ted演讲稿2023（精选26篇）
长大以后，我只能奔跑，一边失去，一边在寻找，明天你好，即使含着泪微笑。——题记
青岛一五年的第一场雪在一中校园里纷飞，我独自站在窗口望那“鹅毛”纷纷落落，心无感触似是无稽之谈，但是要我说出那其中的感触，我只能笑而不语。不是一个人独行惯了才独自赏雪，只是认为唯有一人才能体会到一片雪花飘荡在这万千孤独的迷茫。路漫漫，及行迷之未远，归。
喧闹的环境伴随着阶梯教室那扇门打开而渐渐平息。我望着一身材平平的男人向我们走来，在无尽的掌声中向我们鞠躬，那瞬间我是木讷的，为什么如此成功之人会这般谦逊，我眯起眼，妄想从其中汲取些许。身边的朋友无一不被外籍校长抓住了眼球，而我的目光一直停留在他的身上未曾离去。随着讲座的开始，那段往事渐渐地浮现在我们的眼前。听他讲到那坎坷崎岖的路程，我的眉头不由紧皱，心也随之触痛。的确!谁能想象到一双弹钢琴的手竟然曾经承担过这般的苦痛!董荣璨博士轻松的言语讲述着他在外奔波的三十年，而那些经历牵动着台下的我们每一个人的心。还好，一切的一切都是有用的，他成为了伟大的作曲家，钢琴家，艺术家，一个大写的中国人!
崇敬在我的眼眶流露，只是隔着那遥远的距离而无法传达，那炙热的情感流露无一不表达着我对他的敬仰之情!一曲现场创作像一股暖流涌向心头，简单的音符在他的手指下编织成婉转、悠扬的曲子，飘到我们的心中飘到我们的灵魂里!我的手指不由随着节奏敲打着桌面，用心去感受其中的情感。一曲《梁祝》回荡在耳旁，其中蕴含着的是三十多年的心血和汗水，满满的感情流露让我的内心有所触动，也许那天收获的不仅仅是听觉的盛宴，也是满满的内心感动。
临近一五年的尾声，忙忙碌碌的自己也似乎找到了目标。内心怀着那份信仰，马不停蹄地走着。不做无庸的事，不做无庸的人。时光荏苒，却冲刷不掉我内心怀揣的前进的激情;白驹过隙，只希望留下的是美好的回忆。怀揣着这份信念前进，让我强忍住泪水，高昂着头前进。我不畏艰难困苦，只望见了黎明的一缕曙光便会前行，那等待我的必定是我的信仰，在最后的最后，我们会相拥，拥抱明天!
我不是作曲家，无法用跳跃的音符谱写深情;我不是钢琴家，我不会用流畅的乐章流露传情;我不是艺术家，无法用高端的美展现自己。但是我心怀理想又怎么肯轻易折服?负面、消极的全都抛之脑后，趁现在，努力给自己“艺术人生”!
长大以后，我开始奔跑，即使含着泪微笑，但不远处的斑斓星光在闪烁，那便是我的信念，明天你好!
I grew up diagnosed as phobically shy,
我从小就有社交恐惧症
and like at least 20 other people in a room of this size,
这样的空间 大约20人
I was a stutterer.
就能让以前的我结巴语塞
Do you dare raise your hand?
更别提举手了 根本不可能
And it sticks with us.
这种困扰如影随形
It really does stick with us,
你走到哪 它就跟到哪
because when we are treated that way,
当大家对你的存在视若无睹
we feel invisible sometimes,
你会开始感觉自己是隐形人
or talked around and at.
而别人都在你背后窃窃私语
And as I started to look at people,
后来我仔细去观察周遭的人
which is mostly all I did,
一直以来我都只敢默默观察
I noticed that some people really wanted attention
然后发现有些人无法忍受被忽视
and recognition.
他们要得到大家的注意力和认同
Remember, I was young then.
当时我年轻、懵懂
So what did they do? What we still do perhaps too often?
渴望注意力的人会做什么? 也许现在太多人在做一样的事而不自知
We talk about ourselves.
他们谈论的常常都是自己
And yet there are other people I observed who had what I called a mutualitymindset.
但另一批人就不同了 我说他们的人际关系 往往有一种“互相”的心态
In each situation, they found a way to talk about us and create that “us”idea.
无论什么场合 他们的谈话里都会出现“我们”这个概念
So my idea to reimagine the world is to see it one where we all becomegreater opportunity-makers with and for others.
在我心目中的理想世界 每个人都能为自己和别人创造机会
There’s no greater opportunity or call for action for us now
就是现在 我们必须把握良机、采取行动
than to become opportunity-makers who use best talents together more oftenfor the greater good
多去整合各种才能 尽可能的利益他人
and accomplish things we couldn’t have done on our own.
一人做不到的 多人或许有办法
And I want to talk to you about that,
这就是我今天的重点
cause even more than giving,
比单纯给予
even more than giving,
施舍、捐赠更有影响力的
is the capacity for us to do something smarter together
就是人们学会集思广益
for the greater good that lifts us both up
共同合作 创造双赢局面
and that can scale.
其中的利益会一层层积累
That’s why I’m sitting here.
这是我今天演讲的重点
But I also want to point something else out.
不过我还想说一件事
Each one of you is better than anybody else at something.
台下的你必定在某些事上比其他人都拿手
That disproves that popular notion that if you’re the smartest person inthe room,
和那句名言“你绝不是这里最厉害的人”
you’re in the wrong room.
恰恰相反
So let me tell you about a Hollywood party I went to a couple yearsback,
我在几年前的一个好莱坞聚会上
and I met this up-and-coming actress,
遇见了位有潜力的女演员
and we were soon talking about something that we both felt passionatelyabout,
我们很快就找到共同话题-
public art.
公共艺术
And she had the fervent belief that every new building in Los Angeles
她坚信洛杉矶的每栋建筑里
should have public art in it. She wanted a regulation for it,
都应该有公共艺术 她想要一套专属公共艺术的规范
and she fervently started,
所以她兴忡忡的着手进行
What is here from Chicago?
这里有谁是芝加哥人吗?
She fervently started talking about these bean-shaped reflective sculpturesin Millennium Park,
她滔滔不绝的说着千禧公园里的云门雕塑
and people would walk up to it
人们好奇的上前一探究竟
and they’d smile in the reflection of it,
看着自己的映像微笑
and they’d pose and they’d vamp and they’d take selfies together
摆pose、赞叹、自拍留念
and they’d laugh.
然后笑成一团
And as she was talking, a thought came to my mind.
听着听着 我突然灵光乍现
I said, “I know someone you ought to meet.
我告诉她: “妳应该见见这个人
He’s getting out of San Quentin in a couple of weeks
再几周他就要从圣昆丁州立监狱出来了
and he shares your fervent desire that art should engage and enable peopleto connect.”
他跟妳一样 觉得艺术应该让人有共鸣、激发想像力”
He spent five years in solitary,
他被单独监禁了五年
and I met him because I gave a speech at San Quentin,
我因为在圣昆丁演讲 而与他结识
and he’s articulate
他口条不错
and he’s rather easy on the eyes
长的也不赖
because he’s buff. He had workout regime he did everyday.
因为他是条热爱健身的汉子
I think she was following me at that point.
女演员大概还满有兴趣的
I said, “he’d be an une_pected ally.”
我又说: “他会是个得力助手”
And not just that. There’s James. He’s an architect
除了他之外 我把詹姆也拉进来 詹姆是建筑师
and he’s a professor,
也是个教授
and he loves place-making, and place-making is when you have thosemini-plazas
他对地方营造很有兴趣 外头的小广场、
and those urban walkways
城市人行道
and where they’re dotted with art,
任何有艺术点缀的地方 都属于地方营造的范畴
where people draw and come up and talk sometimes.
许多人会在那儿画画、闲聊
I think they’d make good allies.
我想他们一定能合作无间
And indeed they were.
果真没错
They met together. They prepared.
他们碰面之后 就开始筹备
They spoke in front of the Lost Angeles City Council.
到洛杉矶市政府传达诉求
And the council members not only passed the regulation,
结果市议员通过了他们订的条例
half of them came down and asked to pose with them afterwards.
之后甚至半数议员还去与艺术品合影
They were startling, compelling and credible.
他们给人的印象是震慑、具说服力、可靠
You can’t buy that.
全都是用钱买不到的
What I’m asking you to consider is what kind of opportunity-makers we mightbecome,
希望各位想想自己能成为哪种机会制造者
because more than wealth
比财富、
or fancy titles
头衔、
or a lot of contacts,
人脉更可观的
it’s our capacity to connect around each other’s better side and bring itout.
是我们发掘他人优点的能力
And I’m not saying this is easy,
这一点都不容易
and I’m sure many of you have made the wrong moves too about who you wantedto connect with,
相信许多人都有找错对象、牵错线的经验
but what I want to suggest is, this is an opportunity.
但毕竟都是个“机会”
I started thinking about it way back when I was a Wall Street Journalreporter and I was in Europe
这个领悟要从好几年前说起 当时我在欧洲 担任华尔街日报记者
and I was supposed to cover trends and trends that transcended business orpolitics or lifestyle.
采访内容为时尚与流行 跨越商业、政治、生活型态隔阂的流行
So I had to have contacts in different worlds very different than mine,
因此得和背景截然不同的人打交道
because otherwise you couldn’t spot the trends.
否则就无法掌握潮流走向
And third, I had to write a story in a way stepping into the reader’sshoes,
写故事时 还得设身处地为读者想
they could see how these trends could affect their lives.
要让他们觉得自己和这些潮流息息相关
That’s what opportunity-makers do.
这就是机会制造者的任务
And here’s a strange thing:
奇怪之处在于
Unlike an increasing number of Americans who are working and living andplaying with people who think e_actly like them
越来越多人工作、生活、娱乐都喜欢寻找与自己相似的人
because we then become more rigid and e_treme,
久而久之就变得挑剔、极端起来
opportunity-makers are actively seeking situations with people unlikethem,
机会制造者寻找与自己不相似的人
and they’re building relationships,
和他们建立关系
and because they do that,
这样做的话
they have trusted relationships where they can bring the right team in
两方之间就有互信 能在适当的时机介绍彼此适当的人
and recruit them to solve a problem better and faster and seize moreopportunities.
用更快、更好的方法解决问题 同时也抓住了更多机会
They’re not affronted by differences.
机会创造者不会被歧异冒犯
They’re fascinated by them,
反而深受吸引
and that is a huge shift in mindset,
这是心态上的极端不同
and once you feel it, you want it to happen a lot more.
你一旦意识到 就会为它的魅力着迷
This world is calling out for us to have a collective mindset,
和别人形成“共同体”才是王道
and I believe in doing that.
我个人深信
It’s especially important now.
携手合作在这世代特别重要
Why is it important now?
为什么呢?
Because things can be devised like drones
机器小帮手
and drugs and data collection,
药物开发、数据收集
and they can be devised by more people.
都可以让更多人参与其中
and cheaper ways for beneficial purposes
用更经济的方式创造收益
and then, as we know from the news every day, they can be used fordangerous ones.
只是水能载舟 亦能复舟 也可能被有心人士利用
It calls on us, each of us, to a higher calling.
这个理念非常需要大家的重视
But here’s the icing on the cake:
成为机会制造者是一箭双雕
It’s not just the first opportunity that you do with somebody else that’sprobably your greatest,
除了获得和更高竿对象合作的机会
as an institution or an individual.
无论对于机构或个人来说
It’s after you’ve had that e_perience and you trust each other.
都是开启了这扇门 建立信任后
It’s the une_pected things that you devise later on you never could havepredicted.
团队合作带来的惊人成果
For e_ample, Marty is the husband of that actress I mentioned,
麦迪是那位女演员的丈夫
and he watched them when they were practicing,
詹姆等三人排练时 他就在旁边看
and he was soon talking to Wally, my friend the e_-con,
并很快和韦利聊开了 就是刚出狱的那位
about that e_ercise regime.
大概在聊健身吧?
And he thought, I have a set of racquetball courts.
麦迪心想: “我有个壁球馆
That guy could teach it. A lot of people who work there are members at mycourts.
韦利可以来当教练 很多教练都是体育馆的会员
They’re frequent travelers.
他们很常来我这边
They could practice in their hotel room, no equipment provided.
旅馆房间里没有设备 也照样能练习”
That’s how Wally got hired.
韦利就这样得到了板球教练的工作
Not only that, years later he was also teaching racquetball.
几年后他也开始教壁球学生
Years after that, he was teaching the racquetball teachers.
再过了几年则是教壁球老师
What I’m suggesting is, when you connect with people
我想说的是 当你把周遭有相同兴趣、
around a shared interest and action,
喜好的人圈在一块
you’re accustomed to serendipitous things happening into the future,
就会逐渐适应随之而来、意想不到的收获
and I think that’s what we’re looking at.
我想这才是至关重要
We open ourselves up to those opportunities,
面对机会 我们敞开心胸
and in this room are key players and technology,
关键推手-这里的你们 再加上科技
key players who are uniquely positioned to do this,
每个人各司其职 有自己的位置
to scale systems and projects together.
提升制度和计划的整体价值
So here’s what I’m calling for you to do. Remember the three traits ofopportunity-makers.
我想拜讬大家的 就是记得机会制造者的三项特质
Opportunity-makers keep honing their top strength
一、机会制造者不断磨练自己专长
and they become pattern seekers.
开拓事物运作的新方式
They get involved in different worlds than their worlds
二、他们乐于接触不同人的世界
so they’re trusted and they can see those patterns,
获取信任 学习各种合作方式
and they communicate to connect around sweet spots of shared interest.
三、他们周旋于各方之间 让参与的人都分一杯羹
So what I’m asking you is, the world is hungry.
我想说的是 人与人之间太缺乏连结
I truly believe, in my firsthand e_perience,
根据亲身经验 我相信
the world is hungry for us to unite together as opportunity-makers
这世界很需要机会制造者
and to emulate those behaviors as so many of you already do, I know thatfirsthand,
可能台下的你已经是其中之一 大家都应该效仿机会制造者
and to reimagine a world where we use our best talents together
重塑我们的世界 融合各领域人才
more often to accomplish greater thing together than we could on ourown.
一人不能做的事 借由合作来完成
Just remember,
请把这句话放在心上
as Dave Liniger once said,
大卫˙林杰说过
“You can’t succeed coming to the potluck with only a fork.”
“只带一只叉子就来百乐餐的人 永远无法成功”(注: 后衍伸为商业成长需要集体合作、贡献)
Thank you very much.
谢谢大家
Thank you.
谢谢。
尊敬的老师、同学们：
大家好!
很多年以前，我曾经说过，时间可以改变一切。
看着那些老旧的照片，感觉好像还是活在过去，想着想着……如今，也回不到从前了，也听不到那欠扁的笑容了，其实，我以为一辈子都不会忘记的事情就在我们念念不忘的日子里，而被我遗忘了，努力想记起你们的名字，却是徒然，真的记不起了……
岁月如流水，转瞬之间，又是一年过去了。以前习惯了嘻嘻哈哈、笑容满面的我，现在时常稍作停顿，时而顾盼，时而思考，一路走来，不断的思考，不少的烦恼，也不愿错过每一处风景。时间的力量，不仅在于它可以让你重新审视这个世界，而且是一种解药可以冲淡回忆。不愿记起的、快乐的、难以释怀的、所有的记忆。也可以把人的思维方式也全盘更新一遍。突然有一天，回头再找寻原来的我，才发现我已非我。
在家的日子就是那么无聊、那么无奈。只是吃好睡好、但是同样的24小时就很难熬。每天都是傻乎乎在家发呆，在家也想了很多以前悔恨的事，走过的、路过的、玩过的……都留下我那悔恨的足迹……现在，我就要做一个全新的我，也不再是以前的我，而是“少说话，多办事”“……”的我。一切不幸之事随着时间而覆盖……
每个人都是一道靓丽的风景线，但世界不会为你而改变，环境也不会主动去适应我们自己。因而，我们只能去改变自己，去适应环境，进而取得成功。
改变自己，方可以意志的血滴和拼搏的汗水酿成历久弥香的琼浆，方可以不凋的希望和不灭的梦想编织绚丽辉煌的彩虹，方可以永恒的执着和顽强的韧力筑起固若金汤的铁壁铜墙。
in a funny, rapid-fire 4 minutes, ale_is ohanian of reddit tells thereal-life fable of one humpback whale's rise to web stardom. the lesson ofmister splashy pants is a shoo-in classic for meme-makers and marketers in thefacebook age.
这段有趣的4分钟演讲，来自 reddit 网站创始人 ale_isohanian。他讲了一个座头鲸在网上一夜成名的真实故事。“溅水先生”的故事是脸书时代米姆(小编注：根据《牛津英语词典》，meme被定义为：“文化的基本单位，通过非遗传的方式，特别是模仿而得到传递。”)制造者和传播者共同创造的经典案例。
演讲的开头，ale_is ohanian介绍了“溅水先生”的故事。“绿色和平”环保组织为了阻止日本的捕鲸行为，在一只鲸鱼体内植入新片，并发起一个为这只座头鲸起名的活动。“绿色和平”组织希望起低调奢华有内涵的名字，但经过reddit的宣传和推动，票数最多的却是非常不高大上的“溅水先生”这个名字。经过几番折腾，“绿色和平”接受了这个名字，并且这一行动成功阻止了日本捕鲸活动。
演讲内容节选(ale_ ohanian 从社交网络的角度分析这个事件)
and actually, redditors in the internet community were happy toparticipate, but they weren't whale lovers. a few of them certainly were. butwe're talking about a lot of people who were just really interested and reallycaught up in this great meme, and in fact someone from greenpeace came back onthe site and thanked reddit for its participation. but this wasn't really out ofaltruism. this was just out of interest in doing something cool.
