A Ball to Roll Around滾球

本文的作者羅伯特·奧爾曼是位盲人，他在運動、法律以及體育廣播三個不同的領域都獲得了極大的成功。他認為盲人不應該只從盲人身上尋求安慰，而應該走出家門與世人接觸。本文文字樸實，生動流暢，其間所含的人生哲理對我們頗有啟迪。

I lost my sight when I was four years old by falling off a boxcar in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on my head. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshine and what red color is. It would be wonderful to see again， but a calamity can do strange things to people.

It occurred to me the other day that I might not have come to love life as I do if I hadnt been blind. I believe in life now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply， otherwise. I dont mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that the loss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

Life， I believe， asks a continuous series of adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make these adjustments， the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustment is never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and my teachers saw something in me—a potential to live， you might call it—which I didnt see， and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to believe in myself. That was basic. If I hadnt been able to do that， I would have collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life. When I say belief in myself， I am not talking about simply the kind of self-confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is part of it. But I mean something bigger than that： the assurance that I am， despite imperfections， a real， positive person and that somewhere in the sweeping， intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myself fit.

It took me years to discover and strengthen this assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a man gave me an indoor baseball， I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. “I cant use this，” I said. “Take it with you，” he urged me， “and roll it around.” The words stuck in my head. “Roll it around！” By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me an idea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible： playing baseball. At Philadelphias Overbrook School for the Blind I invented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

All my life I have set ahead of is a series of goals and then tried to reach them， one at a time. I had to learn my limitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildly out of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would fail sometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

四歲那年在大西洋城，我從貨運場的一輛棚車上摔下來，頭先著地，于是雙目失明。現在我已經32歲了，我還模糊地記得陽光是多么燦爛，紅色是多么鮮艷。能恢復視力固然好，但災難也能對人產生奇妙的作用。

幾天前我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或許不會變得像現在這樣熱愛生活。現在我對生活充滿信心，但我不能肯定如果自己視力正常，會不會像現在這樣如此相信生活。這并不意味著我寧愿成為盲人，而只是意味著失去視力使我更加珍惜自己其他方面的能力。

我相信，生活要求人不斷地自我調整以適應現實。一個人愈能及時地進行調整，他的個人世界便愈有意義。調整絕非易事。我曾感到茫然、害怕，但我很幸運，父母和老師在我身上發現了某種東西——可以稱之為活下去的潛力吧——而我自己卻沒有發現。他們激勵我與失明拼搏到底。

我必須學的最艱難的一課就是相信自己，這是基本條件。如果做不到這一點，我的精神就會崩潰，只能坐在門廊前面的搖椅中度過余生。當我提到相信自己時，并不僅僅指要有支撐我獨自走下陌生的樓梯的那種自信，那只是一部分。我指的是比那更重要的事：雖然自身有缺陷，卻堅信自己是一個真正的有進取心的人；堅信在蕓蕓眾生中，在錯綜復雜的格局當中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。

我花了很長時間才樹立并加強這一信念。這要從最基本的事做起。曾經有一個人給我一個室內玩的棒球，我以為他在嘲笑我，我心里很難受。“我不會玩這個。”我說。“你拿去。”他竭力勸我，“在地上滾。”他的話在我腦子里生了根。“在地上滾！”把球放在地上滾，我可以聽見它滾到了哪里。于是我知道了如何去實現一個我曾認為不可能達到的目標：打棒球。在費城的奧弗布魯克盲人學校，我發明了一種很受人歡迎的棒球游戲，我們稱它為地面球。

這輩子我給自己制定了一系列的目標，然后努力去實現它們，一次實現一個。我必須知道自己能力有限。若開始就知道某個目標根本達不到卻硬要去實現，那不會有任何好處，因為那只會帶來失敗的苦果。不過，我有時候做事也會失敗，但一般來說總有進步。