Don’t Mind Looking Like a Failure at Ivy League1 Class Reunion常春藤同學聚會：不介意是個失敗者

文/瑪麗·斯坦 譯/湯瑋健 審訂/仇蓓玲

By Marie Stein

Middle-aged, unemployed, single and my money spent, I’m an utter failure in comparison to many of my college peers.

[2] I graduated from an elite university in the 1980s. My class of approximately 1550 has generated a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a World Bank chief, a few ambassadors, at least one current governor and several mayors. I know former classmates who are university presidents, hedge fund managers, college professors, CEOs and so on.

[3] What a load of over-achievers!

[4] Meanwhile, the rest of us remain uncelebrated, absent from the public eye, not courted by private bankers,nosy paparazzi, respected charities,luxury real estate agents or art auction houses.

人到中年，孤身一人，沒有工作，也沒有積蓄，和我的許多大學同學比起來，我是個徹頭徹尾的失敗者。

[2] 1980年代，我從一所精英大學畢業。與我同屆畢業的約有1550人，其中有一位諾貝爾獎得主、一位普利策獎得主、一位世界銀行高層、若干位大使、至少一位在任州長和若干位市長，我也知道以前的同班同學中現在擔任大學校長、對沖基金經理、大學教授或者公司高管的大有人在。

[3]成功人士如此之多！

[4]與此同時，我們余下的同學默默無聞，遠離公眾視野，既不受私人銀行家青睞，也不被狗仔隊跟蹤，知名慈善機構、豪宅經紀或者藝術品拍賣行更不會關注我們。

[5]一個人畢業之后的成就，通常用所獲學歷、階層等級、公司頭銜、上雜志封面次數、社交媒體受歡迎度以及財富的多少來衡量。在精英大學的校友聚會上，只有知名校友的故事才能得到關注，大家在竊竊私語中交流著知名校友的輝煌事跡。在同學們的巨大成就面前，我們又怎能不感到自己是個失敗者呢？

[6] 19世紀丹麥哲學家克爾凱郭爾在自己的故事《地里的百合與空中的飛鳥》中提出過同樣的問題。

[7]故事中，克爾凱郭爾描寫了一只喜歡和百合說八卦的小鳥。這只鳥有個壞習慣，總愛“或真或假地敘說其他地方有大片更加絢麗多彩的百合花”。小鳥講述的故事讓百合十分困擾，因為與小鳥奇妙故事里那些更加絢麗的百合相比，它實在是太微不足道了，它甚至懷疑自己配不配叫作百合花。

[8]在比較帶來的痛苦之下，苦惱的人最終迷失了自己，甚至忘記了自己也是一個人。

[9]無比絕望中，他說服自己，他與別人不一樣，他甚至懷疑自己還是不是真正意義上的“人”。就好像百合覺得自己太渺小，以至于不知道究竟自己還能不能被稱為百合花。

[5] Post-graduate achievement is usually measured in degrees earned and awarded, class rankings, corporate titles, magazine covers and social media popularity, and money made. At elite institutions’ alumni gatherings,the bar for storytelling is set high,with summary biographies of our most luminous graduates shared in hushed murmurs. How can we compare ourselves to our peers’ stupendously visible achievements and not think ourselves failures?

[6] In the 1800s, Danish philosopher S?ren Kierkegaard2索倫·阿拜·克爾凱郭爾，19世紀丹麥著名哲學家。addressed the same question with his own story: “The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air.”

[7] In it, Kierkegaard describes a little bird that loves to gossip to its friend the lily. The bird, he writes, has a bad habit of saying “all sorts of things, true and untrue,about other places where lilies far more splendid were found in great abundance.”The listening lily, in turn, becomes troubled. Seeing its own unsplendid existence in comparison to the bird’s fantastic tales of other and better lilies, the lily begins to doubt whether it deserves to call itself a lily at all.

[8] In the distress of comparison, the troubled person may go at last so far that in view of the difference he forgets that he is a man.

[9] In despair, he conceives himself so different from other men, that he even conceives he is different from what is meant by being a man, just as the lily was so inconspicuous that it was questionable if it was really a lily.

[10] In other words, it’s not just painful to doubt. To measure success in any way but from the inside is to rock the foundations of your identity.

[11] Most of us are already busy enough trying to get by.

[10]換句話說，懷疑自己不僅痛苦，任何不從內部價值評價成功的行為都是在動搖自己身份的根基。

[11]我們中的大多數人都在忙著勉強度日。

[12]我們忙著應付日常生活的各種現實問題，日復一日，學著變通，偶爾也會堅持到底。我們可以用一次考試或者一項提案來比較自己的表現，但是把自己和別人相比來檢驗自己是不是成功人士，這不僅沒意義，也很令人討厭。

[13]我們很多人獲得的都不是顯而易見的成功，獲得財富成就的人大多是極其幸運的，但他們在感情上不一定也有那么好的運氣?，F在，許多人終于明白，不管工作多么努力，有多么聰明，運氣在“成功”中的作用遠比想象中大。

[14]我的一些同學，他們取得的偉大成就也許將永遠不被人知曉或追捧，另外一些同學，他們最好、最成功、成果最多的時刻尚未到來。還有一些同學，他們一直在黑暗中苦苦掙扎，還能活著就很開心。

[12] We’re busy with the practical tasks of everyday living, doing and redoing, learning and changing, and sometimes staying the course. We might compare our performance on an examination, or a recent grant proposal;but to compare ourselves against others in the totality of being a successful adult is odious and futile.

[13] Many of us are not the kind of successful that’s easy to see. Many of us who have enjoyed financial success were extremely fortunate, but perhaps not so lucky in love. Many of us understand now that no matter how hard you work or how brilliant you might be,luck has far more to do with “success”than one might imagine.

[14] There may be a few of us in my graduating class who have achieved great things that won’t ever be known or celebrated. There are those of us whose best, most successful and most fruitful years are yet to come. There are those of us who have struggled with darkness and who are very, very happy to simply still be here.

[15] I am extraordinarily grateful for the experiences I have had and I am absurdly proud of what many of my college friends and acquaintances have achieved and continue to achieve,whether they are famous and obviously successful, or not.

[16] The truth is, at a college reunion,the most glamorous resumes are an afterthought; they crystallize only after conversations about where we live,who we love, about our health and our shared memories—of each other and of the institution we made our own, in four years together.

[17] Those best stories and legends are rarely about success or failure; they’re about us, just as we were and are. When I look at my college class, I don’t see successes and failures—I see example after example of the astonishingly rich and diverse human experience. ■

[15]我對自己曾經的經歷心存感激，無論我的同學們是否有名氣，是不是公認的成功人士，我都為他們過去和未來的成就驕傲。

[16]事實上，大學同學聚會上最光彩奪目的經歷是大家交談過后的回味，是與老同學分享我們的近況——住址、所愛之人、健康狀況——以及回憶大學四年同窗情誼后感情的升華。

[17]這些最棒的傳奇和故事同過去的我們有關，也和現在的我們有關，但很少涉及成敗。我看著我的大學同學，看到的不是成功者和失敗者，而是一個個經歷豐富且各有不同的鮮活的人。 □