勵志人生英語演講文章
勵志人生英語演講文章
演講作為一種語體,可以追溯到古希臘時期。演講以其獨特的魅力在各個領(lǐng)域比如在科技、法律、政治等方面以及生活中發(fā)揮著很重要的作用。下面是學(xué)習(xí)啦小編帶來的勵志人生英語演講文章,歡迎閱讀!
勵志人生英語演講文章1
I told my wife MacKenzie that I wanted to quit my job and go do this crazy thing that probably wouldn't work since most startups don't, and I wasn't sure what would happen after that. MacKenzie, also a Princeton grad and sitting here in the second row, told me I should go for it. As a young boy, I'd been a garage inventor. I'd invented an automatic gate closer out of cement-filled tires, a solar cooker that didn't work very well, out of an umbrella and aluminum foil, baking-pan alarms to entrap my siblings. I'd always wanted to be an inventor, and she wanted me to follow my passion.
我告訴妻子麥肯琪說我想辭去工作,然后去做這件瘋狂的事情,很可能會失敗,因為大部分創(chuàng)業(yè)公司都是如此,而且我不確定那之后會發(fā)生什么。麥肯琪告訴我,我應(yīng)該放手一搏。她也是從普林斯頓畢業(yè)的,現(xiàn)在就坐在第二排那里。在我還是一個男孩兒的時候,我是車庫發(fā)明家。我曾用水泥填充的輪胎,不太好用的太陽灶,一把雨傘和鋁箔以及用來詐騙兄弟姐妹的報警器制作了一個自動關(guān)門器。我一直想做一個發(fā)明家,麥肯琪支持我追隨內(nèi)心的激情。
I was working at a financial firm in New York City with a bunch of very smart people, and I had a brilliant boss that I much admired. I went to my boss and told him I wanted to start a company selling books on the Internet. He took me on a long walk in Central Park, listened carefully to me, and finally said, "That sounds like a really good idea, but it would be an even better idea for someone who didn't already have a good job."
我當(dāng)時在紐約一家金融公司工作,同事是一群非常聰明的人,我的老板也很有智慧,我很欽佩他。我告訴我的老板說我想開辦一家在網(wǎng)上賣書的公司。他帶我到中央公園漫步良久,認真地聽我講完,最后說:“聽起來真是一個很好的主意,但是對那些目前沒有謀到一份好工作的人來說,這個主意會更好。”
That logic made some sense to me, and he convinced me to think about it for 48 hours before making a final decision. Seen in that light, it really was a difficult choice, but ultimately, I decided I had to give it a shot. I didn't think I'd regret trying and failing. And I suspected I would always be haunted by a decision to not try at all. After much consideration, I took the less safe path to follow my passion, and I'm pround of that choice.
這一邏輯對我而言頗有道理,他說服我在做出最終決定之前再考慮48小時。那樣想來,這個選擇確實很艱難,但是最終,我決定拼一次。我認為自己不會為嘗試后悔,為失敗遺憾,倒是有所決定但完全不付諸行動會一直煎熬著我。在深思熟慮之后,我選擇了那條不太安全的道路,去追隨我內(nèi)心的激情。我為那個決定感到驕傲。
勵志人生英語演講文章2
I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college, and this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today, I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.
很榮幸和你們一起參加世界上最好的一所大學(xué)的畢業(yè)典禮。說實話,我大學(xué)沒畢業(yè),這是我第一次離大學(xué)畢業(yè)這么近。今天,我想給大家講我人生中的三個故事,不談別的,也不講大道理,三個故事就好。
The first story is about connecting the dots.
第一個故事講的是把生命中的點滴串連起來。
I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?
我在里德學(xué)院只讀了六個月就退學(xué)了。此后便在學(xué)校里旁聽,又過了大約一年半,我徹底離開。那么,我為什么退學(xué)了?
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college. This was the start in my life.
