要成为什么样的人,是不可能’做自己’的。而如果你不思考这些,你也不可能知道自己想成为什么样的人。
The Greek Philosopher Socrates said the unexamined life is not worth living. And while “Just Do it” may be a good model for some things. It’s not a good model when it’s time to figure out how to live your life that is before you.
希腊哲学家苏格拉底说过『未经自省的人生没有意义』。对某些事情而言,just do it 是不错的座右铭,但在你想明白自己想要什么样的人生之前,这个座右铭可不适合你。