【文章內(nèi)容簡(jiǎn)介】 extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.　　然而，畢業(yè)于哈佛大學(xué)這一事實(shí)暗示著你們并不十分熟悉失敗。驅(qū)動(dòng)你們前行的對(duì)于失敗的恐懼可能更為接近對(duì)于成功的渴望。事實(shí)上，你們心目中的失敗很可能與普通人設(shè)想的成功相差無(wú)幾，畢竟你們?cè)趯W(xué)業(yè)上的成功已經(jīng)高到遙不可及?！　∽罱K，我們都要按自己的想法給失敗下一個(gè)定義。但是如果你允許的話，這個(gè)世界會(huì)迫不及待的為你設(shè)定一套標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。因此我覺得，不管按照什么慣行標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，僅僅在畢業(yè)七年之后，我都確確實(shí)實(shí)的失敗了，而且敗得徹徹底底。我那罕見的短暫婚姻走到了盡頭，自己又失業(yè)了。一個(gè)單身母親，淪落到當(dāng)代英國(guó)最為貧困的境地，只不過(guò)還沒到無(wú)家可歸的程度而已。我父母害怕發(fā)生在我身上的事情，我害怕發(fā)生在自己身上的事情，都降臨了。無(wú)論按照什么標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來(lái)看，我都是我所知道的最大的失敗。　　現(xiàn)在，我站在這里，告訴你們失敗可是件一點(diǎn)也不好玩的事情。那個(gè)時(shí)候我的人生被黑暗籠罩，根本想不到在未來(lái)的時(shí)光里這段經(jīng)歷竟會(huì)被報(bào)道為神話般的堅(jiān)定意志。那時(shí)候我不知道黑暗的隧道何時(shí)才是盡頭，而盡頭的任何光亮都像是渺茫的希望而非穩(wěn)固的現(xiàn)實(shí)?！　o why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.　　You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.　　Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected。 I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.　　The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.　　什么我還要談起失敗的好處呢?簡(jiǎn)單的說(shuō)，是因?yàn)槭?huì)為我們揭去表面那些無(wú)關(guān)緊要的東西。我不再裝模作樣，終于重新做回自己，開始將所有的精力投入到自己在意的唯一作品。如果我此前在其它的任何什么方面有所成功，我恐怕都會(huì)失去在自己真正歸屬的舞臺(tái)上獲得成功的決心。我最大的恐懼終于成為現(xiàn)實(shí)，而我卻因此獲得了自由，我還活著，還有我深愛的女兒，我還有一架老式打字機(jī)和一個(gè)宏大的夢(mèng)想。這片頑固的低谷成為我腳下堅(jiān)定的基石，在此之上，我重筑了自己的人生?！　∧銈円苍S不會(huì)像我摔得這樣慘，但是人生路上總會(huì)有些失敗。你也許可以毫無(wú)失敗的度過(guò)一生，但你將活得如此小心翼翼，就好像你幾乎沒有活過(guò)——不管從什么意義上講，你都注定要失敗的?！　∈≠x予我內(nèi)心的安全感，而這是考試及格也不能讓我感受到的。失敗讓我明白關(guān)于自己的一些東西，這是除了失敗以外我決不可能獲得的認(rèn)知。我意識(shí)到自己擁有堅(jiān)強(qiáng)的意志，而且比我以前設(shè)想的還要自律。我還發(fā)現(xiàn)我擁有的朋友們是如此寶貴，其價(jià)值連寶石也不能媲美?！　∧阍诖煺壑谐砷L(zhǎng)，更聰明，更強(qiáng)壯，這意味著從此以后你已擁有了牢不可催的生存能力。直到通過(guò)逆境的考驗(yàn)，你才會(huì)真正了解自己，以及你周圍的人賦予你的力量。這些認(rèn)知都是寶貴的財(cái)富，我歷經(jīng)艱辛才獲得的財(cái)富，這比我得到的任何資格證書都更有價(jià)值。　　Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21yearold self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and plicated, and beyond anyones total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.　　You might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.　　One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working in the research department at Amnesty Internationals headquarters in London.　　There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eyewitness accounts of summar