這得從我出生前講起。我的生母是一名年輕的未婚在校研究生,她決定將我送給別人收養(yǎng)。她非常希望收養(yǎng)我的是有大學(xué)學(xué)歷的人,所以把一切都安排好了,決定我一出生就將我交給一對律師夫婦收養(yǎng)。沒想到我才剛剛出生,那對夫妻卻決定收養(yǎng)一名女孩。就這樣,我的養(yǎng)父母——他們的名字當(dāng)時還在登記冊上——半夜三更接到一個電話:“我們這兒現(xiàn)在有一個沒人要的男嬰,你們要嗎?”“當(dāng)然要。”他們回答。但是,我的生母后來發(fā)現(xiàn)我的養(yǎng)母不是大學(xué)畢業(yè)生,我的養(yǎng)父甚至高中都沒畢業(yè),所以就拒絕在最后的收養(yǎng)文件上簽字。不過,每過幾個月她就心軟了,因為我的養(yǎng)父母許諾日后一定送我上大學(xué)。這就是我生命的起點。
And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.
十七年后,我真的上了大學(xué)。但是當(dāng)時我幼稚地選了一所學(xué)費幾乎和斯坦福大學(xué)一樣昂貴的學(xué)校,而我的養(yǎng)父母只是工薪階層,他們傾其積蓄為我支付了大學(xué)學(xué)費。過了六個月后,我卻看不出上大學(xué)有什么意義。我既不知道自己這一生想干什么,也不知道念大學(xué)是否能幫我弄明白這一點,而且在那兒我會花光父母一輩子節(jié)省下來的錢。
So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out ok. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.
所以,我決定退學(xué),并堅信日后會證明我這樣做是對的。當(dāng)年做出這個決定時心里很害怕,但現(xiàn)在回想起來,這還真是我有生以來做出的最好的決定之一。一退學(xué),我就可以不再選那些我一點兒都不感興趣的必修課,開始旁聽一些看上去有趣得多的課。
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned coke bottles for the five cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
那種日子一點兒都不浪漫。我沒有宿舍,只能睡在朋友房間的地板上。我去退還可樂瓶,用那五分錢的押金來買吃的。每個星期天晚上我都要步行七英里,走到城那頭的黑爾·科里施納禮堂去吃每周才能享用一次的美餐。我喜歡那里的飯菜。我憑著好奇心和直覺所做的許多事情后來都證明是無價的。我來給大家舉個例子。
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.
當(dāng)時,里德學(xué)院的書法課大概是全國最好的。校園里所有的公告欄和每個抽屜的標(biāo)簽上的字都非常漂亮。因為我已經(jīng)退學(xué),不用正常上課,所以我決定選修書法課,學(xué)學(xué)怎么寫出漂亮的字。
I learned about serif and san-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
我學(xué)習(xí)寫帶短截線和不帶短截線的字體,根據(jù)不同字母組合調(diào)整其間距,并學(xué)習(xí)怎樣把版式調(diào)整得更好。這門課太棒了,既有歷史價值,又有藝術(shù)造詣,這一點科學(xué)就做不到,我覺得它妙不可言。當(dāng)時我并不指望書法在我以后的生活中能有什么使用價值。但是,十年之后,我們在設(shè)計第一臺Macintosh計算機時,它一下子浮現(xiàn)在我眼前。于是,我們把這些東西全都設(shè)計進了Macintosh計算機中。這是第一臺有這么漂亮的文字版式的計算機。要不是我當(dāng)初在大學(xué)里偶然選了這門課,Macintosh計算機絕不會有那么多種印刷字體或間距安排合理的字號。
And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards 10 years later.
要不是 Windows 照搬了 Macintosh, 個人電腦可能不會有這些字體和字號。要是我當(dāng)初沒有退學(xué),我絕不會碰巧選了這門書法課。個人電腦也可能不會有現(xiàn)在這些漂亮的版式了。當(dāng)然,我在大學(xué)里不可能從這些點滴上看到它與將來的關(guān)系,十年之后再回頭看,兩者之間的關(guān)系就非常、非常清楚了。
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever—because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
你們同樣不可能從現(xiàn)在這個點上看到將來;只有回頭看時,才會發(fā)現(xiàn)它們之間的關(guān)系。所以,你們要相信這些點滴遲早會連接在一起。你們必須相信某些東西——勇氣、命運、生命、以及因果報應(yīng),等等。要相信,這些點會為你鋪平前進的道路,會給與你聽從自己的心聲的自信,會引導(dǎo)你走自己的路,然后取得成就。
My second story is about love and loss.