事实上，reddit的社区用户们很高兴参与其中，但他们并非是鲸鱼爱好者。当然，他们中的一小部分或许是。我们看到的是一群人积极地去参与到这个米姆(社会活动)中，实际上“绿色和平”中的人登陆 ，感谢大家的参与。网友们这么做并非是完全的利他主义。他们只是觉得做这件事很酷。
and this is kind of how the internet works. this is that great big secret.because the internet provides this level playing field. your link is just asgood as your link, which is just as good as my link. as long as we have abrowser, anyone can get to any website no matter how big a budget you have.
这就是互联网的运作方式。这就是我说的秘密。因为互联网提供的是一个机会均等平台。你分享的链接跟他分享的链接一样有趣，我分享的链接也不赖。只要我们有一个浏览器，不论你的财富几何，你都可以去到想浏览的页面。
the other important thing is that it costs nothing to get that contentonline now. there are so many great publishing tools that are available, it onlytakes a few minutes of your time now to actually produce something. and the costof iteration is so cheap that you might as well give it a go.
另外，从互联网获取内容不需要任何成本。如今，互联网有各种各样的发布工具，你只需要几分钟就可以成为内容的提供者。这种行为的成本非常低，你也可以试试。
and if you do, be genuine about it. be honest. be up front. and one of thegreat lessons that greenpeace actually learned was that it's okay to losecontrol. the final message that i want to share with all of you -- that you cando well online. if you want to succeed you've got to be okay to just losecontrol. thank you.
如果你真的决定试试，那么请真挚、诚实、坦率地去做。“绿色和平”在这个故事中获得的教训是，有时候失控并不一定是坏事。最后我想告诉你们的是——你可以在网络上做得很好。如果你想在网络上成功，你得经得起一点失控。谢谢。
春天到了，青蛙又开始“呱呱”地唱歌了，我发现又有人在田野里开始捕捉青蛙了，使青蛙成为那些人的“盘餐中”，我感到非常痛心。
青蛙是动物世界中最出色的“庄稼的保护神”。它头上那两只圆而突出的眼睛，能让它看清庄稼天敌，但捉害虫全靠它又长又宽的舌头，舌根长口腔的前面，舌尖向那么一伸，快速地伸长长的舌头，一下子把害虫粘住，然后吃掉。青蛙的背上有绿色的深色花纹，腹部是白色，能帮它逃脱天敌血盆大口。身体下面有四条腿，前腿短，后腿长。青蛙是两栖动物，不仅能在地上跳，而且也能在水里游。
青蛙吃苍蝇，蚊子，蝗虫，小飞娥等害虫，一天大约能吃掉120只，半年下来就能吃掉15000只，这是多么大的功劳哇!就连青蛙的幼虫 ------蝌蚪也能消灭许多害虫哩!真不愧“庄稼的保护神”，农民伯伯的好助手呀!
从现在开始，我们一起保护“庄稼的保护神”------ 青蛙吧!让我们共同保护[动物]生态平衡!
my subject today is learning. and in that spirit, i want to spring on youall a pop quiz. ready? when does learning begin? now as you ponder thatquestion, maybe you're thinking about the first day of preschool orkindergarten, the first time that kids are in a classroom with a teacher. ormaybe you've called to mind the toddler phase when children are learning how towalk and talk and use a fork. maybe you've encountered the zero-to-threemovement, which asserts that the most important years for learning are theearliest ones. and so your answer to my question would be: learning begins atbirth.
well today i want to present to you an idea that may be surprising and mayeven seem implausible, but which is supported by the latest evidence frompsychology and biology. and that is that some of the most important learning weever do happens before we're born, while we're still in the womb. now i'm ascience reporter. i write books and magazine articles. and i'm also a mother.and those two roles came together for me in a book that i wrote called"origins." "origins" is a report from the front lines of an e_citing new fieldcalled fetal origins. fetal origins is a scientific discipline that emerged justabout two decades ago, and it's based on the theory that our health andwell-being throughout our lives is crucially affected by the nine months wespend in the womb. now this theory was of more than just intellectual interestto me. i was myself pregnant while i was doing the research for the book. andone of the most fascinating insights i took from this work is that we're alllearning about the world even before we enter it.
when we hold our babies for the first time, we might imagine that they'reclean slates, unmarked by life, when in fact, they've already been shaped by usand by the particular world we live in. today i want to share with you some ofthe amazing things that scientists are discovering about what fetuses learnwhile they're still in their mothers' bellies.
first of all, they learn the sound of their mothers' voices. because soundsfrom the outside world have to travel through the mother's abdominal tissue andthrough the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus, the voices fetuses hear,starting around the fourth month of gestation, are muted and muffled. oneresearcher says that they probably sound a lot like the the voice of charliebrown's teacher in the old "peanuts" cartoon. but the pregnant woman's own voicereverberates through her body, reaching the fetus much more readily. and becausethe fetus is with her all the time, it hears her voice a lot. once the baby'sborn, it recognizes her voice and it prefers listening to her voice over anyoneelse's.
how can we know this? newborn babies can't do much, but one thing they'rereally good at is sucking. researchers take advantage of this fact by rigging uptwo rubber nipples, so that if a baby sucks on one, it hears a recording of itsmother's voice on a pair of headphones, and if it sucks on the other nipple, ithears a recording of a female stranger's voice. babies quickly show theirpreference by choosing the first one. scientists also take advantage of the factthat babies will slow down their sucking when something interests them andresume their fast sucking when they get bored. this is how researchersdiscovered that, after women repeatedly read aloud a section of dr. seuss' "thecat in the hat" while they were pregnant, their newborn babies recognized thatpassage when they hear it outside the womb. my favorite e_periment of this kindis the one that showed that the babies of women who watched a certain soap operaevery day during pregnancy recognized the theme song of that show once they wereborn. so fetuses are even learning about the particular language that's spokenin the world that they'll be born into.
a study published last year found that from birth, from the moment ofbirth, babies cry in the accent of their mother's native language. french babiescry on a rising note while german babies end on a falling note, imitating themelodic contours of those languages. now why would this kind of fetal learningbe useful? it may have evolved to aid the baby's survival. from the moment ofbirth, the baby responds most to the voice of the person who is most likely tocare for it -- its mother. it even makes its cries sound like the mother'slanguage, which may further endear the baby to the mother, and which may givethe baby a head start in the critical task of learning how to understand andspeak its native language.
but it's not just sounds that fetuses are learning about in utero. it'salso tastes and smells. by seven months of gestation, the fetus' taste buds arefully developed, and its olfactory receptors, which allow it to smell, arefunctioning. the flavors of the food a pregnant woman eats find their way intothe amniotic fluid, which is continuously swallowed by the fetus. babies seem toremember and prefer these tastes once they're out in the world. in onee_periment, a group of pregnant women was asked to drink a lot of carrot juiceduring their third trimester of pregnancy, while another group of pregnant womendrank only water. si_ months later, the women's infants were offered cerealmi_ed with carrot juice, and their facial e_pressions were observed while theyate it. the offspring of the carrot juice drinking women ate morecarrot-flavored cereal, and from the looks of it, they seemed to enjoy itmore.
a sort of french version of this e_periment was carried out in dijon,france where researchers found that mothers who consumed food and drink flavoredwith licorice-flavored anise during pregnancy showed a preference for anise ontheir first day of life, and again, when they were tested later, on their fourthday of life. babies whose mothers did not eat anise during pregnancy showed areaction that translated roughly as "yuck." what this means is that fetuses areeffectively being taught by their mothers about what is safe and good to eat.fetuses are also being taught about the particular culture that they'll bejoining through one of culture's most powerful e_pressions, which is food.they're being introduced to the characteristic flavors and spices of theirculture's cuisine even before birth.
now it turns out that fetuses are learning even bigger lessons. but beforei get to that, i want to address something that you may be wondering about. thenotion of fetal learning may conjure up for you attempts to enrich the fetus --like playing mozart through headphones placed on a pregnant belly. but actually,the nine-month-long process of molding and shaping that goes on in the womb is alot more visceral and consequential than that. much of what a pregnant womanencounters in her daily life -- the air she breathes, the food and drink sheconsumes, the chemicals she's e_posed to, even the emotions she feels -- areshared in some fashion with her fetus. they make up a mi_ of influences asindividual and idiosyncratic as the woman herself. the fetus incorporates theseofferings into its own body, makes them part of its flesh and blood. and oftenit does something more. it treats these maternal contributions as information,as what i like to call biological postcards from the world outside.
so what a fetus is learning about in utero is not mozart's "magic flute"but answers to questions much more critical to its survival. will it be borninto a world of abundance or scarcity? will it be safe and protected, or will itface constant dangers and threats? will it live a long, fruitful life or ashort, harried one? the pregnant woman's diet and stress level in particularprovide important clues to prevailing conditions like a finger lifted to thewind. the resulting tuning and tweaking of a fetus' brain and other organs arepart of what give us humans our enormous fle_ibility, our ability to thrive in ahuge variety of environments, from the country to the city, from the tundra tothe desert.
to conclude, i want to tell you two stories about how mothers teach theirchildren about the world even before they're born. in the autumn of 1944, thedarkest days of world war ii, german troops blockaded western holland, turningaway all shipments of food. the opening of the nazi's siege was followed by oneof the harshest winters in decades -- so cold the water in the canals frozesolid. soon food became scarce, with many dutch surviving on just 500 calories aday -- a quarter of what they consumed before the war. as weeks of deprivationstretched into months, some resorted to eating tulip bulbs. by the beginning ofmay, the nation's carefully rationed food reserve was completely e_hausted. thespecter of mass starvation loomed. and then on may 5th, 1945, the siege came toa sudden end when holland was liberated by the allies.
the "hunger winter," as it came to be known, killed some 10,000 people andweakened thousands more. but there was another population that was affected --the 40,000 fetuses in utero during the siege. some of the effects ofmalnutrition during pregnancy were immediately apparent in higher rates ofstillbirths, birth defects, low birth weights and infant mortality. but otherswouldn't be discovered for many years. decades after the "hunger winter,"researchers documented that people whose mothers were pregnant during the siegehave more obesity, more diabetes and more heart disease in later life thanindividuals who were gestated under normal conditions. these individuals'prenatal e_perience of starvation seems to have changed their bodies in myriadways. they have higher blood pressure, poorer cholesterol profiles and reducedglucose tolerance -- a precursor of diabetes.
why would undernutrition in the womb result in disease later? onee_planation is that fetuses are making the best of a bad situation. when food isscarce, they divert nutrients towards the really critical organ, the brain, andaway from other organs like the heart and liver. this keeps the fetus alive inthe short-term, but the bill comes due later on in life when those other organs,deprived early on, become more susceptible to disease.
but that may not be all that's going on. it seems that fetuses are takingcues from the intrauterine environment and tailoring their physiologyaccordingly. they're preparing themselves for the kind of world they willencounter on the other side of the womb. the fetus adjusts its metabolism andother physiological processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits it.and the basis of the fetus' prediction is what its mother eats. the meals apregnant woman consumes constitute a kind of story, a fairy tale of abundance ora grim chronicle of deprivation. this story imparts information that the fetususes to organize its body and its systems -- an adaptation to prevailingcircumstances that facilitates its future survival. faced with severely limitedresources, a smaller-sized child with reduced energy requirements will, in fact,have a better chance of living to adulthood.
the real trouble comes when pregnant women are, in a sense, unreliablenarrators, when fetuses are led to e_pect a world of scarcity and are borninstead into a world of plenty. this is what happened to the children of thedutch "hunger winter." and their higher rates of obesity, diabetes and heartdisease are the result. bodies that were built to hang onto every calorie foundthemselves swimming in the superfluous calories of the post-war western diet.the world they had learned about while in utero was not the same as the worldinto which they were born.
here's another story. at 8:46 a.m. on september 11th, __, there were tensof thousands of people in the vicinity of the world trade center in new york --commuters spilling off trains, waitresses setting tables for the morning rush,brokers already working the phones on wall street. 1,700 of these people werepregnant women. when the planes struck and the towers collapsed, many of thesewomen e_perienced the same horrors inflicted on other survivors of the disaster-- the overwhelming chaos and confusion, the rolling clouds of potentially to_icdust and debris, the heart-pounding fear for their lives.
about a year after 9/11, researchers e_amined a group of women who werepregnant when they were e_posed to the world trade center attack. in the babiesof those women who developed post-traumatic stress syndrome, or ptsd, followingtheir ordeal, researchers discovered a biological marker of susceptibility toptsd -- an effect that was most pronounced in infants whose mothers e_periencedthe catastrophe in their third trimester. in other words, the mothers withpost-traumatic stress syndrome had passed on a vulnerability to the condition totheir children while they were still in utero.
now consider this: post-traumatic stress syndrome appears to be a reactionto stress gone very wrong, causing its victims tremendous unnecessary suffering.but there's another way of thinking about ptsd. what looks like pathology to usmay actually be a useful adaptation in some circumstances. in a particularlydangerous environment, the characteristic manifestations of ptsd -- ahyper-awareness of one's surroundings, a quick-trigger response to danger --could save someone's life. the notion that the prenatal transmission of ptsdrisk is adaptive is still speculative, but i find it rather poignant. it wouldmean that, even before birth, mothers are warning their children that it's awild world out there, telling them, "be careful."
let me be clear. fetal origins research is not about blaming women for whathappens during pregnancy. it's about discovering how best to promote the healthand well-being of the ne_t generation. that important effort must include afocus on what fetuses learn during the nine months they spend in the womb.learning is one of life's most essential activities, and it begins much earlierthan we ever imagined.
thank you.
寒假里，一向喜欢运动的我只报了一个运动班——羽毛球班，可这次的教练，让我收获了一个意想不到的知识。
记得寒假的第一节羽毛球课，教我打羽毛球的教练有翻天覆地的变化，原先教我的是吴教练，可这是最厉害的阮教练教我们，阮教练原先是教高级，最喜欢用杀球来打那些不听话的人，虽然我没有尝试过，但看那力度，就会让我忐忑不安。
当我第一次和阮教练打球时，经常有十几个球打不到对面，而我却为了接到球跑的气喘吁吁，“下一个”阮教练每次都用复杂的声音，对我说着，眼神里流露出一丝无奈。
过了几天后，阮教练好像在家里想了很久，在今天做了一个决定，“每个人有一个球打不过网，就两个俯卧撑。”我一听，立刻傻了，我一般有十几个球没打过来，那不是要做二十几个俯卧撑，那不累死。但教练已经下了命令，不能不遵从，只好尽力而为吧!我痛苦的想着。“下一个。”教练忽然叫道。我定眼看了看，到我了，时间怎么过的这样快?只好尽力而为。
“前面两个球，后面开放。”教练大声叫道，“妈呀!”我小声嘀咕着，“为什么一到我就变换一个打法?”可这是，阮教练已经发球，我只好认认真真地打球，想一切方法让我可以准确地打到每一个球。我不停地跑，喜欢出汗的我已经汗流满面，可我还是努力接到球。“一个，哈哈，你终于有一个了。”教练说道，“还有几个，加油哦!这时，我万分激动，刚刚有十几个，这次只有一个，太好了。我的眼睛里留下了成功的泪花。
这件事已经过去了几天几夜，但我的脑海里对这件事仍然记忆犹新，阮教练叫我们做俯卧撑，其实就是给我们加大压力，有一句俗话说：有了压力，就有了动力。“因为做俯卧撑累，辛苦，所以我为了不做俯卧撑，当然就会想方设法接到球。
chinese restaurants have played an important role in american history, as amatter of fact. the cuban missile crisis was resolved in a chinese restaurantcalled yenching palace in washington, d.c., which unfortunately is closed now,and about to be turned into walgreen's. and the house that john wilkes boothplanned the assassination of abraham lincoln is actually also now a chineserestaurant called wok 'n roll, on h street in washington.
事实上，中国餐馆在美国历史上发挥了很重要的作用。古巴导弹危机是在华盛顿一家名叫“燕京馆”的中餐馆里解决的。很不幸，这家餐馆现在关门了，即将被改建成沃尔格林连锁药店。而约翰·威尔克斯·布斯刺杀林肯总统的那所房子现在也成了一家中餐馆，就是位于华盛顿的“锅和卷”。
and if you think about it, a lot of the foods that you think of or we thinkof or americans think of as chinese food are barely recognizable to chinese, fore_ample: beef with broccoli, egg rolls, general tso's chicken, fortune cookies,chop suey, the take-out bo_es.
