怎样面对人生的起起落落 中英文演讲稿

So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight, when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.

几年前，我在肯尼迪机场准备上飞机的时候，有两位女士从后面追上我。我想她们大概不会介意我把她们描述为身材短小、言语粗陋的美籍意大利老大妈。

The taller one, who is like up here, she comes marching up to me, and she goes, "Honey, I gotta ask you something. You got something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately?"

个子高的那个，大概这么高，她向我走来，问道：“亲爱的，我想问你个事儿，你是不是和最近上映的那个什么《美食、祈祷与恋爱》有什么关系？”

And I said, "Yes, I did."

我说，“是的。”

And she smacks her friend and she goes, "See, I told you, I said, that's that girl. That's that girl who wrote that book based on that movie." (Laughter)

然后她拍了拍她的朋友，说道：“对吧，我就说嘛，就是她，就是那个根据电影的故事情节写了本书的女孩。”(众笑)

02

So that's who I am. And believe me, I'm extremely grateful to be that person, because that whole "Eat, Pray, Love" thing was a huge break for me. But it also left me in a really tricky position moving forward,as an author trying to figure out how in the world I was ever going to write a book again that would ever please anybody, because I knew well in advance that all of those people who had adored "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it wasn't going to be "Eat, Pray, Love,".

这就是我。相信我，我还是很感激能成为那样的人，因为出版《美食、祈祷和恋爱》这本书对我来说是一个巨大的突破。但它也让我处于一个非常尴尬的境地，作为一名作家，我试图弄清楚，在这个世界上,我将如何再写一本能让读者青睐的书，因为我非常的清楚，无论我下一本书的内容是什么，那些热爱《美食、祈祷和恋爱》的读者们，都会对我接下来写的东西感到非常失望，因为下一本书一定不会再是《美食、祈祷和恋爱》。

And all of those people who had hated "Eat, Pray, Love" were going to be incredibly disappointed in whatever I wrote next because it would provide evidence that I still lived. So I knew that I had no way to win, and knowing that I had no way to win made me seriously consider for a while just quitting the game and moving to the country to raise corgis.

而所有那些讨厌《美食、祈祷和恋爱》的读者们也都会无比失望，无论我接下来写的是什么。因为他们会失望的发现我还活的好好地。所以我知道怎么做都无法两全其美。当我开始意识到这一点时，我很认真的考虑过，要不要就此封笔，搬到乡下养养狗退休算了。

But if I had done that, if I had given up writing, I would have lost my beloved vocation, so I knew that the task was that I had to find some way to gin up the inspiration to write the next book regardless of its inevitable negative outcome. In other words, I had to find a way to make sure that my creativity survived its own success. And I did, in the end, find that inspiration, but I found it in the most unlikely and unexpected place. I found it in lessons that I had learned earlier in life about how creativity can survive its own failure.

但如果我真的那样做了，如果我放弃写作，我将会失去所热爱的职业生涯。所以我很清楚应该做什么，就是要想办法重新激发灵感，继续写新书，不去在意会收到怎样的负面评价。换句话说，我必须努力的找到一条出路，确保我成功之后依旧保持创造力。最终，我做到了，我找到了灵感，但，是在我最不可能也最意想不到的地方找到了灵感。这其实是源于我早年失败时如何保持创造力的经验。

03

So just to back up and explain, the only thing I have ever wanted to be for my whole life was a writer. I wrote all through childhood, all through adolescence, by the time I was a teenager I was sending my very bad stories to The New Yorker, hoping to be discovered. After college, I got a job as a diner waitress, kept working, kept writing, kept trying really hard to get published, and failing at it.

让我稍微重复一下，成为一名作家是我一生中唯一想从事的职业。我写了整个童年，整个青少年时期，到我十几岁的时候，就已经把写的不怎么样的故事寄给了《纽约客》，希望能被编辑发现。大学毕业后，我找到了一份饭馆服务员的工作，继续写作，一直努力争取出版，但却连续遭遇了失败。

I failed at getting published for almost six years. So for almost six years, every single day, I had nothing but rejection letters waiting for me in my mailbox. And it was devastating every single time, and every single time, I had to ask myself if I should just quit while I was behind and give up and spare myself this pain. But then I would find my resolve, and always in the same way, by saying, "I'm not going to quit, I'm going home."

大概有六年的时间，一直不断的被出版社拒绝。因此，那六年来的每一天，除了我邮箱里收不完的拒绝信，我一无所有。每一个这样的时刻都非常煎熬，每一次，我都要问自己，是不是应该放弃，让自己不要再这么痛苦下去了。但是我又总是立刻就找回了我的决心，并且总是以同样的方式，对自己说“我不会放弃的，我要回家。”

And you have to understand that for me, going home did not mean returning to my family's farm. For me, going home meant returning to the work of writing because writing was my home, because I loved writing more than I hated failing at writing, which is to say that I loved writing more than I loved my own ego, which is ultimately to say that I loved writing more than I loved myself. And that's how I pushed through it.

这里你们需要明白一点，对我来说，回家并不意味着回到我家的农场。对我而言，回家意味着回回去继续写作的意思，因为写作就是我的家，因为对写作的热爱，远大于被拒绝带给我