重遇未知的自己（双语魅力美文系列）

2024年4月21日 星期日 祝福早安 天气晴朗 气温15℃ 《重遇未知的自己》 “信仰就像阳光一样，你可以站在一边观察研究阳光的颜色，特质等等。但你只有进入阳光，站在阳光下，才能感受阳光的温暖，才能体会到阳光的意义。” 独处 Solitude I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone; let him be where he will. Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between a man and his fellows. The really diligent student in one of the crowed hives of Cambridge College is as solitary as a dervish in the desert. The farmer can work alone in the field or the woods all day, hoeing or chopping, and not feel lonesome, because he is employed; but when he comes home at night he cannot sit down in a room alone, at the mercy of his thoughts, but must be where he can“see the folks,”and recreate, and as he thinks, remunerate himself for his day’s solitude; and hence he wonders how the student can sit alone in the house all night and most of the day without ennui and“the blues”; but he does not realize that the student, though in the house, is still at work in his field, and chopping in his woods, as the farmer in his, and in turn seeks the same recreation and society that the latter does, though it may be a more condensed form of it. 我发现人若大部分时间用于独处，将有益身心。与人为伴，即使是挚友，也很快会有厌烦或虚度光阴的感觉。我爱独处，我发现没有比独处更好的伴侣了。出国，身在熙攘人群中，要比退守陋室更让人寂寞。心有所想、身有所系的人总是孤身一人，不论他身处何地。独处与否也不是由人与人之间的距离来决定的。在剑桥苦读的学子虽身处蜂巢般拥挤的教室，实际上却和沙漠中的苦行僧一样，是在独处。农人终日耕于田间，伐于山野，此时他虽孤单但并不寂寞，因他专心于工作。但待到他日暮而息，却未必能忍受形影相吊、空有思绪做伴的时光，他必到“可以看见大伙儿”的去处去找乐子，如他所认为的那样以补偿白日里的孤独。因此他无法理解学子如何能竟夜终日独坐而不心生厌倦或倍感凄凉，然而他没意识到，学子虽身在学堂，但心系劳作，他是耕于心田，伐于学林，这正和农人一样，学子在寻求的无非是和他一样的快乐与陪伴，只是形式更简洁罢了。 每个人都是天生的赢家 Born to Win Each human being is born as something new, something that never existed before. Each is born with the capacity to win at life. Each person has a unique way of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and thinking. Each has his or her own unique potentials—capabilities and limitations. Each can be a significant, thinking, aware, and creative being—a productive person, a winner. Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be; rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others, they are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask. 每个人生来就是新的事物，就是前所未有的事物。每个人天生就具备在生活中获取成功的能力。每个人都有自己观察、听闻、触摸、品尝和思考的独特方法。每个人的潜力也各不相同———各有所长也各有局限。每个人都有可能成为一个杰出的、好思考的、头脑清醒而富有想象力的人———成为一个有创造性的人，一个赢家。 赢家不会沉溺于概念之中，想象他们“理当”成为何种人；相反，他们按天性行事，因此，他们不会费神地装模作样，故作姿态，玩弄他人。他们很清楚爱与装爱、傻与装傻、真才实学与故作高深之间的区别。赢家无需用面具掩饰自己。 Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinion and don’t pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others; evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can admire and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound, or awed by them. Winners do not play“helpless”, nor do they play the blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives. They do not give others a false authority over them. Winners are their own bosses and know it. A winner’s timing is right. Winners respond appropriately to the situation. Their responses are related to the message sent and preserve the significance, worth, well-being, and dignity of the people involved. Winners know that for everything there is a reason and for every activity a time. Although winners can freely enjoy themselves, they can also postpone enjoyment; can discipline themselves in the present to enhance their enjoyment in the future. Winners are not afraid to go after what they want, but they do so in appropriate ways. Winners do not get their security by controlling others. They do not set themselves up to lose. 赢家不惧怕独立思考和运用自身的知识。他们既懂得区分事实与观点，又不会装作通晓一切。他们倾听他人意见，品评他人言论，但要得出自己的结论。赢家懂得尊重和敬佩他人，但却不会完全为他人所限制、摧垮、束缚或吓倒。 赢家不会装作可怜，博取同情；也不会怨天尤人，开脱自己。相反，他们承担生活中自己应尽的责任。他们不会给别人名不副实的权威，让别人凌驾于他们之上。赢家主宰着自己的命运，对此他们一清二楚。 赢家善于审时度势，对形势做出恰当的反应，根据所得信息，维护有关人员的地位、价值、利益和尊严。赢家明白，每一样事都事出有因，每一个行动都要恰逢时机。 尽管赢家可以自由地享受生活，但也能够推迟享乐。他们可以在现阶段约束自己，为了将来享受更大的快乐。赢家不惧怕追求心中所想，也不会行为出格。赢家不会通过控制他人来获取自身的安全。他们不会让自己踏上失败之路。 