大學畢業感言2017英文版

　　這讓我恐懼。相比找不到好工作、找不到安定的住所、孤獨終身，我更害怕失去現在我們擁有的小世界。這份模糊不清、難以定義的孤獨的背面。此時此刻我深切體會到的。

　　this scares me. more than finding the right job or city or spouse, i’m scared of losing this web we’re in. this elusive, indefinable, opposite of loneliness. this feeling i feel right now.

　　但讓我們把這點弄清：人生最好的年華不在未來，而是當下——此刻我們的一部分，今后只會不斷地重復，我們搬到紐約，搬出紐約接著后悔我們來過或沒來過紐約。我三十歲時還想開派對。我老了之后還想精彩地活著。任何時候我們提起最好的年華，總離不開那幾個老掉牙的前綴：“早知道就…”“如果我…”“要是我…”

　　but let us get one thing straight: the best years of our lives are not behind us. they’re part of us and they are set for repetition as we grow up and move to new york and away from new york and wish we did or didn’t live in new york. i plan on having parties when i’m thirty. i plan on having fun when i’m old. any notion of the best years comes from clichéd “should have…,” “if i’d…,” “wish i’d…”

　　確實，有很多事我們都后悔沒做：該讀的那些書，那個住在隔壁的男孩。我們對自己相當苛刻，正是為此才這么容易讓自己失望。偶爾睡過頭。偶爾拖延。偶爾投機取巧。我不止一次回想去高中時的自己，不禁感嘆：我怎么可能做成那些事?那么刻苦，我是怎么做到的?內心隱隱的不安全感和我們形影不離，也許會伴隨著我們一生。

　　of course, there are things we wish we’d done: our readings, that boy across the hall. we’re out own hardest critics and it’s easy to let ourselves down. sleeping too late. procrastinating. cutting corners. more than once i’ve looked back on my high school self and thought: how did i do that? how did i work so hard?our private insecurities follow us and will always follow us.

　　但你要明白，我們都不完美。沒人在他們想醒來的時候起床。沒人完成該做的閱讀(除非是那些獲獎的狂人....)我們對自己的要求那么高不可攀，也許一輩子都沒法成為想象中完美的自己。但我們都會平安無事。

　　but the thing is, we’re all like that. nobody wakes up when they want to. nobody did all of their readings (except maybe the crazy people who win prizes….).we have these impossibly high standards and we’ll probably never live up to our perfect fantasies of our future selves. but i feel like that’s okay.

　　我們這么年輕。如此年輕。我們才二十二歲。我們有大把大把的時光。有時我會有這樣的感覺，派對之后孤身一人躺下，或是選擇放棄之后把書本打包走人時，我們都有這樣的感覺——那就是太遲了。別人早已遙遙領先。比我們更有前途，更有潛力。在拯救世界這條路上比我們走得更遠，他們在創造，在改進。現在再開始一個開始實在太遲，因為我們早該堅持下來，早該啟程。

　　we’re so young.we’re so young. we’re twenty-two years old. we have so much time. there’s this sentiment i sometimes sense, creeping in our collective consciousness as we lie alone after a party, or pack up our books when we give in and go out—that it is somehow too late. the others are somehow ahead. more accomplished, more specialized. more on the path to somehow saving the world, somehow creating or inventing or improving. that it’s too late now to begin a beginning and we must settle for continuance, for commencement.

　　我們沒合適的詞來形容孤獨的背面，但如果有，我要說，那就是我的今生所求。那是我在耶魯找到的，我感激的，以及我害怕失去的——明早我們在畢業典禮之后醒來，要離開這片地方的時候。

　　we don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, i could say that’s what i want in life. what i’m grateful and thankful to have found at yale, and what i’m scared of losing when we wake up tomorrow after commencement and leave this place.

　　這感覺說不上是愛，也不是什么同志情懷;只是當你和其他人，許許多多的人一起相互依靠、同舟共濟的感覺。和你在同一戰線上的同學。你坐著等別人去付帳單。某個晚上凌晨四點卻沒人有睡覺的意思。那個聽吉他聲的夜晚。或是什么我們早已記不清的晚上。我們經歷過，走過，看過，笑過，感同身受過。還有畢業典禮上滿天飛舞的帽子。

　　it’s not quite love and its’ not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. who are on your team. when the check is paid and you stay at the table. when it’s four a.m. and no one goes to bed. that night with the guitar. that night we can’t remember. that time we did, we went, we saw, we laughed, we felt. the hats.

　　耶魯滿是我們給自己圍起來的小圈子。合唱團，運動隊，宿舍，兄弟會，課外活動。因為它們我們才感覺到愛，還有極度的信賴，即使在那些最孤獨的深夜，當我們孤身一人踉踉蹌蹌地走回宿舍，再打開電腦奮斗的時候——無依無靠，滿身疲勞，卻清醒無比。明年我們將失去這一切。我們不會再和自己的朋友住在同一棟樓。我們不再會有數不清的群發短信。

　　yale is full of tiny circles we pull around ourselves. a cappella groups, sports teams, houses, societies, clubs. these tiny groups that make us feel loved and safe and part of something even on our loneliest nights when we stumble home to our computers—partnerless, tired, awake. we don’t have those next year. we won’t live on the same block as all our friends. we won’t have a bunch of group texts.