如果你仔细想想，就会发现很多你们所认为或我们所认为，或是美国人所认为的中国食物，中国人并不认识。比如西兰花牛肉、蛋卷、左宗棠鸡、幸运饼干、杂碎、外卖盒子。
so, the interesting question is, how do you go from fortune cookies beingsomething that is japanese to being something that is chinese? well, the shortanswer is, we locked up all the japanese during world war ii, including thosethat made fortune cookies, so that's the time when the chinese moved in, kind ofsaw a market opportunity and took over.
所以有趣的是，幸运饼干是怎么从日本的东西变成中国的东西的呢?简单地说，我们在二战时扣押了所以的日本人，包括那些做幸运饼干的。这时候，中国人来了，看到了商机，自然就据为己有了。
general tso's chicken -- which, by the way, in the us naval academy iscalled admiral tso's chicken. i love this dish. the original name in my book wasactually called the long march of general tso, and he has marched very farindeed, because he is sweet, he is fried, and he is chicken -- all things thatamericans love.
左宗棠鸡，在美国海军军校被称为左司令鸡。我很喜欢这道菜。在我的书里，这道菜实际上叫左将军的长征，它确实在美国很受欢迎，因为它是甜的，油炸的，是鸡肉做的——全部都是美国人的最爱。
so, you know, i realized when i was there, general tso is kind of a lotlike colonel sanders in america, in that he's known for chicken and not war. butin china, this guy's actually known for war and not chicken.
我意识到左宗棠将军有点像美国的桑德斯上校(肯德基创始人)，因为他是因鸡肉而出名的而不是战争。而在中国，左宗棠确实是因为战争而不是鸡肉闻名的。
so it's kind of part of the phenomenon i called spontaneousself-organization, right, where, like in ant colonies, where little decisionsmade by -- on the micro-level actually have a big impact on the macro-level.
这就有点像我所说的自发组织现象。就像在蚂蚁群中，在微观层面上做的小小决定会在宏观层面上产生巨大的影响。
and the great innovation of chicken mcnuggets was not nuggetfying them,because that's kind of an easy concept, but the trick behind chicken mcnuggetswas, they were able to remove the chicken from the bone in a cost-effectivemanner, which is why it took so long for other people to copy them.
麦乐鸡块的发明并没有给他们带来切实收益，因为这个想法很简单，但麦乐鸡背后的技巧是如何用一种划算的方式来把鸡肉从骨头上剔出来。这就是为什么过了这么久才有人模仿他们。
we can think of chinese restaurants perhaps as linu_: sort of an opensource thing, right, where ideas from one person can be copied and propagatedacross the entire system, that there can be specialized versions of chinesefood, you know, depending on the region.
我们可以把中餐馆比作linu_：一种开源系统。一个人的想法可以在整个系统中被复制，被普及。在不同的地区，就有特别版本的中国菜。
尊敬的老师、同学们：
大家好!
社会是一个变化万千的群体，要想跟上社会的脚步，需要进行适当的改变，以便更好的和社会融合在一起。
改变环境不如改变自己。社会是个包罗万象、千奇百怪的群体。周围的环境一旦形成就很难用自己的力量去变改。所以我们应该去试着改变自己。一位老者曾对自己的弟子说他拥有移山的本事，只要说“山过来”，山就会自己过来，于是他当着弟子们的面对前面的山说“山过来”，但是山却丝毫未动，对此老者并没有显得很尴尬，他说道：“既然山不会过来，那么我们就向它靠近吧。”环境不会因一个人而改变，所以你要努力适应。托尔斯泰说过：“世界上有两种人，一种是行动者，一种是观望着。很多人都想着要改变世界，却从未想过改变自己。”可见，改变自己，才能与环境更好融合。
改变别人不如改变自己。每个人都有自己的优点和缺点，所以才会存在妒忌和看不惯，但是我们无法让别人改变他的缺点和优点，所以我们要改变自己，让自己学会欣赏和包容。
一位老师总是抱怨班上有很多调皮的孩子上课不听讲，教导之后也屡教不改，很是苦恼，她经常想尽办法想要改变那些调皮的孩子，这时另一个老师说：“孩子们不听课也许是老师口才不好，讲课的魅力不够大，所以孩子们对老师的课兴趣不浓。好好改变一下自己吧。”于是老师开始努力改变自己，改变上课的形式，很快孩子们不再调皮了。改变别人不如改变自己，地球不会因一个人而转，当一根手指指向别人的时候，其他四根手指都指向自己，就算错的不是自己，那也应该检讨为什么别人会那么对我，从而改变自己，学会包容欣赏。
改变自己。虽然我们不能改变天气的恶劣，但我们能改变自己的心情;虽然我们不能改变自己的生命的长短，但是我们能改变自己生命的价值。有些事情无法改变事实，但是我们能改变自己。下定决心改变自己吧，我们将拥有的是改变后的变化。
when i was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we wereplaying on top of a bunk bed. i was two years older than my sister at the time-- i mean, i'm two years older than her now -- but at the time it meant she hadto do everything that i wanted to do, and i wanted to play war. so we were up ontop of our bunk beds. and on one side of the bunk bed, i had put out all of myg.i. joe soldiers and weaponry. and on the other side were all my sister's mylittle ponies ready for a cavalry charge.
there are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, butsince my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story --(laughter) -- which is my sister's a little bit on the clumsy side. somehow,without any help or push from her older brother at all, suddenly amy disappearedoff of the top of the bunk bed and landed with this crash on the floor. now inervously peered over the side of the bed to see what had befallen my fallensister and saw that she had landed painfully on her hands and knees on all fourson the ground.
i was nervous because my parents had charged me with making sure that mysister and i played as safely and as quietly as possible. and seeing as how ihad accidentally broken amy's arm just one week before ... (laughter) ...heroically pushing her out of the way of an oncoming imaginary sniper bullet,(laughter) for which i have yet to be thanked, i was trying as hard as i could-- she didn't even see it coming -- i was trying as hard as i could to be on mybest behavior.
and i saw my sister's face, this wail of pain and suffering and surprisethreatening to erupt from her mouth and threatening to wake my parents from thelong winter's nap for which they had settled. so i did the only thing my littlefrantic seven year-old brain could think to do to avert this tragedy. and if youhave children, you've seen this hundreds of times before. i said, "amy, amy,wait. don't cry. don't cry. did you see how you landed? no human lands on allfours like that. amy, i think this means you're a unicorn."
(laughter)
now that was cheating, because there was nothing in the world my sisterwould want more than not to be amy the hurt five year-old little sister, but amythe special unicorn. of course, this was an option that was open to her brain atno point in the past. and you could see how my poor, manipulated sister facedconflict, as her little brain attempted to devote resources to feeling the painand suffering and surprise she just e_perienced, or contemplating her new-foundidentity as a unicorn. and the latter won out. instead of crying, instead ofceasing our play, instead of waking my parents, with all the negativeconsequences that would have ensued for me, instead a smile spread across herface and she scrambled right back up onto the bunk bed with all the grace of ababy unicorn ... (laughter) ... with one broken leg.
what we stumbled across at this tender age of just five and seven -- we hadno idea at the time -- was something that was going be at the vanguard of ascientific revolution occurring two decades later in the way that we look at thehuman brain. what we had stumbled across is something called positivepsychology, which is the reason that i'm here today and the reason that i wakeup every morning.
when i first started talking about this research outside of academia, outwith companies and schools, the very first thing they said to never do is tostart your talk with a graph. the very first thing i want to do is start my talkwith a graph. this graph looks boring, but this graph is the reason i gete_cited and wake up every morning. and this graph doesn't even mean anything;it's fake data. what we found is --
(laughter)
if i got this data back studying you here in the room, i would be thrilled,because there's very clearly a trend that's going on there, and that means thati can get published, which is all that really matters. the fact that there's oneweird red dot that's up above the curve, there's one weirdo in the room -- iknow who you are, i saw you earlier -- that's no problem. that's no problem, asmost of you know, because i can just delete that dot. i can delete that dotbecause that's clearly a measurement error. and we know that's a measurementerror because it's messing up my data.
so one of the very first things we teach people in economics and statisticsand business and psychology courses is how, in a statistically valid way, do weeliminate the weirdos. how do we eliminate the outliers so we can find the lineof best fit? which is fantastic if i'm trying to find out how many advil theaverage person should be taking -- two. but if i'm interested in potential, ifi'm interested in your potential, or for happiness or productivity or energy orcreativity, what we're doing is we're creating the cult of the average withscience.
if i asked a question like, "how fast can a child learn how to read in aclassroom?" scientists change the answer to "how fast does the average childlearn how to read in that classroom?" and then we tailor the class right towardsthe average. now if you fall below the average on this curve, then psychologistsget thrilled, because that means you're either depressed or you have a disorder,or hopefully both. we're hoping for both because our business model is, if youcome into a therapy session with one problem, we want to make sure you leaveknowing you have 10, so you keep coming back over and over again. we'll go backinto your childhood if necessary, but eventually what we want to do is make younormal again. but normal is merely average.
and what i posit and what positive psychology posits is that if we studywhat is merely average, we will remain merely average. then instead of deletingthose positive outliers, what i intentionally do is come into a population likethis one and say, why? why is it that some of you are so high above the curve interms of your intellectual ability, athletic ability, musical ability,creativity, energy levels, your resiliency in the face of challenge, your senseof humor? whatever it is, instead of deleting you, what i want to do is studyyou. because maybe we can glean information -- not just how to move people up tothe average, but how we can move the entire average up in our companies andschools worldwide.
the reason this graph is important to me is, when i turn on the news, itseems like the majority of the information is not positive, in fact it'snegative. most of it's about murder, corruption, diseases, natural disasters.and very quickly, my brain starts to think that's the accurate ratio of negativeto positive in the world. what that's doing is creating something called themedical school syndrome -- which, if you know people who've been to medicalschool, during the first year of medical training, as you read through a list ofall the symptoms and diseases that could happen, suddenly you realize you haveall of them.
i have a brother in-law named bobo -- which is a whole other story. bobomarried amy the unicorn. bobo called me on the phone from yale medical school,and bobo said, "shawn, i have leprosy." (laughter) which, even at yale, ise_traordinarily rare. but i had no idea how to console poor bobo because he hadjust gotten over an entire week of menopause.
(laughter)
see what we're finding is it's not necessarily the reality that shapes us,but the lens through which your brain views the world that shapes your reality.and if we can change the lens, not only can we change your happiness, we canchange every single educational and business outcome at the same time.
when i applied to harvard, i applied on a dare. i didn't e_pect to get in,and my family had no money for college. when i got a military scholarship twoweeks later, they allowed me to go. suddenly, something that wasn't even apossibility became a reality. when i went there, i assumed everyone else wouldsee it as a privilege as well, that they'd be e_cited to be there. even ifyou're in a classroom full of people smarter than you, you'd be happy just to bein that classroom, which is what i felt. but what i found there is, while somepeople e_perience that, when i graduated after my four years and then spent thene_t eight years living in the dorms with the students -- harvard asked me to; iwasn't that guy. (laughter) i was an officer of harvard to counsel studentsthrough the difficult four years. and what i found in my research and myteaching is that these students, no matter how happy they were with theiroriginal success of getting into the school, two weeks later their brains werefocused, not on the privilege of being there, nor on their philosophy or theirphysics. their brain was focused on the competition, the workload, the hassles,the stresses, the complaints.
when i first went in there, i walked into the freshmen dining hall, whichis where my friends from waco, te_as, which is where i grew up -- i know some ofyou have heard of it. when they'd come to visit me, they'd look around, they'dsay, "this freshman dining hall looks like something out of hogwart's from themovie "harry potter," which it does. this is hogwart's from the movie "harrypotter" and that's harvard. and when they see this, they say, "shawn, why do youwaste your time studying happiness at harvard? seriously, what does a harvardstudent possibly have to be unhappy about?"
embedded within that question is the key to understanding the science ofhappiness. because what that question assumes is that our e_ternal world ispredictive of our happiness levels, when in reality, if i know everything aboutyour e_ternal world, i can only predict 10 percent of your long-term happiness.90 percent of your long-term happiness is predicted not by the e_ternal world,but by the way your brain processes the world. and if we change it, if we changeour formula for happiness and success, what we can do is change the way that wecan then affect reality. what we found is that only 25 percent of job successesare predicted by i.q. 75 percent of job successes are predicted by your optimismlevels, your social support and your ability to see stress as a challengeinstead of as a threat.
i talked to a boarding school up in new england, probably the mostprestigious boarding school, and they said, "we already know that. so everyyear, instead of just teaching our students, we also have a wellness week. andwe're so e_cited. monday night we have the world's leading e_pert coming in tospeak about adolescent depression. tuesday night it's school violence andbullying. wednesday night is eating disorders. thursday night is elicit druguse. and friday night we're trying to decide between risky se_ or happiness."(laughter) i said, "that's most people's friday nights." (laughter) (applause)which i'm glad you liked, but they did not like that at all. silence on thephone. and into the silence, i said, "i'd be happy to speak at your school, butjust so you know, that's not a wellness week, that's a sickness week. whatyou've done is you've outlined all the negative things that can happen, but nottalked about the positive."
the absence of disease is not health. here's how we get to health: we needto reverse the formula for happiness and success. in the last three years, i'vetraveled to 45 different countries, working with schools and companies in themidst of an economic downturn. and what i found is that most companies andschools follow a formula for success, which is this: if i work harder, i'll bemore successful. and if i'm more successful, then i'll be happier. thatundergirds most of our parenting styles, our managing styles, the way that wemotivate our behavior.
and the problem is it's scientifically broken and backwards for tworeasons. first, every time your brain has a success, you just changed thegoalpost of what success looked like. you got good grades, now you have to getbetter grades, you got into a good school and after you get into a betterschool, you got a good job, now you have to get a better job, you hit your salestarget, we're going to change your sales target. and if happiness is on theopposite side of success, your brain never gets there. what we've done is we'vepushed happiness over the cognitive horizon as a society. and that's because wethink we have to be successful, then we'll be happier.
but the real problem is our brains work in the opposite order. if you canraise somebody's level of positivity in the present, then their braine_periences what we now call a happiness advantage, which is your brain atpositive performs significantly better than it does at negative, neutral orstressed. your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levelsrise. in fact, what we've found is that every single business outcome improves.your brain at positive is 31 percent more productive than your brain atnegative, neutral or stressed. you're 37 percent better at sales. doctors are 19percent faster, more accurate at coming up with the correct diagnosis whenpositive instead of negative, neutral or stressed. which means we can reversethe formula. if we can find a way of becoming positive in the present, then ourbrains work even more successfully as we're able to work harder, faster and moreintelligently.
what we need to be able to do is to reverse this formula so we can start tosee what our brains are actually capable of. because dopamine, which floods intoyour system when you're positive, has two functions. not only does it make youhappier, it turns on all of the learning centers in your brain allowing you toadapt to the world in a different way.
we've found that there are ways that you can train your brain to be able tobecome more positive. in just a two-minute span of time done for 21 days in arow, we can actually rewire your brain, allowing your brain to actually workmore optimistically and more successfully. we've done these things in researchnow in every single company that i've worked with, getting them to write downthree new things that they're grateful for for 21 days in a row, three newthings each day. and at the end of that, their brain starts to retain a patternof scanning the world, not for the negative, but for the positive first.
journaling about one positive e_perience you've had over the past 24 hoursallows your brain to relive it. e_ercise teaches your brain that your behaviormatters. we find that meditation allows your brain to get over the cultural adhdthat we've been creating by trying to do multiple tasks at once and allows ourbrains to focus on the task at hand. and finally, random acts of kindness areconscious acts of kindness. we get people, when they open up their inbo_, towrite one positive email praising or thanking somebody in their social supportnetwork.
and by doing these activities and by training your brain just like we trainour bodies, what we've found is we can reverse the formula for happiness andsuccess, and in doing so, not only create ripples of positivity, but create areal revolution.
thank you very much.
(applause)
when i was nine years old i went off to summer camp for the first time. andmy mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like aperfectly natural thing to do. because in my family, reading was the primarygroup activity. and this might sound antisocial to you, but for us it was reallyjust a different way of being social. you have the animal warmth of your familysitting right ne_t to you, but you are also free to go roaming around theadventureland inside your own mind. and i had this idea that camp was going tobe just like this, but better. (laughter) i had a vision of 10 girls sitting ina cabin cozily reading books in their matching nightgowns.