值得思考的事情 Something Worth Thinking About How many times have you heard the expression that most people spend more time planning their vacation than they do planning their lives? I would expand that expression by adding that most people spend more time“thinking”about their vacation than they do thinking about what’s important in their life. While rest and relaxation are a must in living a balanced life, it’s not what we were created to do. After all, the Master Creator took his R&R(Rest and Recreation) on the seventh day, only after six days of“definitely directed thought.”Wallace D. Wattles wrote“There is no labor from which most people shrink as they do from that of sustained and consecutive thought; it is the hardest work in the world.”And yet it is the first and primary labor of achievement. My friend Mike Litman wrote an outstanding article. It’s called“The Millionaire Composite”and it analyzes one of the big differences between super-successful people and everyone else. He writes“I recently visited with a Real Estate Multi Millionaire Mogul. What did I see next to his desk? His vision statement, along with a list of what he values in life—hand written. “A few months back, I interviewed an individual who has sold over a billion dollars worth of products on television. He told me that he reads his life and business vision and goals daily, and that he TAKES TIME to visualize exactly what he wants to create-EACH NIGHT before falling asleep.” 我们多少次听到过这样的论点：大多数人在规划假期上花的时间比他们在规划自己生活上花的时间要多。我为这一观点做了一点延伸：大多数的人在“考虑”假期上花的时间比他们在考虑人生中重要的事情上花的时间要多。 虽然休息和放松是平衡生活方式必需的元素，但是我们并不是为了它们而活着。毕竟，伟大的造物主在前6天用“明确的方向性思考”后，第7天才休息和放松。华莱士D.华佗士写道：“没有任何一种体力劳动能够使大多数人望而却步，但连续不断地持久思考却能做到这一点；它是这世界上最困难的工作。”同时，它也是取得成功首先要做的重要的劳动。 我的朋友迈克里曼写了一篇杰出的文章，名字叫做《百万富翁的构造》，其中分析了超级成功者与其他人的一个重要区别，他写道“我最近拜访了一位房地产界的杰出富翁,你们猜我看见他桌旁放了些什么？写的是他对自己梦想的描述和一张列有生活中值得珍惜之物的清单———都是手写的。 “几个月前，我采访了另一位获得巨大成功的商人，他通过电视节目卖出的产品总价值超过10亿美元。他告诉我：每天他都思考生活和事业中自己的梦想与目标，他花时间将他想要实现的理想在脑海中形象化———每晚睡觉前都这样做。” What is your life’s purpose or your personal mission statement? Is it written down? Do you review it and think about it often? Is your life organized around your purpose and a set of goals that support that purpose? Without purpose and goals—definitely directed thought—you are like the proverbial“ship without a rudder.”There is power in your purpose and in your goals. It is the power that takes you over obstacles, the fuel that propels you toward the life you envision. One of my favorite passages of James Allen is one he wrote in“The Mastery of Destiny”: “All successful people are people of purpose. They hold fast to an idea, a project, a plan, and will not let it go; they cherish it, brood upon it, tend and develop it; and when assailed by difficulties, they refuse to be beguiled into surrender; indeed, the intensity of the purpose increases with the growing magnitude of the obstacles encountered.” And that’s worth thinking about. 你的人生目标和个人使命是什么？你把它们都写下来了吗？你经常回顾并思考它们吗？你的生活是围绕着理想和一系列相关的目标而安排的吗？ 如果没有理想和目标———明确的方向性思考———你就像是俗语说的“一条没有舵的船”那样。理想和目标中蕴含着力量。它是使你越过障碍的力量，它是推动你向美好生活前进的燃料。 在詹姆士·艾伦的文章中，有一段我很喜欢，它摘自《命运的主人》： “所有成功人士都有清晰的理想和目标。他们紧紧把握一个点子，一项工程，或一个计划，绝不让它溜走；珍视它，让它慢慢发芽，呵护它，让它成长；当困难袭来时，他们绝不投降；甚至，追求理想的热情随着遭遇阻碍的强度而愈发增长。” 这是值得我们思索的。 我们的抱负构筑了我们的命运 It Is Ambition That Form Our Own Destiny Here is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events? Now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity. We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about. 有一种盛行的观点认为，成功是一种神话，因此抱负亦属虚幻。这是不是说实际上并不存在成功？成就本身就是一场空？在诸多运动和事件的力量相形之下，男男女女的努力显得微不足道？显然，并非所有的成功都值得景仰，也并非所有的抱负都值得栽培。对值得和不值得的选择，一个人自然而然很快就能学会。 但即使是最为愤世嫉俗的人暗地里也承认，成功确实存在，成就的意义举足轻重，而把世上男男女女的所作所为说成是徒劳无功才是真正的无稽之谈。不相信成功的存在，就等于接纳了一种很可能造成混乱的观点。这种观点的本意是一笔勾销所有提高能力的动机、求取业绩的兴趣和对子孙后代的关注。 我们无法选择出生，无法选择父母，无法选择出生的历史时期与国家，或是成长的周遭环境。我们大多数人都无法选择死亡，无法选择死亡的时间或条件。 但是在这些无法选择之中，我们可以选择自己的生活方式：是勇敢无畏还是胆小怯懦，是光明磊落还是厚颜无耻，是目标坚定还是随波逐流。我们可以决定生活中哪些是至关重要的，哪些是微不足道的。决定生活意义的是我们的所做和所不做。但是不论世间对我们所做的选择和决定有多么漠不关心，这些选择和决定终究是我们自己做出的。 我们决定，我们选择。而当我们做出决定和选择时，我们的生活便得以形成。最终构筑我们命运的就是抱负之所在。