我的第二個故事是關(guān)于好惡與得失。
I was lucky—I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents'garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two ofus in a garage into a two billion dollar company with over 4000 employees. We'd just releasedour finest creation—the Macintosh—a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I gotfired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hiredsomeone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first yearor so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually wehad a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. And so at 30, I was out.And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it wasdevastating.
幸運的是,我在很早的時候就發(fā)現(xiàn)自己喜歡做什么。我在20歲的時候和沃茲(蘋果公司創(chuàng)始人之一)在我父母的車庫里辦起了蘋果公司。我們干的很賣力,十年后,蘋果公司從車庫里只有我們兩個人的小公司發(fā)展成為一個擁有20億美元資產(chǎn)、4,000余名員工的大企業(yè)。那時,我們剛剛推出了我們最好的產(chǎn)品——Macintosh電腦——那是在第9年,我剛滿30歲。可接下來,我被解雇了。你怎么會被自己辦的公司解雇呢?是這樣的,隨著蘋果公司越做越大,我們聘請了一位我認為非常有才華的人和我一起管理公司。在開始的一年多時間里,一切都很順利。可是,隨后我們兩人對公司前景的看法開始出現(xiàn)分歧,最后我們反目了,而董事會站在了他那一邊。所以在30歲那年,我離開了公司,而且這件事鬧得滿城風(fēng)雨。我失去了成年后的整個生活重心,這使我心力交瘁。
I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation ofentrepreneurs down—that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met withDavid Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a verypublic failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowlybegan to dawn on me: I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed thatone bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.
一連幾個月,我真的不知道該怎么辦。我感到自己給老一代的創(chuàng)業(yè)者丟臉了——因為我扔掉了交到自己手里的接力棒。我去見了戴維·帕卡德(惠普公司創(chuàng)始人之一)和鮑勃·諾伊斯(英特爾公司創(chuàng)建者之一),想為把事情搞得這么糟糕說聲道歉。這次失敗弄得沸沸揚揚,我甚至想過逃離硅谷。但是,漸漸地,我開始有了一個想法——我仍然熱愛我過去做的一切。在蘋果公司發(fā)生的這些風(fēng)波絲毫沒有改變這一點。我雖然被拒之門外,但我仍然深愛我的事業(yè)。于是,我決定從頭開始。
I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.
雖然當(dāng)時我并沒有意識到,但事實證明,被蘋果公司炒魷魚是我一生中碰到是最好的事情。盡管前景未卜,但從頭開始的輕松感取代了成功的沉重感。這使我輕松踏入了一生中最富有創(chuàng)造力的時期之一。
During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, and I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.
在此后的五年里,我開了一家名叫NeXT的公司和一家叫皮克斯的公司,我還愛上了一位了不起的女人,后來娶了她。皮克斯公司推出了世界上第一部電腦制作的動畫片《玩具總動員》,它現(xiàn)在是全球最成功的動畫制作室。世道輪回,蘋果公司買下NeXT后,我又回到了蘋果公司,我們在NeXT公司開發(fā)的技術(shù)成了蘋果公司這次重新崛起的核心。我和勞倫娜也建立了美滿的家庭。
I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometime life. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking—and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking, don't settle.
我確信,如果不是被蘋果公司解雇,這一切絕不可能發(fā)生。這是一劑苦藥,可我認為良藥苦口利于病。有時生活會給你當(dāng)頭一棒,但不要灰心。我堅信讓我不斷前行的唯一力量就是我熱愛我所做的一切。所以,我們一定得知道自己喜歡什么,選擇愛人時如此,選擇工作時也如此。工作將是生活中的一大部分,讓自己真正滿意的唯一辦法,是做自己認為有意義的工作。做有意義的工作的唯一辦法,是熱愛自己的工作。如果你們還沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)自己喜歡什么,那就不斷地去尋找,不要急于做出決定。就像一切要憑感覺去做事情一樣,一旦找到了自己喜歡的事,感覺就會告訴你。就像任何一種美妙的東西,歷久彌新。所以說,要不斷尋找,直到找到自己喜歡的東西。不要半途而廢。