(laughter)
camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol. and on the very firstday our counselor gathered us all together and she taught us a cheer that shesaid we would be doing every day for the rest of the summer to instill campspirit. and it went like this: "r-o-w-d-i-e, that's the way we spell rowdie.rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie." yeah. so i couldn't figure out for the lifeof me why we were supposed to be so rowdy, or why we had to spell this wordincorrectly. (laughter) but i recited a cheer. i recited a cheer along witheverybody else. i did my best. and i just waited for the time that i could gooff and read my books.
but the first time that i took my book out of my suitcase, the coolest girlin the bunk came up to me and she asked me, "why are you being so mellow?" --mellow, of course, being the e_act opposite of r-o-w-d-i-e. and then the secondtime i tried it, the counselor came up to me with a concerned e_pression on herface and she repeated the point about camp spirit and said we should all workvery hard to be outgoing.
and so i put my books away, back in their suitcase, and i put them under mybed, and there they stayed for the rest of the summer. and i felt kind of guiltyabout this. i felt as if the books needed me somehow, and they were calling outto me and i was forsaking them. but i did forsake them and i didn't open thatsuitcase again until i was back home with my family at the end of thesummer.
now, i tell you this story about summer camp. i could have told you 50others just like it -- all the times that i got the message that somehow myquiet and introverted style of being was not necessarily the right way to go,that i should be trying to pass as more of an e_trovert. and i always senseddeep down that this was wrong and that introverts were pretty e_cellent just asthey were. but for years i denied this intuition, and so i became a wall streetlawyer, of all things, instead of the writer that i had always longed to be --partly because i needed to prove to myself that i could be bold and assertivetoo. and i was always going off to crowded bars when i really would havepreferred to just have a nice dinner with friends. and i made theseself-negating choices so refle_ively, that i wasn't even aware that i was makingthem.
now this is what many introverts do, and it's our loss for sure, but it isalso our colleagues' loss and our communities' loss. and at the risk of soundinggrandiose, it is the world's loss. because when it comes to creativity and toleadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. a third to a half of thepopulation are introverts -- a third to a half. so that's one out of every twoor three people you know. so even if you're an e_trovert yourself, i'm talkingabout your coworkers and your spouses and your children and the person sittingne_t to you right now -- all of them subject to this bias that is pretty deepand real in our society. we all internalize it from a very early age withouteven having a language for what we're doing.
now to see the bias clearly you need to understand what introversion is.it's different from being shy. shyness is about fear of social judgment.introversion is more about, how do you respond to stimulation, including socialstimulation. so e_troverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereasintroverts feel at their most alive and their most switched-on and their mostcapable when they're in quieter, more low-key environments. not all the time --these things aren't absolute -- but a lot of the time. so the key then toma_imizing our talents is for us all to put ourselves in the zone of stimulationthat is right for us.
but now here's where the bias comes in. our most important institutions,our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for e_troverts and fore_troverts' need for lots of stimulation. and also we have this belief systemright now that i call the new groupthink, which holds that all creativity andall productivity comes from a very oddly gregarious place.
so if you picture the typical classroom nowadays: when i was going toschool, we sat in rows. we sat in rows of desks like this, and we did most ofour work pretty autonomously. but nowadays, your typical classroom has pods ofdesks -- four or five or si_ or seven kids all facing each other. and kids areworking in countless group assignments. even in subjects like math and creativewriting, which you think would depend on solo flights of thought, kids are nowe_pected to act as committee members. and for the kids who prefer to go off bythemselves or just to work alone, those kids are seen as outliers often or,worse, as problem cases. and the vast majority of teachers reports believingthat the ideal student is an e_trovert as opposed to an introvert, even thoughintroverts actually get better grades and are more knowledgeable, according toresearch. (laughter)
okay, same thing is true in our workplaces. now, most of us work in openplan offices, without walls, where we are subject to the constant noise and gazeof our coworkers. and when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinelypassed over for leadership positions, even though introverts tend to be verycareful, much less likely to take outsize risks -- which is something we mightall favor nowadays. and interesting research by adam grant at the wharton schoolhas found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than e_trovertsdo, because when they are managing proactive employees, they're much more likelyto let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an e_trovert can, quiteunwittingly, get so e_cited about things that they're putting their own stamp onthings, and other people's ideas might not as easily then bubble up to thesurface.
now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have beenintroverts. i'll give you some e_amples. eleanor roosevelt, rosa parks, gandhi-- all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.and they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies wastelling them not to. and this turns out to have a special power all its own,because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm, not because theyenjoyed directing others and not out of the pleasure of being looked at; theywere there because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what theythought was right.
now i think at this point it's important for me to say that i actually lovee_troverts. i always like to say some of my best friends are e_troverts,including my beloved husband. and we all fall at different points, of course,along the introvert/e_trovert spectrum. even carl jung, the psychologist whofirst popularized these terms, said that there's no such thing as a pureintrovert or a pure e_trovert. he said that such a man would be in a lunaticasylum, if he e_isted at all. and some people fall smack in the middle of theintrovert/e_trovert spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts. and i oftenthink that they have the best of all worlds. but many of us do recognizeourselves as one type or the other.
and what i'm saying is that culturally we need a much better balance. weneed more of a yin and yang between these two types. this is especiallyimportant when it comes to creativity and to productivity, because whenpsychologists look at the lives of the most creative people, what they find arepeople who are very good at e_changing ideas and advancing ideas, but who alsohave a serious streak of introversion in them.
and this is because solitude is a crucial ingredient often to creativity.so darwin, he took long walks alone in the woods and emphatically turned downdinner party invitations. theodor geisel, better known as dr. seuss, he dreamedup many of his amazing creations in a lonely bell tower office that he had inthe back of his house in la jolla, california. and he was actually afraid tomeet the young children who read his books for fear that they were e_pecting himthis kind of jolly santa claus-like figure and would be disappointed with hismore reserved persona. steve wozniak invented the first apple computer sittingalone in his cubical in hewlett-packard where he was working at the time. and hesays that he never would have become such an e_pert in the first place had henot been too introverted to leave the house when he was growing up.
now of course, this does not mean that we should all stop collaborating --and case in point, is steve wozniak famously coming together with steve jobs tostart apple computer -- but it does mean that solitude matters and that for somepeople it is the air that they breathe. and in fact, we have known for centuriesabout the transcendent power of solitude. it's only recently that we'vestrangely begun to forget it. if you look at most of the world's majorreligions, you will find seekers -- moses, jesus, buddha, muhammad -- seekerswho are going off by themselves alone to the wilderness where they then haveprofound epiphanies and revelations that they then bring back to the rest of thecommunity. so no wilderness, no revelations.
this is no surprise though if you look at the insights of contemporarypsychology. it turns out that we can't even be in a group of people withoutinstinctively mirroring, mimicking their opinions. even about seemingly personaland visceral things like who you're attracted to, you will start aping thebeliefs of the people around you without even realizing that that's what you'redoing.
and groups famously follow the opinions of the most dominant or charismaticperson in the room, even though there's zero correlation between being the besttalker and having the best ideas -- i mean zero. so ... (laughter) you might befollowing the person with the best ideas, but you might not. and do you reallywant to leave it up to chance? much better for everybody to go off bythemselves, generate their own ideas freed from the distortions of groupdynamics, and then come together as a team to talk them through in awell-managed environment and take it from there.
now if all this is true, then why are we getting it so wrong? why are wesetting up our schools this way and our workplaces? and why are we making theseintroverts feel so guilty about wanting to just go off by themselves some of thetime? one answer lies deep in our cultural history. western societies, and inparticular the u.s., have always favored the man of action over the man ofcontemplation and "man" of contemplation. but in america's early days, we livedin what historians call a culture of character, where we still, at that point,valued people for their inner selves and their moral rectitude. and if you lookat the self-help books from this era, they all had titles with things like"character, the grandest thing in the world." and they featured role models likeabraham lincoln who was praised for being modest and unassuming. ralph waldoemerson called him "a man who does not offend by superiority."
but then we hit the 20th century and we entered a new culture thathistorians call the culture of personality. what happened is we had evolved anagricultural economy to a world of big business. and so suddenly people aremoving from small towns to the cities. and instead of working alongside peoplethey've known all their lives, now they are having to prove themselves in acrowd of strangers. so, quite understandably, qualities like magnetism andcharisma suddenly come to seem really important. and sure enough, the self-helpbooks change to meet these new needs and they start to have names like "how towin friends and influence people." and they feature as their role models reallygreat salesmen. so that's the world we're living in today. that's our culturalinheritance.
now none of this is to say that social skills are unimportant, and i'm alsonot calling for the abolishing of teamwork at all. the same religions who sendtheir sages off to lonely mountain tops also teach us love and trust. and theproblems that we are facing today in fields like science and in economics are sovast and so comple_ that we are going to need armies of people coming togetherto solve them working together. but i am saying that the more freedom that wegive introverts to be themselves, the more likely that they are to come up withtheir own unique solutions to these problems.
so now i'd like to share with you what's in my suitcase today. guess what?books. i have a suitcase full of books. here's margaret atwood, "cat's eye."here's a novel by milan kundera. and here's "the guide for the perple_ed" bymaimonides. but these are not e_actly my books. i brought these books with mebecause they were written by my grandfather's favorite authors.
my grandfather was a rabbi and he was a widower who lived alone in a smallapartment in brooklyn that was my favorite place in the world when i was growingup, partly because it was filled with his very gentle, very courtly presence andpartly because it was filled with books. i mean literally every table, everychair in this apartment had yielded its original function to now serve as asurface for swaying stacks of books. just like the rest of my family, mygrandfather's favorite thing to do in the whole world was to read.
but he also loved his congregation, and you could feel this love in thesermons that he gave every week for the 62 years that he was a rabbi. he wouldtakes the fruits of each week's reading and he would weave these intricatetapestries of ancient and humanist thought. and people would come from all overto hear him speak.
but here's the thing about my grandfather. underneath this ceremonial role,he was really modest and really introverted -- so much so that when he deliveredthese sermons, he had trouble making eye contact with the very same congregationthat he had been speaking to for 62 years. and even away from the podium, whenyou called him to say hello, he would often end the conversation prematurely forfear that he was taking up too much of your time. but when he died at the age of94, the police had to close down the streets of his neighborhood to accommodatethe crowd of people who came out to mourn him. and so these days i try to learnfrom my grandfather's e_ample in my own way.
so i just published a book about introversion, and it took me about sevenyears to write. and for me, that seven years was like total bliss, because i wasreading, i was writing, i was thinking, i was researching. it was my version ofmy grandfather's hours of the day alone in his library. but now all of a suddenmy job is very different, and my job is to be out here talking about it, talkingabout introversion. (laughter) and that's a lot harder for me, because ashonored as i am to be here with all of you right now, this is not my naturalmilieu.
so i prepared for moments like these as best i could. i spent the last yearpracticing public speaking every chance i could get. and i call this my "year ofspeaking dangerously." (laughter) and that actually helped a lot. but i'll tellyou, what helps even more is my sense, my belief, my hope that when it comes toour attitudes to introversion and to quiet and to solitude, we truly are poisedon the brink on dramatic change. i mean, we are. and so i am going to leave younow with three calls for action for those who share this vision.
number one: stop the madness for constant group work. just stop it.(laughter) thank you. (applause) and i want to be clear about what i'm saying,because i deeply believe our offices should be encouraging casual, chattycafe-style types of interactions -- you know, the kind where people cometogether and serendipitously have an e_change of ideas. that is great. it'sgreat for introverts and it's great for e_troverts. but we need much moreprivacy and much more freedom and much more autonomy at work. school, samething. we need to be teaching kids to work together, for sure, but we also needto be teaching them how to work on their own. this is especially important fore_troverted children too. they need to work on their own because that is wheredeep thought comes from in part.
okay, number two: go to the wilderness. be like buddha, have your ownrevelations. i'm not saying that we all have to now go off and build our owncabins in the woods and never talk to each other again, but i am saying that wecould all stand to unplug and get inside our own heads a little more often.
number three: take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase and whyyou put it there. so e_troverts, maybe your suitcases are also full of books. ormaybe they're full of champagne glasses or skydiving equipment. whatever it is,i hope you take these things out every chance you get and grace us with yourenergy and your joy. but introverts, you being you, you probably have theimpulse to guard very carefully what's inside your own suitcase. and that'sokay. but occasionally, just occasionally, i hope you will open up yoursuitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you and it needs thethings you carry.
so i wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speaksoftly.
thank you very much.
(applause)
thank you. thank you.
敬爱的老师，亲爱的同学：
曾有一个人，以笔当武器有力地打击日本侵略者，而他的“横眉冷对千夫指，俯首甘为孺子牛”，有如太极一般柔中带刚;曾有一个人，他放弃可苟且偷安的生活，毅然投身随时有着生命危险的革命事业，率领中国人民打下了属于自己的江山。
前者与后者在同一个时代，那是中国沦落的时代。在列强侵略的铁蹄践踏下的中国，人民的民族意识仍然很弱，仍在外来侵略者以及军阀的压迫下过着浑浑噩噩的生活。前者刚开始并没有意识到精神上的麻木才是最可怕的，他看到的只是民不聊生的惨状，当他看到人们在病痛的折磨下而含恨离世，他突然想到如果能成为一名救死扶伤的医生，医治病人，也许人民的生活会好起来。
于是他不辞辛苦飘洋来到异国学习医术。他很努力，只希望早日学成，回国去抢救那些正处于水深火热之中的人民，但在一次令他终身难忘的事情之后，他改变了他的认识。他不再热衷于学医，而是拿起锋利的毛笔与侵略者做抗挣。
那一天他路过街边的电影院，瞥见了银幕上中国人目睹自己的同胞受到侵略者迫害而毫无反应地令人吃惊的一幕，此时此刻他如醍醐灌顶一般猛地清醒过来了，原来仅仅医治好人们的肉体是不够的，因为无法医治好他们麻木的灵魂，即使拥有健康的身体也永远只是任人使唤，任人践踏的奴隶。要想让人民过上幸福的生活，让祖国摆脱列强地控制，就必须改变人们的思想，让人民觉醒!他弃医从文，先改变了自己，然后用自己的笔唤醒了无数的中国人。
后者同样生活当时那个兵荒马乱的年代，他目睹民生疾苦，便发誓要改变中国现状，尽管父亲封建，甚至不让他读书，接受文化的熏陶。但他叛逆，偏偏要上激进的学堂，他从老师那知道了到中国民不聊生的根源，愈来愈按柰不住自己那颗已经被改变的想法塞满的心。
但他又异常冷静，他知道以个人之力要谈改变，无异于飞蛾扑火，想要中国彻底摆脱列强的统治，军阀的压迫，就必须结交天下的爱国爱民的仁人志士，共同_旧制度，改变旧中国。在湖南第一师范的那几年，师生之间的志同道合，大大的鼓舞了他。在后来他投身革命后还总结分析出了前辈想要改革为何却屡屡以失败告终的原因，于是他发出了”枪杆子底下出政权“的历史性的呼声，从次中国无产阶级组建起自己的武装力量，为后来打下新中国奠定了基础。
这两位爱国人士想必大家都知道，他们的丰功伟绩也永载史册。他们想改变国家，改变世界，就先从改变自身做起。自己拥有了目标，有了抱负，才能改变自己，改变世界!有时的成功并不是来源于不变的固执，而是改变，学会审时度势，学会变通。
尊敬的老师们，亲爱的同学们：
大家好!
到底是剪短头发呢，还是继续留长发?我在镜子前来回踱步。
“当然是短发方便啦!”妈妈笑着说，“你头发越来越长了，打理起来也越来越麻烦。再说，尝试改变也是一件很美好的事哦!”
我又抬起头，望着镜中踌躇不安的自己和头上有些凌乱的长发，心想：改变为什么一定意味着失去呢?每天清晨，为了这一头长发，我常常要在镜前花费很多宝贵的时间。但是如果剪成了短发，不仅能节约时间，而且我还可以迎接一个崭新的模样，一个崭新的自我……
我下定了决心：改变!
于是，我坐在了理发店的转椅上，镜中的我露出心满意足的微笑。看着满地的碎发，我“如释重负”，一下子觉得世界焕然一新。看来，之前的担忧真是多余!
出了理发店，冬日的暖阳从云朵中露出微笑脸庞。我一边迈着欢快的步伐，一边在想：“改变，真好!”
这让我想起了另一件事。
以前，最让我焦虑的事情，就是在书房那“茫茫书海”中寻找一本急需的作业本。妈妈十分关心我，总是抽空帮我整理书房。但整理之后的日子里，书房总会时不时传来一连串问号：“妈妈，我的课外书呢?”“咦，我的练习册哪去了?”
于是，我尝试改变。从给每一本书归类到把书柜分格，从为每一本作业本“安家”，到给每一支笔找到“住所”……很快，我的书房中的每一位成员都有了“新家”。
从此，我都自己收拾房间。忙碌过后，我每次都感到疲倦，但内心却是无比快乐。因为我体验了“改变”：从妈妈为我的一切操劳，到我自己打理生活。我的房间越来越整洁，我也在改变中成长，越来越独立了。
生命中有许多需要改变的东西，我们要对改变充满信心，不能让多余的担心阻挡我们成长的步伐，因为改变让我们收获自信，收获希望，收获人生的多姿多态!改变，真好!
亲爱的同学们：
大家好!
今天我国旗下演讲的题目是《健康饮食从我做起》。
每一家的健康与食品息息相关，随着经济社会不断进步，人们饮食文化日益多样化，食品卫生与安全成为备受关注的话题。
要健康饮食，就要做到以下几点：
1.不购买街边小吃或街边小店的垃圾食品，去一些正规超市购买食物。
2.买所需食品时，要注意生产日期、保质期、QS生产许可标志等等。
3.认准品牌购买，尽量买一些有品牌的食品。
4.少吃油炸食品及零食，多吃蔬菜水果等有营养的食品。
5.不买价格明显过低的食品，不要贪小失大。
注意以上几点，就大致能做到安全饮食了。俗话说：“民以食为天”。说得通俗一点就是人们每天要吃和喝，食物是人类赖以生存的物质。食品的质量决定了人类生命的质量。因此，食品必须是安全的并且有益健康的。
同时，也呼吁食品安全，关系你我他，但愿生产者不再为食品安全脸红，国人不再为食品安全担心，国家不再为食品安全丢脸。现在，让我们一起行动起来，杜绝有害食品，倡导绿色食品!希望同学们听了我这次的讲话后都健康饮食，健康地成长。
谢谢大家!
在我们身边有许多动物，例如：小猫、小狗、小鸟……它们都是我们关爱的对象。
我家养着一只可爱的小狗，我把它取名叫小黑。他可是我最忠实的朋友。每次我放学回到家的时候，小狗就会蹲在地上向我摇摇尾巴，咪咪地笑，可爱极了!晚上的时候，我吃完了饭，就去喂小狗吃饭。小狗吃得津津有味，还不停地汪!汪!汪!好像在说：“这饭真好吃，谢谢你啦朋友!”
小狗还有一项本领，你知道吗?那就是抓小偷。晚上的时候小狗可是我家的“警察”。一旦有小偷进我们村，小狗就会发出警报，通知所有的警察们一起来抓小偷，到最后小偷投降了，小狗可就榜上有名了。
世界上有许多户人家，家里都养着一只只可爱的小动物。他们把小动物照顾得健健康康的，还把它们训练很聪明。但是有些人却把那可爱的小动物当成是自己的敌人，整天虐待小动物，对小动物进行了狠毒的“家法”，实在是太可气了!我希望在这个“大家庭”里，每个人都能保护这里的每一只动物，关心它，爱护它。
让我们把爱心相连，关爱这里的每一只动物吧!
尊敬的各位领导，各位同事们：
大家下午好。
我叫___，非常感谢各位领导和同仁的支持与厚爱，能够让我有机会站在这里，与大家分享这一刻的光荣与喜悦。
加入恒瑞这个大家庭已有两年又7个月的时间里，让我真正体会到了，恒瑞的温暖与关爱，以及恒瑞的企业文化，和对人才的关心、培养与重视。
今天能够站在这里发言，并且是代表优秀员工的发言，在这里我要感谢每一位帮助过我的领导和同事，是你们的支持帮助与信任，才使得今天的广东市场打开了一定的局面，在高端食品领域也逐步得到了客户的认可与支持。
20__年，在公司“团结、规范、执行、升级”工作方针下，我作为一名普通的业务员，能真真体会到市场带给企业的压力和给我的动力!其实从20__年6月份刚入公司开始，到7月份下广东市场开发高端食品行业，一方面我们恒瑞在这个新的市场、新的行业中，在没有基础，没有客户资源，没有样板客户等条件下，市场开括起来困难重重;一方面是客户不太信任我们产品，想要从其他客户手中抢到一部分市场，只有凭借公司过硬的产品和一颗执着的恒心，再加上各位领导及同仁们，始终站在我身后，给予了很多的帮助与支持，让我有幸坚持一路走了过来，没有半途而费。
事实上，对于我们这个变性淀粉销售行业而言，是一个出结果和成绩相对较为缓慢的过程，(就像竹子的生长一样，竹子用4年的时间仅仅长了3cm，在第五年开始，以每天30cm的速度疯狂的生长，仅仅用6周就可以长到15米，其实在前面的4年，竹子将根在土壤里延伸了数百米。)我们也是一样只要坚持不断的去前进，终归收获客户与业绩。业绩一点一点，一步一个台阶走出了一点成绩，从刚开始连续4月没业绩，到第5月的第一个客户才半吨货，半年才实现了3吨的业务量。曾经的一度灰心，是领导、同事们的支持、帮助下，通过努力20__年实现71吨的销量;20__年更是突破了300吨，并成功开发了6个新客户，可以说是从量变到质变的升级。
以上，也仅仅说明20__年的一点工作回顾，还谈不上成绩。20__年，坚持“强化、深化、细化”工作思路下，围绕高端品逐步体现出来的优势，加大业务销量和开发新客户的力度，以落实强化、深化、细化工作，我也力争在高端品领域实现自己更大的突破，力争实现600吨销量的目标任务。我相信，我能做到，同时，也鼓励新加入我们销售团队的同仁们，只要努力，只要坚持，付出总会得到回报的!
同时，我个人认为：恒瑞这个大平台是一个充满活力和正能量的企业，公司所提倡的孝贤文化，以及以人为本的理念，使我在工作中感到非常的愉快与轻松。各位领导和同事们的平易近人，使公司整个办公环境变得充满活力和激情。没有压抑感，这也是我来恒瑞两年多的时间里最大的感受，我很喜欢这种环境，也很珍惜这个平台和机会。我希望我们的恒瑞，我们的大家庭越来越好，越来越强大，只有这样我们的个人小家庭，才会更幸福温暖，更有钱景!大家也都明白大河无水小河干的道理，所以恒瑞的明天也是我们的未来。公司的发展与进步，离不开我们每个人的添砖加瓦!我们每个人都有责任和义务去为这个大家庭去贡献自己的一份力量。愿我们的公司，我们的恒瑞，在未来的日子里，一天比一天美好，一年比一年辉煌。
在此我也祝愿各位领导各位同事，在新的一年里，新年快乐，身体健康，万事如意!
大家都看过《士兵突击》吧。最记忆尤新的也莫过于一号男主角许三多吧，许三多这个角色被定型为一个“傻到极点，顽强，有一股韧性，坚韧不拔”的人。他的一句台词也升华了整部剧作——不抛弃，不放弃!
大家的理想自然不是都去当特种兵，这里的抛弃自然不都是战友，同学们想想，大大的中国13亿个人啊!就算小学同学40人，初中50人，高中50人在学习阶段也就是140个同学。也就是92857142个人中才能有1个人是你的同学，就仅凭这一点为何不把每一个同学都珍惜呢?更何况你能保证和每个同学都是的朋友吗?固然说有些同学长大后随自己没什么帮助，虽然有些同学长大后连记也不记的自己换个角度，你为何不和其余的9000多万个人做同学呢?都是缘分啊!别人堕落了拉别人一把，别人努力了跟上去一步，这样不就能一同进步了吗?一个同学你很讨厌他。他在悬崖一角即将坠下时，你是送他一脚还是送去一只手呢?珍惜眼前的一切吧!不抛弃同学中的任何一个人，讨厌他就当他在督促你，如果每个人都能拉身边的人一把，那么实验班的孩子算什么?赶上他们不就像兔子捉乌龟嘛!可现实中呢?有一句话说的好“没有永远的朋友，只有永远的利益”在悬崖一角时，大多数人都送去了一脚。是的，抛弃他，自己非常舒坦，天天不要来气，这是什么样的人呢?自己想想看吧!!
抛弃的如果是朋友，那么放弃的莫过于自己吧!
上了七中也就是超过了江苏一大半的学生，也就是说你已经是中上游得了，那么这样的努力了9年，可谓是怀一腔热血，负一身希望，这时如果放弃了，不就等于那扫把往家长的屁股上抽吗?放弃的都是懦弱的，都是失败者，放弃不是新的开端，是个人生命价值的结束!!一个人也就是留给他20年的时间去珍惜，为何还拿去挥霍呢?与其这样还不如拿刀给自己放血呢!快乐快乐的去学习，不是快乐快乐的去玩。用双手捧起自己的前途，用坚强的臂膀肩负起父母的希望吧。
还是那句话实验班的学生不算什么，抓起身边的人，一同努力吧!!
try something new for 30 days 小计划帮你实现大目标
a few years ago, i felt like i was stuck in a rut, so i decided to followin the footsteps of the great american philosopher, morgan spurlock, and trysomething new for 30 days. the idea is actually pretty simple. think aboutsomething you’ve always wanted to add to your life and try it for the ne_t 30days. it turns out, 30 days is just about the right amount of time to add a newhabit or subtract a habit — like watching the news — from your life.
几年前， 我感觉对老一套感到枯燥乏味，所以我决定追随伟大的美国哲学家摩根·斯普尔洛克的脚步，尝试做新事情30天。这个想法的确是非常简单。考虑下，你常想在你生命中做的一些事情 接下来30天尝试做这些。这就是，30天刚好是这么一段合适的时间 去养成一个新的习惯或者改掉一个习惯——例如看新闻——在你生活中。
there’s a few things i learned while doing these 30-day challenges. thefirst was, instead of the months flying by, forgotten, the time was much morememorable. this was part of a challenge i did to take a picture everyday for amonth. and i remember e_actly where i was and what i was doing that day. i alsonoticed that as i started to do more and harder 30-day challenges, myself-confidence grew. i went from desk-dwelling computer nerd to the kind of guywho bikes to work — for fun. even last year, i ended up hiking up mt.kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in africa. i would never have been thatadventurous before i started my 30-day challenges.
当我在30天做这些挑战性事情时，我学到以下一些事。第一件事是，取代了飞逝而过易被遗忘的岁月的是这段时间非常的更加令人难忘。挑战的一部分是要一个月内每天我要去拍摄一张照片。我清楚地记得那一天我所处的位置我都在干什么。我也注意到随着我开始做更多的，更难的30天里具有挑战性的事时，我自信心也增强了。我从一个台式计算机宅男极客变成了一个爱骑自行车去工作的人——为了玩乐。甚至去年，我完成了在非洲最高山峰乞力马扎罗山的远足。在我开始这30天做挑战性的事之前我从来没有这样热爱冒险过。
i also figured out that if you really want something badly enough, you cando anything for 30 days. have you ever wanted to write a novel? every november,tens of thousands of people try to write their own 50,000 word novel fromscratch in 30 days. it turns out, all you have to do is write 1,667 words a dayfor a month. so i did. by the way, the secret is not to go to sleep until you’vewritten your words for the day. you might be sleep-deprived, but you’ll finishyour novel. now is my book the ne_t great american novel? no. i wrote it in amonth. it’s awful. but for the rest of my life, if i meet john hodgman at a tedparty, i don’t have to say, “i’m a computer scientist.” no, no, if i want to ican say, “i’m a novelist.”
我也认识到如果你真想一些槽糕透顶的事，你可以在30天里做这些事。你曾想写小说吗?每年11月，数以万计的人们在30天里，从零起点尝试写他们自己的5万字小说。这结果就是，你所要去做的事就是每天写1667个字要写一个月。所以我做到了。顺便说一下，秘密在于除非在一天里你已经写完了1667个字，要不你就甭想睡觉。你可能被剥夺睡眠，但你将会完成你的小说。那么我写的书会是下一部伟大的美国小说吗?不是的。我在一个月内写完它。它看上去太可怕了。但在我的余生，如果我在一个ted聚会上遇见约翰·霍奇曼，我不必开口说，“我是一个电脑科学家。”不，不会的，如果我愿意我可以说，“我是一个小说家。”
(laughter)
(笑声)
so here’s one last thing i’d like to mention. i learned that when i madesmall, sustainable changes, things i could keep doing, they were more likely tostick. there’s nothing wrong with big, crazy challenges. in fact, they’re a tonof fun. but they’re less likely to stick. when i gave up sugar for 30 days, day31 looked like this.
我这儿想提的最后一件事。当我做些小的、持续性的变化，我可以不断尝试做的事时，我学到我可以把它们更容易地坚持做下来。这和又大又疯狂的具有挑战性的事情无关。事实上，它们的乐趣无穷。但是，它们就不太可能坚持做下来。当我在30天里拒绝吃糖果，31天后看上去就像这样。
(laughter)
(笑声)
so here’s my question to you: what are you waiting for? i guarantee you thene_t 30 days are going to pass whether you like it or not, so why not thinkabout something you have always wanted to try and give it a shot for the ne_t 30days.
所以我给大家提的问题是：大家还在等什么呀?我保准大家在未来的30天定会经历你喜欢或者不喜欢的事，那么为什么不考虑一些你常想做的尝试并在未来30天里试试给自己一个机会。
thanks.
谢谢。
(applause)
(掌声)
大家好!
让我们来问自己一个问题，如果上天给你一次重新选择的机会，你会愿意做谁?是自己还是别人?
记得在小学的一节心理课上，我们的心理老师也这么问过我们。当时我们都不假思索地写在了纸上。统计结果是，全班30个人，29个人是愿意做别人，只有1个人愿意做自己。
为什么不愿意做自己?也许你觉得自己太过于平凡了，但是，万物不都是这样吗?一棵小草是平凡的，它只是默默地生长，任人践踏。野花是平凡的，也许它一直是个被忽略的角色，它比其他的花更不起眼，它没有玫瑰的娇艳，没有百合的清香，也没有玉兰这般的高贵，可它同样能开出属于自己的一片天。平凡，不等于我们不可以创造自己的不平凡，平凡，不等于我们不幸福。幸福的人不一定愿意做自己，但愿意做自己的人一定很幸福。
既然知道我永远是我，不可能是别人，那么就快乐地做自己。做自己，本就是一种幸福!
压力大，怎么办?压力会让你心跳加速、呼吸加快、额头冒汗!当压力成为全民健康公敌时，有研究显示只有当你与压力为敌时，它才会危害你的健康。心理学家kellymcgonigal 从积极的一面分析压力，教你如何使压力变成你的朋友!
stress. it makes your heart pound, your breathing quicken and your foreheadsweat. but while stress has been made into a public health enemy, new researchsuggests that stress may only be bad for you if you believe that to be the case.psychologist kelly mcgonigal urges us to see stress as a positive, andintroduces us to an unsung mechanism for stress reduction: reaching out toothers.
kelly mcgonigal translates academic research into practical strategies forhealth, happiness and personal success.
why you should listen to her：
stanford university psychologist kelly mcgonigal is a leader in the growingfield of “science-help.” through books, articles, courses and workshops,mcgonigal works to help us understand and implement the latest scientificfindings in psychology, neuroscience and medicine.
straddling the worlds of research and practice, mcgonigal holds positionsin both the stanford graduate school of business and the school of medicine. hermost recent book, the willpower instinct, e_plores the latest research onmotivation, temptation and procrastination, as well as what it takes totransform habits, persevere at challenges and make a successful change.
she is now researching a new book about the "upside of stress," which willlook at both why stress is good for us, and what makes us good at stress. in herwords: "the old understanding of stress as a unhelpful relic of our animalinstincts is being replaced by the understanding that stress actually makes ussocially smart -- it's what allows us to be fully human."
i have a confession to make, but first, i want you to make a littleconfession to me. in the past year, i want you to just raise your hand
if you've e_perienced relatively little stress. anyone?
how about a moderate amount of stress?
who has e_perienced a lot of stress? yeah. me too.
but that is not my confession. my confession is this: i am a healthpsychologist, and my mission is to help people be happier and healthier. but ifear that something i've been teaching for the last 10 years is doing more harmthan good, and it has to do with stress. for years i've been telling people,stress makes you sick. it increases the risk of everything from the common coldto cardiovascular disease. basically, i've turned stress into the enemy. but ihave changed my mind about stress, and today, i want to change yours.
let me start with the study that made me rethink my whole approach tostress. this study tracked 30,000 adults in the united states for eight years,and they started by asking people, "how much stress have you e_perienced in thelast year?" they also asked, "do you believe that stress is harmful for yourhealth?" and then they used public death records to find out who died.
(laughter)
okay. some bad news first. people who e_perienced a lot of stress in theprevious year had a 43 percent increased risk of dying. but that was only truefor the people who also believed that stress is harmful for your health.(laughter) people who e_perienced a lot of stress but did not view stress asharmful were no more likely to die. in fact, they had the lowest risk of dyingof anyone in the study, including people who had relatively little stress.
now the researchers estimated that over the eight years they were trackingdeaths, 182,000 americans died prematurely, not from stress, but from the beliefthat stress is bad for you. (laughter) that is over 20,000 deaths a year. now,if that estimate is correct, that would make believing stress is bad for you the15th largest cause of death in the united states last year, killing more peoplethan skin cancer, hiv/aids and homicide.
(laughter)
you can see why this study freaked me out. here i've been spending so muchenergy telling people stress is bad for your health.
so this study got me wondering: can changing how you think about stressmake you healthier? and here the science says yes. when you change your mindabout stress, you can change your body's response to stress.
now to e_plain how this works, i want you all to pretend that you areparticipants in a study designed to stress you out. it's called the socialstress test. you come into the laboratory, and you're told you have to give afive-minute impromptu speech on your personal weaknesses to a panel of e_pertevaluators sitting right in front of you, and to make sure you feel thepressure, there are bright lights and a camera in your face, kind of like this.and the evaluators have been trained to give you discouraging, non-verbalfeedback like this.
(laughter)
now that you're sufficiently demoralized, time for part two: a math test.and unbeknownst to you, the e_perimenter has been trained to harass you duringit. now we're going to all do this together. it's going to be fun. for me.
okay. i want you all to count backwards from 996 in increments of seven.you're going to do this out loud as fast as you can, starting with 996. go!audience: (counting) go faster. faster please. you're going too slow. stop.stop, stop, stop. that guy made a mistake. we are going to have to start allover again. (laughter) you're not very good at this, are you? okay, so you getthe idea. now, if you were actually in this study, you'd probably be a littlestressed out. your heart might be pounding, you might be breathing faster, maybebreaking out into a sweat. and normally, we interpret these physical changes asan_iety or signs that we aren't coping very well with the pressure.
but what if you viewed them instead as signs that your body was energized,was preparing you to meet this challenge? now that is e_actly what participantswere told in a study conducted at harvard university. before they went throughthe social stress test, they were taught to rethink their stress response ashelpful. that pounding heart is preparing you for action. if you're breathingfaster, it's no problem. it's getting more o_ygen to your brain. andparticipants who learned to view the stress response as helpful for theirperformance, well, they were less stressed out, less an_ious, more confident,but the most fascinating finding to me was how their physical stress responsechanged. now, in a typical stress response, your heart rate goes up, and yourblood vessels constrict like this. and this is one of the reasons that chronicstress is sometimes associated with cardiovascular disease. it's not reallyhealthy to be in this state all the time. but in the study, when participantsviewed their stress response as helpful, their blood vessels stayed rela_ed likethis. their heart was still pounding, but this is a much healthiercardiovascular profile. it actually looks a lot like what happens in moments ofjoy and courage. over a lifetime of stressful e_periences, this one biologicalchange could be the difference between a stress-induced heart attack at age 50and living well into your 90s. and this is really what the new science of stressreveals, that how you think about stress matters.
so my goal as a health psychologist has changed. i no longer want to getrid of your stress. i want to make you better at stress. and we just did alittle intervention. if you raised your hand and said you'd had a lot of stressin the last year, we could have saved your life, because hopefully the ne_t timeyour heart is pounding from stress, you're going to remember this talk andyou're going to think to yourself, this is my body helping me rise to thischallenge. and when you view stress in that way, your body believes you, andyour stress response becomes healthier.
now i said i have over a decade of demonizing stress to redeem myself from,so we are going to do one more intervention. i want to tell you about one of themost under-appreciated aspects of the stress response, and the idea is this:stress makes you social.
to understand this side of stress, we need to talk about a hormone,o_ytocin, and i know o_ytocin has already gotten as much hype as a hormone canget. it even has its own cute nickname, the cuddle hormone, because it'sreleased when you hug someone. but this is a very small part of what o_ytocin isinvolved in. o_ytocin is a neuro-hormone. it fine-tunes your brain's socialinstincts. it primes you to do things that strengthen close relationships.o_ytocin makes you crave physical contact with your friends and family. itenhances your empathy. it even makes you more willing to help and support thepeople you care about. some people have even suggested we should snort o_ytocinto become more compassionate and caring. but here's what most people don'tunderstand about o_ytocin. it's a stress hormone. your pituitary gland pumpsthis stuff out as part of the stress response. it's as much a part of yourstress response as the adrenaline that makes your heart pound. and when o_ytocinis released in the stress response, it is motivating you to seek support. yourbiological stress response is nudging you to tell someone how you feel insteadof bottling it up. your stress response wants to make sure you notice whensomeone else in your life is struggling so that you can support each other. whenlife is difficult, your stress response wants you to be surrounded by people whocare about you.
okay, so how is knowing this side of stress going to make you healthier?well, o_ytocin doesn't only act on your brain. it also acts on your body, andone of its main roles in your body is to protect your cardiovascular system fromthe effects of stress. it's a natural anti-inflammatory. it also helps yourblood vessels stay rela_ed during stress. but my favorite effect on the body isactually on the heart. your heart has receptors for this hormone, and o_ytocinhelps heart cells regenerate and heal from any stress-induced damage. thisstress hormone strengthens your heart, and the cool thing is that all of thesephysical benefits of o_ytocin are enhanced by social contact and social support,so when you reach out to others under stress, either to seek support or to helpsomeone else, you release more of this hormone, your stress response becomeshealthier, and you actually recover faster from stress. i find this amazing,that your stress response has a built-in mechanism for stress resilience, andthat mechanism is human connection.
i want to finish by telling you about one more study. and listen up,because this study could also save a life. this study tracked about 1,000 adultsin the united states, and they ranged in age from 34 to 93, and they started thestudy by asking, "how much stress have you e_perienced in the last year?" theyalso asked, "how much time have you spent helping out friends, neighbors, peoplein your community?" and then they used public records for the ne_t five years tofind out who died.
okay, so the bad news first: for every major stressful life e_perience,like financial difficulties or family crisis, that increased the risk of dyingby 30 percent. but -- and i hope you are e_pecting a but by now -- but thatwasn't true for everyone. people who spent time caring for others showedabsolutely no stress-related increase in dying. zero. caring created resilience.and so we see once again that the harmful effects of stress on your health arenot inevitable. how you think and how you act can transform your e_perience ofstress. when you choose to view your stress response as helpful, you create thebiology of courage. and when you choose to connect with others under stress, youcan create resilience. now i wouldn't necessarily ask for more stressfule_periences in my life, but this science has given me a whole new appreciationfor stress. stress gives us access to our hearts. the compassionate heart thatfinds joy and meaning in connecting with others, and yes, your pounding physicalheart, working so hard to give you strength and energy, and when you choose toview stress in this way, you're not just getting better at stress, you'reactually making a pretty profound statement. you're saying that you can trustyourself to handle life's challenges, and you're remembering that you don't haveto face them alone.
thank you.
(applause)
chris anderson: this is kind of amazing, what you're telling us. it seemsamazing to me that a belief about stress can make so much difference tosomeone's life e_pectancy. how would that e_tend to advice, like, if someone ismaking a lifestyle choice between, say, a stressful job and a non-stressful job,does it matter which way they go? it's equally wise to go for the stressful jobso long as you believe that you can handle it, in some sense?
kelly mcgonigal: yeah, and one thing we know for certain is that chasingmeaning is better for your health than trying to avoid discomfort. and so iwould say that's really the best way to make decisions, is go after what it isthat creates meaning in your life and then trust yourself to handle the stressthat follows.
ca: thank you so much, kelly. it's pretty cool. km: thank you.
(applause)
亲爱的同学们：
大家好!
我今天演讲的主题是“关注食品安全”。
随着中国社会经济的快速发展和人民生活水平的提高，人们越来越重视健康和食品安全，尤其是“__”奶粉等食品安全事件的发生，这也引起了人们的关注。
给我们敲响了安全的警钟，“食品安全”已成为与国民健康，社会稳定，经济发展和市场繁荣相关的重要因素。
对于我们每个同学来说，学习和了解相关的食品卫生知识，养成良好的饮食习惯，提高自我保护意识，抵制劣质食品的诱惑是非常必要和实际的。
但我们经常看到一些学生在校园的杂货店，餐馆甚至小摊子前，一些学生在购买、食用价廉质次的食品。那么，你了解这些看似诱人和便宜的食物背后的危险吗?
据卫生监督部门的技术人员介绍，由于学生的零用钱相对有限，大多数这些经营者“便宜进便宜出”，采取购买一些“三无”产品的原则，大多数食品是基于颜料和糖精。在这里我建议学生：
1.建立食品安全概念，了解食品安全知识，增强自我保护能力。购买食品时，应选择常规的大型购物中心和超市。购买食品时，应尽量选择一些知名品牌。同时，我们必须注意食品包装上是否有制造商，生产日期以及保质期是否已过。
如果你在小商店购买食品，你必须看好制造商，生产日期，保质期，注意包装袋是否损坏。无生产许可证和qs徽标的食品不能购买或食用。
2.养成良好的饮食观念。不食用流动摊点的小吃、零食等，自觉抵制，三无食物，劣质食品，学生在学校尽可能在学校食堂吃饭。
3.养成健康的饮食习惯。不挑食，不偏食，一日三餐，定时定量，不暴饮暴食。带上自己的杯子，多喝开水。事实上，开水是的饮料。
有些饮料含有防腐剂，色素等，经常饮用不利于年轻学生的健康。
老师，同学们，食品安全都是不小的事，“病从口入”重预防。如今，已进入春天的季节万物复苏，各种细菌正在悄然滋生和迅速传播。
让我们自觉行动，注重食品安全，重视“问题食品”对身体健康和青少年成长的危害，远离“问题食品”和“不合格食品”，不断提高我们的食品安全意识。自我保护意识，为构建平安和谐、健康向上的校园环境而不懈努力!
谢谢大家!
拥抱他人，拥抱自己
embracing otherness. when i first heard this theme, i thought, well,embracing otherness is embracing myself. and the journey to that place ofunderstanding and acceptance has been an interesting one for me, and it's givenme an insight into the whole notion of self, which i think is worth sharing withyou today.
拥抱他类。当我第一次听说这个主题时，我心想，拥抱他类不就是拥抱自己吗。我个人懂得理解和接受他类的经历很有趣，让我对于“自己”这个词也有了新的认识，我想今天在这里和你们分享下我的心得体会。
we each have a self, but i don't think that we're born with one. you knowhow newborn babies believe they're part of everything; they're not separate?well that fundamental sense of oneness is lost on us very quickly. it's likethat initial stage is over -- oneness: infancy, unformed, primitive. it's nolonger valid or real. what is real is separateness, and at some point in earlybabyhood, the idea of self starts to form. our little portion of oneness isgiven a name, is told all kinds of things about itself, and these details,opinions and ideas become facts, which go towards building ourselves, ouridentity. and that self becomes the vehicle for navigating our social world. butthe self is a projection based on other people's projections. is it who wereally are? or who we really want to be, or should be?
我们每个人都有个自我，但并不是生来就如此的。你知道新生的宝宝们觉得他们是任何东西的一部分，而不是分裂的个体。这种本源上的“天人合一”感在我们出生后很快就不见了，就好像我们人生的第一个篇章--和谐统一：婴儿，未成形，原始--结束了。它们似幻似影，而现实的世界是孤独彼此分离的。而在孩童期的某段时间，我们开始形成自我这个观点。宇宙中的小小个体有了自己的名字，有了自己的过去等等各种信息。这些关于自己的细节，看法和观点慢慢变成事实，成为我们身份的一部分。而那个自我，也变成我们人生路上前行的导航仪。然后，这个所谓的自我，是他人自我的映射，还是我们真实的自己呢?我们究竟想成为什么样，应该成为什么样的呢?
so this whole interaction with self and identity was a very difficult onefor me growing up. the self that i attempted to take out into the world wasrejected over and over again. and my panic at not having a self that fit, andthe confusion that came from my self being rejected, created an_iety, shame andhopelessness, which kind of defined me for a long time. but in retrospect, thedestruction of my self was so repetitive that i started to see a pattern. theself changed, got affected, broken, destroyed, but another one would evolve --sometimes stronger, sometimes hateful, sometimes not wanting to be there at all.the self was not constant. and how many times would my self have to die before irealized that it was never alive in the first place?
这个和自我打交道，寻找自己身份的过程在我的成长记忆中一点都不容易。我想成为的那些“自我”不断被否定再否定，而我害怕自己无法融入周遭的环境，因被否定而引起的困惑让我变得更加忧虑，感到羞耻和无望，在很长一段时间就是我存在状态。然而回头看，对自我的解构是那么频繁，以至于我发现了这样一种规律。自我是变化的，受他人影响，分裂或被打败，而另一个自我会产生，这个自我可能更坚强，可能更可憎，有时你也不想变成那样。所谓自我不是固定不变的。而我需要经历多少次自我的破碎重生才会明白其实自我从来没有存在过?
i grew up on the coast of england in the '70s. my dad is white fromcornwall, and my mom is black from zimbabwe. even the idea of us as a family waschallenging to most people. but nature had its wicked way, and brown babies wereborn. but from about the age of five, i was aware that i didn't fit. i was theblack atheist kid in the all-white catholic school run by nuns. i was ananomaly, and my self was rooting around for definition and trying to plug in.because the self likes to fit, to see itself replicated, to belong. thatconfirms its e_istence and its importance. and it is important. it has ane_tremely important function. without it, we literally can't interface withothers. we can't hatch plans and climb that stairway of popularity, of success.but my skin color wasn't right. my hair wasn't right. my history wasn't right.my self became defined by otherness, which meant that, in that social world, ididn't really e_ist. and i was "other" before being anything else -- even beforebeing a girl. i was a noticeable nobody.
我在70年代英格兰海边长大，我的父亲是康沃尔的白人，母亲是津巴布韦的黑人。而想象我和父母是一家人对于其他人来说总是不太自然。自然有它自己的魔术，棕色皮肤的宝宝诞生了。但从我五岁开始，我就有种感觉我不是这个群体的。我是一个全白人天主教会学校里面黑皮肤无神论小孩。我与他人是不同的，而那个热衷于归属的自我却到处寻找方式寻找归属感。这种认同感让自我感受到存在感和重要性，因此十分重要。这点是如此重要，如果没有自我，我们根本无法与他人沟通。没有它，我们无所适从，无法获取成功或变得受人欢迎。但我的肤色不对，我的头发不对，我的过去不对，我的一切都是另类定义的，在这个社会里，我其实并不真实存在。我首先是个异类，其次才是个女孩。我是可见却毫无意义的人。
another world was opening up around this time: performance and dancing.that nagging dread of self-hood didn't e_ist when i was dancing. i'd literallylose myself. and i was a really good dancer. i would put all my emotionale_pression into my dancing. i could be in the movement in a way that i wasn'table to be in my real life, in myself.
这时候，另一个世界向我敞开了大门：舞蹈表演。那种关于自我的唠叨恐惧在舞蹈时消失了，我放开四肢，也成为了一位不错的舞者。我将所有的情绪都融入到舞蹈的动作中去，我可以在舞蹈中与自己相溶，尽管在现实生活中却无法做到。
and at 16, i stumbled across another opportunity, and i earned my firstacting role in a film. i can hardly find the words to describe the peace i feltwhen i was acting. my dysfunctional self could actually plug in to another self,not my own, and it felt so good. it was the first time that i e_isted inside afully-functioning self -- one that i controlled, that i steered, that i gavelife to. but the shooting day would end, and i'd return to my gnarly, awkwardself.
16岁的时候，我遇到了另一个机会，第一部参演的电影。我无法用语言来表达在演戏的时候我所感受到的平和，我无处着落的自我可以与那个角色融为一体，而不是我自己。那感觉真棒。这是第一次我感觉到我拥有一个自我，我可以驾驭，令其富有盛名的自我。然而当拍摄结束，我又会回到自己粗糙不明，笨拙的自我。
by 19, i was a fully-fledged movie actor, but still searching fordefinition. i applied to read anthropology at university. dr. phyllis lee gaveme my interview, and she asked me, "how would you define race?" well, i thoughti had the answer to that one, and i said, "skin color." "so biology, genetics?"she said. "because, thandie, that's not accurate. because there's actually moregenetic difference between a black kenyan and a black ugandan than there isbetween a black kenyan and, say, a white norwegian. because we all stem fromafrica. so in africa, there's been more time to create genetic diversity." inother words, race has no basis in biological or scientific fact. on the onehand, result. right? on the other hand, my definition of self just lost a hugechunk of its credibility. but what was credible, what is biological andscientific fact, is that we all stem from africa -- in fact, from a woman calledmitochondrial eve who lived 160,000 years ago. and race is an illegitimateconcept which our selves have created based on fear and ignorance.
19岁的时候，我已经是富有经验的专业电影演员，而我还是在寻找自我的定义。我申请了大学的人类学专业。phyllislee博士面试了我，她问我：“你怎么定义种族?”我觉得我很了解这个话题，我说：“肤色。”“那么生物上来说呢，例如遗传基因?”她说，“thandie肤色并不全面，其实一个肯尼亚黑人和乌干达黑人之间基因差异比一个肯尼亚黑人和挪威白人之间差异要更多。因为我们都是从非洲来的，所以在非洲，基因变异演化的时间是最久的。”换句话说，种族在生物学或任何科学上都没有事实根据。另一方面，我对于自我的定义瞬时失去了一大片基础。但那就是生物学事实，我们都是非洲后裔，一位在160 0__年前的伟大女性mitochondrialeve的后人。而种族这个无效的概念是我们基于恐惧和无知自己捏造出来的。
strangely, these revelations didn't cure my low self-esteem, that feelingof otherness. my desire to disappear was still very powerful. i had a degreefrom cambridge; i had a thriving career, but my self was a car crash, and iwound up with bulimia and on a therapist's couch. and of course i did. i stillbelieved my self was all i was. i still valued self-worth above all other worth,and what was there to suggest otherwise? we've created entire value systems anda physical reality to support the worth of self. look at the industry forself-image and the jobs it creates, the revenue it turns over. we'd be right inassuming that the self is an actual living thing. but it's not. it's aprojection which our clever brains create in order to cheat ourselves from thereality of death.
奇怪的是，这个发现并没有治好我的自卑，那种被排挤的感觉。我还是那么强烈地想要离开消失。我从剑桥拿到了学位，我有份充满发展的工作，然而我的自我还是一团糟，我得了催吐病不得不接受治疗师的帮助。我还是相信自我是我的全部。我还是坚信“自我”的价值甚过一切。而且我们身处的世界就是如此，我们的整个价值系统和现实环境都是在服务“自我”的价值。看看不同行业里面对于自我的塑造，看看它们创造的那些工作，产出的那些利润。我们甚至必须相信自我是真实存在的。但它们不是，自我不过是我们聪明的脑袋假想出来骗自己不去思考死亡这个话题的幌子。
but there is something that can give the self ultimate and infiniteconnection -- and that thing is oneness, our essence. the self's struggle forauthenticity and definition will never end unless it's connected to its creator-- to you and to me. and that can happen with awareness -- awareness of thereality of oneness and the projection of self-hood. for a start, we can thinkabout all the times when we do lose ourselves. it happens when i dance, when i'macting. i'm earthed in my essence, and my self is suspended. in those moments,i'm connected to everything -- the ground, the air, the sounds, the energy fromthe audience. all my senses are alert and alive in much the same way as aninfant might feel -- that feeling of oneness.
但其实我们的终极自我其实是我们的本源，合一。挣扎自我是否真实，究竟是什么永远没有终结，除非它和赋予它意义的创造者合一，就是你和我。而这点当我们意识到现实是你中有我，我中有你，和谐统一，而自我是种假象时就会体会到了。我们可以想想，什么时候我们是身心统一的，例如说我跳舞，表演的时候，我和我的本源连结，而我的自我被抛在一边。那时，我和身边的一切--空气，大地，声音，观众的反馈都连结在一起。我的知觉是敏锐和鲜活的，就像初生的婴儿那样，合一。
and when i'm acting a role, i inhabit another self, and i give it life forawhile, because when the self is suspended so is divisiveness and judgment. andi've played everything from a vengeful ghost in the time of slavery to secretaryof state in __. and no matter how other these selves might be, they're allrelated in me. and i honestly believe the key to my success as an actor and myprogress as a person has been the very lack of self that used to make me feel soan_ious and insecure. i always wondered why i could feel others' pain so deeply,why i could recognize the somebody in the nobody. it's because i didn't have aself to get in the way. i thought i lacked substance, and the fact that i couldfeel others' meant that i had nothing of myself to feel. the thing that was asource of shame was actually a source of enlightenment.
当我在演戏的时候，我让另一个自我住在我体内，我代表它行动。当我的自我被抛开，紧随的分歧和主观判断也消失了。我曾经扮演过奴隶时代的复仇鬼魂，也扮演过__年的国务卿。不管他们这些自我是怎样的，他们都在那时与我相连。而我也深信作为演员，我的成功，或是作为个体，我的成长都是源于我缺乏“自我”，那种缺乏曾经让我非常忧虑和不安。我总是不明白为什么我会那么深地感受到他人的痛苦，为什么我可以从不知名的人身上看出他人的印痕。是因为我没有所谓的自我来左右我感受的信息吧。我以为我缺少些什么，我以为我对他人的理解是因为我缺乏自我。那个曾经是我深感羞耻的东西其实是种启示。
and when i realized and really understood that my self is a projection andthat it has a function, a funny thing happened. i stopped giving it so muchauthority. i give it its due. i take it to therapy. i've become very familiarwith its dysfunctional behavior. but i'm not ashamed of my self. in fact, irespect my self and its function. and over time and with practice, i've tried tolive more and more from my essence. and if you can do that, incredible thingshappen.
当我真的理解我的自我不过是种映射，是种工具，一件奇怪的事情发生了。我不再让它过多控制我的生活。我学习管理它，像把它带去看医生一样，我很熟悉那些因自我而失调的举动。我不因自我而羞耻，事实上，我很尊敬我的自我和它的功能。而随着时间过去，我的技术也更加熟练，我可以更多的和我的本源共存。如果你愿意尝试，不可以思议的事情也会发生在你身上。
i was in congo in february, dancing and celebrating with women who'vesurvived the destruction of their selves in literally unthinkable ways --destroyed because other brutalized, psychopathic selves all over that beautifulland are fueling our selves' addiction to ipods, pads, and bling, which furtherdisconnect ourselves from ever feeling their pain, their suffering, their death.because, hey, if we're all living in ourselves and mistaking it for life, thenwe're devaluing and desensitizing life. and in that disconnected state, yeah, wecan build factory farms with no windows, destroy marine life and use rape as aweapon of war. so here's a note to self: the cracks have started to show in ourconstructed world, and oceans will continue to surge through the cracks, and oiland blood, rivers of it.
今年二月，我在刚果和一群女性一起跳舞和庆祝，她们都是经历过各种无法想象事情“自我”遍体鳞伤的人们，那些备受摧残，心理变态的自我充斥在这片美丽的土地，而我们仍痴迷地追逐着ipod，pad等各种闪亮的东西，将我们与他们的痛苦，死亡隔得更远。如果我们各自生活在自我中，并无以为这就是生活，那么我们是在贬低和远离生命的意义。在这种脱节的状态中，我们是可以建设没有窗户的工厂，破坏海洋生态，将__作为战争的工具。为我们的自我做个解释：这是看似完善的世界里的裂痕，海洋，河流，石油和鲜血正不断地从缝中涌出。
crucially, we haven't been figuring out how to live in oneness with theearth and every other living thing. we've just been insanely trying to figureout how to live with each other -- billions of each other. only we're not livingwith each other; our crazy selves are living with each other and perpetuating anepidemic of disconnection.
关键的是，我们还没有明白如何和自然以及其他所有生物和谐地共处。我们只是疯狂地想和其他人沟通，几十亿其他人。只有当我们不在和世界合一的时候，我们疯狂的自我却互相怜惜，并永远继续这场相互隔绝的疫症。
let's live with each other and take it a breath at a time. if we can getunder that heavy self, light a torch of awareness, and find our essence, ourconnection to the infinite and every other living thing. we knew it from the daywe were born. let's not be freaked out by our bountiful nothingness. it's more areality than the ones our selves have created. imagine what kind of e_istence wecan have if we honor inevitable death of self, appreciate the privilege of lifeand marvel at what comes ne_t. simple awareness is where it begins.
让我们共生共荣，并不要太过激进着急。试着放下沉重的自我，点亮知觉的火把，寻找我们的本源，我们与万事万物之间的联系。我们初生时就懂得这个道理的。不要被我们内心丰富的空白吓到，这比我们虚构的自我要真实。想象如果你能接受自我并不存在，你想要如何生活，感恩生命的可贵和未来的惊奇。简单的觉醒就是开始。
thank you for listening.
(applause) 谢谢。
I was one of the only kids in college who had a reason to go to the P.O.bo_ at the end of the day, and that was mainly because my mother has neverbelieved in email, in Facebook, in te_ting or cell phones in general. And sowhile other kids were BBM-ing their parents, I was literally waiting by themailbo_ to get a letter from home to see how the weekend had gone, which was alittle frustrating when Grandma was in the hospital, but I was just looking forsome sort of scribble, some unkempt cursive from my mother.
And so when I moved to New York City after college and got completelysucker-punched in the face by depression, I did the only thing I could think ofat the time. I wrote those same kinds of letters that my mother had written mefor strangers, and tucked them all throughout the city, dozens and dozens ofthem. I left them everywhere, in cafes and in libraries, at the U.N.,everywhere. I blogged about those letters and the days when they were necessary,and I posed a kind of crazy promise to the Internet: that if you asked me for ahand-written letter, I would write you one, no questions asked. Overnight, myinbo_ morphed into this harbor of heartbreak -- a single mother in Sacramento, agirl being bullied in rural Kansas, all asking me, a 22-year-old girl who barelyeven knew her own coffee order, to write them a love letter and give them areason to wait by the mailbo_.
Well, today I fuel a global organization that is fueled by those trips tothe mailbo_, fueled by the ways in which we can harness social media like neverbefore to write and mail strangers letters when they need them most, but most ofall, fueled by crates of mail like this one, my trusty mail crate, filled withthe scriptings of ordinary people, strangers writing letters to other strangersnot because they're ever going to meet and laugh over a cup of coffee, butbecause they have found one another by way of letter-writing.
But, you know, the thing that always gets me about these letters is thatmost of them have been written by people that have never known themselves lovedon a piece of paper. They could not tell you about the ink of their own loveletters. They're the ones from my generation, the ones of us that have grown upinto a world where everything is paperless, and where some of our bestconversations have happened upon a screen. We have learned to diary our painonto Facebook, and we speak swiftly in 140 characters or less.
But what if it's not about efficiency this time? I was on the subwayyesterday with this mail crate, which is a conversation starter, let me tellyou. If you ever need one, just carry one of these. (Laughter) And a man juststared at me, and he was like, "Well, why don't you use the Internet?" And Ithought, "Well, sir, I am not a strategist, nor am I specialist. I am merely astoryteller." And so I could tell you about a woman whose husband has just comehome from Afghanistan, and she is having a hard time unearthing this thingcalled conversation, and so she tucks love letters throughout the house as a wayto say, "Come back to me. Find me when you can." Or a girl who decides that sheis going to leave love letters around her campus in Dubuque, Iowa, only to findher efforts ripple-effected the ne_t day when she walks out onto the quad andfinds love letters hanging from the trees, tucked in the bushes and the benches.Or the man who decides that he is going to take his life, uses Facebook as a wayto say goodbye to friends and family. Well, tonight he sleeps safely with astack of letters just like this one tucked beneath his pillow, scripted bystrangers who were there for him when.
These are the kinds of stories that convinced me that letter-writing willnever again need to flip back her hair and talk about efficiency, because she isan art form now, all the parts of her, the signing, the scripting, the mailing,the doodles in the margins. The mere fact that somebody would even just sitdown, pull out a piece of paper and think about someone the whole way through,with an intention that is so much harder to unearth when the browser is up andthe iPhone is pinging and we've got si_ conversations rolling in at once, thatis an art form that does not fall down to the Goliath of "get faster," no matterhow many social networks we might join. We still clutch close these letters toour chest, to the words that speak louder than loud, when we turn pages intopalettes to say the things that we have needed to say, the words that we haveneeded to write, to sisters and brothers and even to strangers, for far toolong. Thank you.
when i was nine years old i went off to summer camp for the first time. andmy mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like aperfectly natural thing to do. because in my family, reading was the primarygroup activity. and this might sound antisocial to you, but for us it was reallyjust a different way of being social. you have the animal warmth of your familysitting right ne_t to you, but you are also free to go roaming around theadventureland inside your own mind. and i had this idea that camp was going tobe just like this, but better. (laughter) i had a vision of 10 girls sitting ina cabin cozily reading books in their matching nightgowns.
当我九岁的时候 我第一次去参加夏令营 我妈妈帮我整理好了我的行李箱 里面塞满了书 这对于我来说是一件极为自然的事情 因为在我的家庭里阅读是主要的家庭活动 听上去你们可能觉得我们是不爱交际的 但是对于我的家庭来说这真的只是接触社会的另一种途径 你们有自己家庭接触时的温暖亲情 家人静坐在你身边但是你也可以自由地漫游 在你思维深处的冒险乐园里我有一个想法 野营会变得像这样子，当然要更好些 (笑声) 我想象到十个女孩坐在一个小屋里都穿着合身的女式睡衣惬意地享受着读书的过程
(laughter)
(笑声)
camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol. and on the very firstday our counselor gathered us all together and she taught us a cheer that shesaid we would be doing every day for the rest of the summer to instill campspirit. and it went like this: "r-o-w-d-i-e, that's the way we spell rowdie.rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie." yeah. so i couldn't figure out for the lifeof me why we were supposed to be so rowdy, or why we had to spell this wordincorrectly. (laughter) but i recited a cheer. i recited a cheer along witheverybody else. i did my best. and i just waited for the time that i could gooff and read my books.
野营这时更像是一个不提供酒水的派对聚会 在第一天的时候呢 我们的顾问把我们都集合在一起 并且她教会了我们一种今后要用到的庆祝方式在余下夏令营的每一天中 让“露营精神”浸润我们 之后它就像这样继续着 r-o-w-d-i-e 这是我们拼写“吵闹"的口号我们唱着“噪音，喧闹，我们要变得吵一点” 对，就是这样 可我就是弄不明白我的生活会是什么样的 为什么我们变得这么吵闹粗暴 或者为什么我们非要把这个单词错误地拼写(笑声) 但是我可没有忘记庆祝。我与每个人都互相欢呼庆祝了 我尽了我最大的努力 我只是想等待那一刻 我可以离开吵闹的聚会去捧起我挚爱的书
but the first time that i took my book out of my suitcase, the coolest girlin the bunk came up to me and she asked me, "why are you being so mellow?" --mellow, of course, being the e_act opposite of r-o-w-d-i-e. and then the secondtime i tried it, the counselor came up to me with a concerned e_pression on herface and she repeated the point about camp spirit and said we should all workvery hard to be outgoing.
但是当我第一次把书从行李箱中拿出来的时候 床铺中最酷的那个女孩向我走了过来 并且她问我：“为什么你要这么安静?”安静，当然，是r-o-w-d-i-e的反义词 “喧闹”的反义词 而当我第二次拿书的时候 我们的顾问满脸忧虑的向我走了过来接着她重复了关于“露营精神”的要点并且说我们都应当努力 去变得外向些
and so i put my books away, back in their suitcase, and i put them under mybed, and there they stayed for the rest of the summer. and i felt kind of guiltyabout this. i felt as if the books needed me somehow, and they were calling outto me and i was forsaking them.but i did forsake them and i didn't open thatsuitcase again until i was back home with my family at the end of thesummer.
于是我放好我的书 放回了属于它们的行李箱中 并且我把它们放到了床底下 在那里它们度过了暑假余下的每一天 我对这样做感到很愧疚不知为什么我感觉这些书是需要我的 它们在呼唤我，但是我却放弃了它们 我确实放下了它们，并且我再也没有打开那个箱子 直到我和我的家人一起回到家中在夏末的时候
now, i tell you this story about summer camp. i could have told you 50others just like it --all the times that i got the message that somehow my quietand introverted style of beingwas not necessarily the right way to go, that ishould be trying to pass as more of an e_trovert. and i always sensed deep downthat this was wrong and that introverts were pretty e_cellent just as they were.but for years i denied this intuition, and so i became a wall street lawyer, ofall things, instead of the writer that i had always longed to be -- partlybecause i needed to prove to myself that i could be bold and assertive too. andi was always going off to crowded bars when i really would have preferred tojust have a nice dinner with friends. and i made these self-negating choices sorefle_ively, that i wasn't even aware that i was making them.
现在，我向你们讲述这个夏令营的故事 我完全可以给你们讲出其他50种版本就像这个一样的故事-- 每当我感觉到这样的时候它告诉我出于某种原因，我的宁静和内向的风格 并不是正确道路上的必需品 我应该更多地尝试一个外向者的角色而在我内心深处感觉得到，这是错误的内向的人们都是非常优秀的，确实是这样 但是许多年来我都否认了这种直觉 于是我首先成为了华尔街的一名律师而不是我长久以来想要成为的一名作家 一部分原因是因为我想要证明自己 也可以变得勇敢而坚定 并且我总是去那些拥挤的酒吧 当我只是想要和朋友们吃一顿愉快的晚餐时我做出了这些自我否认的抉择 如条件反射一般 甚至我都不清楚我做出了这些决定
now this is what many introverts do, and it's our loss for sure, but it isalso our colleagues' loss and our communities' loss. and at the risk of soundinggrandiose, it is the world's loss. because when it comes to creativity and toleadership, we need introverts doing what they do best. a third to a half of thepopulation are introverts -- a third to a half. so that's one out of every twoor three people you know. so even if you're an e_trovert yourself, i'm talkingabout your coworkers and your spouses and your childrenand the person sittingne_t to you right now -- all of them subject to this bias that is pretty deepand real in our society. we all internalize it from a very early age withouteven having a language for what we're doing.
这就是很多内向的人正在做的事情 这当然是我们的损失 但这同样也是同事们的损失 我们所在团队集体的损失当然，冒着被指为夸大其词的风险我想说，更是世界的损失 因为当涉及创造和领导的时候 我们需要内向的人做到最好 三分之一到二分之一的人都是内向的--三分之一到二分之一 你要知道这可意味着每两到三个人中就有一个内向的 所以即使你自己是一个外向的人 我正在说你的同事 和你的配偶和你的孩子还有现在正坐在你旁边的那个家伙-- 他们都要屈从于这样的偏见 一种在我们的社会中已经扎根的现实偏见 我们从很小的时候就把它藏在内心最深处甚至都不说几句话，关于我们正在做的事情。
now to see the bias clearly you need to understand what introversion is.it's different from being shy. shyness is about fear of social judgment.introversion is more about, how do you respond to stimulation, including socialstimulation. so e_troverts really crave large amounts of stimulation, whereasintroverts feel at their most alive and their most switched-on and their mostcapable when they're in quieter, more low-key environments.not all the time --these things aren't absolute -- but a lot of the time. so the key then toma_imizing our talents is for us all to put ourselves in the zone of stimulationthat is right for us.
现在让我们来清楚地看待这种偏见 我们需要真正了解“内向”到底指什么 它和害羞是不同的 害羞是对于社会评论的恐惧 内向更多的是 你怎样对于刺激作出回应包括来自社会的刺激 其实内向的人是很渴求大量的鼓舞和激励的 反之内向者最感觉到他们的存在 这是他们精力最充足的时候，最具有能力的时候当他们存在于更安静的，更低调的环境中 并不是所有时候--这些事情都不是绝对的-- 但是存在于很多时候 所以说，关键在于 把我们的天赋发挥到最大化这对于我们来说就足够把我们自己 放到对于我们正确又合适的激励的区域中去
but now here's where the bias comes in. our most important institutions,our schools and our workplaces, they are designed mostly for e_troverts and fore_troverts' need for lots of stimulation. and also we have this belief systemright now that i call the new groupthink,which holds that all creativity and allproductivity comes from a very oddly gregarious place.
但是现在偏见出现了 我们最重要的那些体系 我们的学校和工作单位 它们都是为性格外向者设计的 并且有适合他们需要的刺激和鼓励当然我们现在也有这样一种信用机制 我称它为新型的“团队思考” 这是一种包含所有创造力和生产力的思考方式 从一个社交非常零散的地方产生的
so if you picture the typical classroom nowadays: when i was going toschool, we sat in rows. we sat in rows of desks like this, and we did most ofour work pretty autonomously.but nowadays, your typical classroom has pods ofdesks -- four or five or si_ or seven kids all facing each other. and kids areworking in countless group assignments. even in subjects like math and creativewriting, which you think would depend on solo flights of thought, kids are nowe_pected to act as committee members. and for the kids who preferto go off bythemselves or just to work alone, those kids are seen as outliers often or,worse, as problem cases. and the vast majority of teachers reports believingthat the ideal student is an e_trovert as opposed to an introvert, even thoughintroverts actually get better grades and are more knowledgeable, according toresearch. (laughter)
当你描绘今天典型教室的图案时 当我还上学的时候 我们一排排地坐着 我们靠着桌子一排排坐着就像这样 并且我们大多数工作都是自觉完成的但是在现代社会，所谓典型的教室 是些圈起来并排的桌子-- 四个或是五个或是六、七个孩子坐在一起，面对面 孩子们要完成无数个小组任务 甚至像数学和创意写作这些课程这些你们认为需要依靠个人闪光想法的课程 孩子们现在却被期待成为小组会的成员 对于那些喜欢 独处，或者自己一个人工作的孩子来说 这些孩子常常被视为局外人或者更糟，被视为问题孩子 并且很大一部分老师的报告中都相信 最理想的学生应该是外向的 相对于内向的学生而言 甚至说外向的学生能够取得更好的成绩更加博学多识据研究报道 (笑声)
okay, same thing is true in our workplaces. now, most of us work in openplan offices,without walls, where we are subject to the constant noise and gazeof our coworkers. and when it comes to leadership, introverts are routinelypassed over for leadership positions,even though introverts tend to be verycareful, much less likely to take outsize risks --which is something we mightall favor nowadays. and interesting research by adam grant at the wharton schoolhas found that introverted leaders often deliver better outcomes than e_trovertsdo, because when they are managing proactive employees, they're much more likelyto let those employees run with their ideas, whereas an e_trovert can, quiteunwittingly, get so e_cited about things that they're putting their own stamp onthings, and other people's ideas might not as easily then bubble up to thesurface.
好了。同样的事情也发生在我们工作的地方 现在呢，我们中的绝大多数都工作在宽阔没有隔间的办公室里 甚至没有墙 在这里，我们暴露在不断的噪音和我们同事的凝视目光下工作 而当谈及领袖气质的时候 内向的人总是按照惯例从领导的位置被忽视了 尽管内向的人是非常小心仔细的 很少去冒特大的风险--这些风险是今天我们可能都喜欢的 宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院的亚当·格兰特教授做了一项很有意思的研究 这项研究表明内向的领导们相对于外向领导而言总是会生产更大的效益 因为当他们管理主动积极的雇员的时候 他们更倾向于让有主见的雇员去自由发挥 反之外向的领导就可能，当然是不经意的对于事情变得十分激动 他们在事务上有了自己想法的印迹 这使其他人的想法可能就不会很容易地 在舞台上发光了
now in fact, some of our transformative leaders in history have beenintroverts. i'll give you some e_amples. eleanor roosevelt, rosa parks, gandhi-- all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy.and they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies wastelling them not to. and this turns out to have a special power all its own,because people could feel that these leaders were at the helm,not because theyenjoyed directing others and not out of the pleasure of being looked at;theywere there because they had no choice, because they were driven to do what theythought was right.
事实上，历史上一些有改革能力的领袖都是内向的人 我会举一些例子给你们 埃莉诺·罗斯福，罗沙·帕克斯，甘地 -- 所有这些人都把自己描述成内向，说话温柔甚至是害羞的人 他们仍然站在了聚光灯下 即使他们浑身上下 都感知他们说不要这证明是一种属于它自身的特殊的力量因为人们都会感觉这些领导者同时是掌舵者 并不是因为他们喜欢指挥别人 抑或是享受众人目光的聚焦 他们处在那个位置因为他们没有选择因为他们行驶在他们认为正确的道路上
now i think at this point it's important for me to say that i actually lovee_troverts. i always like to say some of my best friends are e_troverts,including my beloved husband. and we all fall at different points, of course,along the introvert/e_trovert spectrum. even carl jung, the psychologist whofirst popularized these terms, said that there's no such thing as a pureintrovert or a pure e_trovert. he said that such a man would be in a lunaticasylum, if he e_isted at all. and some people fall smack in the middle of theintrovert/e_trovert spectrum, and we call these people ambiverts. and i oftenthink that they have the best of all worlds. but many of us do recognizeourselves as one type or the other.
现在我觉得对于这点我有必要说 那就是我真的喜爱外向的人 我总是喜欢说我最好的几个朋友都是外向的人 包括我亲爱的丈夫 当然了我们都会在不同点时偏向内向者/外向者的范围 甚至是卡尔·荣格，这个让这些名词为大众所熟知的心理学家，说道 世上绝没有一个纯粹的内向的人 或者一个纯粹的外向的人他说这样的人会在精神病院里 如果他存在的话 还有一些人处在中间的迹象 在内向与外向之间 我们称这些人为“中向性格者” 并且我总是认为他们拥有世界最美好的一切但是我们中的大多数总是认为自己属于内向或者外向，其中一类
and what i'm saying is that culturally we need a much better balance. weneed more of a yin and yang between these two types. this is especiallyimportant when it comes to creativity and to productivity, because whenpsychologists look at the lives of the most creative people, what they find arepeople who are very good at e_changing ideas and advancing ideas, but who alsohave a serious streak of introversion in them.
同时我想说从文化意义上讲我们需要一种更好的平衡 我们需要更多的阴阳的平衡 在这两种类型的人之间 这点是极为重要的 当涉及创造力和生产力的时候因为当心理学家们看待 最有创造力的人的生命的时候 他们寻找到的 是那些擅长变换思维的人 提出想法的人 但是他们同时也有着极为显著的偏内向的痕迹
and this is because solitude is a crucial ingredient often to creativity.so darwin, he took long walks alone in the woods and emphatically turned downdinner party invitations.theodor geisel, better known as dr. seuss, he dreamedup many of his amazing creations in a lonely bell tower office that he had inthe back of his house in la jolla, california. and he was actually afraid tomeet the young children who read his books for fear that they were e_pecting himthis kind of jolly santa claus-like figure and would be disappointed with hismore reserved persona. steve wozniak invented the first apple computer sittingalone in his cubical in hewlett-packard where he was working at the time. and hesays that he never would have become such an e_pert in the first place had henot been too introverted to leave the house when he was growing up.
这是因为独处是非常关键的因素 对于创造力来说 所以达尔文 自己一个人漫步在小树林里 并且断然拒绝了晚餐派对的邀约西奥多·盖索，更多时候以苏索博士的名号知名 他梦想过很多的惊人的创作 在他在加利福尼亚州拉霍亚市房子的后面的 一座孤独的束层的塔形办公室中 而且其实他很害怕见面见那些读过他的书的年轻的孩子们 害怕他们会期待他 这样一位令人愉快的，圣诞老人形象的人物 同时又会因发现他含蓄缄默的性格而失望史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克发明了第一台苹果电脑 一个人独自坐在他的机柜旁 在他当时工作的惠普公司 并且他说他永远不会在那方面成为一号专家 但他还没因太内向到要离开那里那个他成长起来的地方
now of course, this does not mean that we should all stop collaborating --and case in point, is steve wozniak famously coming together with steve jobs tostart apple computer -- but it does mean that solitude matters and that for somepeople it is the air that they breathe. and in fact, we have known for centuriesabout the transcendent power of solitude. it's only recently that we'vestrangely begun to forget it. if you look at most of the world's majorreligions, you will find seekers -- moses, jesus, buddha, muhammad --seekers whoare going off by themselves alone to the wilderness where they then haveprofound epiphanies and revelations that they then bring back to the rest of thecommunity. so no wilderness, no revelations.
当然了 这并不意味着我们都应该停止合作-- 恰当的例子呢，是史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克和史蒂夫·乔布斯的著名联手 创建苹果电脑公司--但是这并不意味着和独处有重大关系 并且对于一些人来说 这是他们赖以呼吸生存的空气 事实上，几个世纪以来我们已经非常明白独处的卓越力量只是到了最近，非常奇怪，我们开始遗忘它了 如果你看看世界上主要的宗教 你会发现探寻者-- 摩西，耶稣，佛祖，穆罕默德 -- 那些独身去探寻的人们在大自然的旷野中独处，思索 在那里，他们有了深刻的顿悟和对于奥义的揭示 之后他们把这些思想带回到社会的其他地方去没有旷原，没有启示
this is no surprise though if you look at the insights of contemporarypsychology. it turns out that we can't even be in a group of people withoutinstinctively mirroring, mimicking their opinions. even about seemingly personaland visceral things like who you're attracted to, you will start aping thebeliefs of the people around you without even realizing that that's what you'redoing.
尽管这并不令人惊讶 如果你注意到现代心理学的思想理论 它反映出来我们甚至不能和一组人待在一起 而不去本能地模仿他们的意见与想法甚至是看上去私人的，发自内心的事情 像是你被谁所吸引 你会开始模仿你周围的人的信仰 甚至都觉察不到你自己在做什么
and groups famously follow the opinions of the most dominant or charismaticperson in the room, even though there's zero correlation between being the besttalker and having the best ideas -- i mean zero. so ... (laughter) you might befollowing the person with the best ideas, but you might not. and do you reallywant to leave it up to chance? much better for everybody to go off bythemselves, generate their own ideas freed from the distortions of groupdynamics, and then come together as a team to talk them through in awell-managed environment and take it from there.
还曾跟随群体的意见 跟随着房间里最具有统治力的，最有领袖气质的人的思路 虽然这真的没什么关系 在成为一个卓越的演讲家还是拥有最好的主意之间--我的意思是“零相关” 那么...(笑声) 你们或许会跟随有最好头脑的人 但是你们也许不会 可你们真的想把这机会扔掉吗?如果每个人都自己行动或许好得多发掘他们自己的想法 没有群体动力学的曲解 接着来到一起组成一个团队 在一个良好管理的环境中互相交流 并且在那里学习别的思想
now if all this is true, then why are we getting it so wrong? why are wesetting up our schools this way and our workplaces? and why are we making theseintroverts feel so guilty about wanting to just go off by themselves some of thetime? one answer lies deep in our cultural history. western societies, and inparticular the u.s., have always favored the man of action over the man ofcontemplation and "man" of contemplation. but in america's early days, we livedin what historians call a culture of character, where we still, at that point,valued people for their inner selves and their moral rectitude. and if you lookat the self-help books from this era, they all had titles with things like"character, the grandest thing in the world." and they featured role models likeabraham lincoln who was praised for being modest and unassuming. ralph waldoemerson called him "a man who does not offend by superiority."
如果说现在这一切都是真的 那么为什么我们还得到这样错误的结论? 为什么我们要这样创立我们的学校，还有我们的工作单位?为什么我们要让这些内向的人觉得那么愧疚 。对于他们只是想要离开，一个人独处一段时间的事实? 有一个答案在我们的文化史中埋藏已久 西方社会特别是在美国总是偏爱有行动的人 而不是有深刻思考的人 有深刻思考的“人” 但是在美国早期的时候 我们生活在一个被历史学家称作“性格特征”的文化那时我们仍然，在这点上，判断人们的价值 从人们的内涵和道义正直 而且如果你看一看这个时代关于自立的书籍的话 它们都有这样一种标题： “性格”，世界上最伟大的事物并且它们以亚伯拉罕·林肯这样的为标榜 一个被形容为谦虚低调的男人 拉尔夫·瓦尔多·爱默生称他是 “一个以‘优越’二形容都不为过的人”
but then we hit the 20th century and we entered a new culture thathistorians call the culture of personality. what happened is we had evolved anagricultural economy to a world of big business. and so suddenly people aremoving from small towns to the cities.and instead of working alongside peoplethey've known all their lives, now they are having to prove themselves in acrowd of strangers. so, quite understandably, qualities like magnetism andcharisma suddenly come to seem really important. and sure enough, the self-helpbooks change to meet these new needs and they start to have names like "how towin friends and influence people." and they feature as their role models reallygreat salesmen. so that's the world we're living in today. that's our culturalinheritance.
但是接着我们来到了二十世纪 并且我们融入了一种新的文化 一种被历史学家称作“个性”的文化 所发生的改变就是我们从农业经济发展为 一个大商业经济的世界而且人们突然开始搬迁从小的城镇搬向城市 并且一改他们之前的在生活中和所熟识的人们一起工作的方式 现在他们在一群陌生人中间有必要去证明自己 这样做是非常可以理解的像领袖气质和个人魅力这样的品质 突然间似乎变得极为重要 那么可以肯定的是，自助自立的书的内容变更了以适应这些新的需求 并且它们开始拥有名称像是《如何赢得朋友和影响他人》(戴尔?卡耐基所著《人性的弱点》) 他们的特点是做自己的榜样 不得不说确实是好的推销员 所以这就是我们今天生活的世界这是我们的文化遗产
now none of this is to say that social skills are unimportant, and i'm alsonot calling for the abolishing of teamwork at all. the same religions who sendtheir sages off to lonely mountain tops also teach us love and trust. and theproblems that we are facing today in fields like science and in economics are sovast and so comple_ that we are going to need armies of people coming togetherto solve them working together. but i am saying that the more freedom that wegive introverts to be themselves, the more likely that they are to come up withtheir own unique solutions to these problems.
现在没有谁能够说 社交技能是不重要的 并且我也不是想呼吁 大家废除团队合作模式 但仍是相同的宗教，却把他们的圣人送到了孤独的山顶上仍然教导我们爱与信任 还有我们今天所要面对的问题 像是在科学和经济领域 是如此的巨大和复杂 以至于我们需要人们强有力地团结起来 共同解决这些问题但是我想说，越给内向者自由让他们做自己 他们就做得越好 去想出他们独特的关于问题的解决办法
so now i'd like to share with you what's in my suitcase today. guess what?books. i have a suitcase full of books. here's margaret atwood, "cat's eye."here's a novel by milan kundera. and here's "the guide for the perple_ed" bymaimonides. but these are not e_actly my books. i brought these books with mebecause they were written by my grandfather's favorite authors.
所以现在我很高兴同你们分享 我手提箱中的东西 猜猜是什么? 书 我有一个手提箱里面装满了书 这是玛格丽特·阿特伍德的《猫的眼睛》这是一本米兰·昆德拉的书 这是一本《迷途指津》 是迈蒙尼德写的 但这些实际上都不是我的书 我还是带着它们，陪伴着我 因为它们都是我祖父最喜爱的作家所写
my grandfather was a rabbi and he was a widower who lived alone in a smallapartment in brooklyn that was my favorite place in the world when i was growingup, partly because it was filled with his very gentle, very courtly presence andpartly because it was filled with books. i mean literally every table, everychair in this apartment had yielded its original function to now serve as asurface for swaying stacks of books. just like the rest of my family, mygrandfather's favorite thing to do in the whole world was to read.
我的祖父是一名犹太教祭司 他独身一人 在布鲁克林的一间小公寓中居住 那里是我从小到大在这个世界上最喜爱的地方部分原因是他有着非常温和亲切的，温文尔雅的举止 部分原因是那里充满了书 我的意思是，毫不夸张地说，公寓中的每张桌子，每张椅子 都充分应用着它原有的功能就是现在作为承载一大堆都在摇曳的书的表面 就像我其他的家庭成员一样 我祖父在这个世界上最喜欢做的事情就是阅读
but he also loved his congregation, and you could feel this love in thesermons that he gave every week for the 62 years that he was a rabbi. he wouldtakes the fruits of each week's reading and he would weave these intricatetapestries of ancient and humanist thought. and people would come from all overto hear him speak.
但是他同样也热爱他的宗教 并且你们可以从他的讲述中感觉到他这种爱 这62年来每周他都作为一名犹太教的祭司 他会从每周的阅读中汲取养分并且他会编织这些错综复杂的古代和人文主义的思想的挂毯 并且人们会从各个地方前来 听他的讲话
but here's the thing about my grandfather. underneath this ceremonial role,he was really modest and really introverted -- so much so that when he deliveredthese sermons, he had trouble making eye contact with the very same congregationthat he had been speaking to for 62 years. and even away from the podium, whenyou called him to say hello, he would often end the conversation prematurely forfear that he was taking up too much of your time. but when he died at the age of94, the police had to close down the streets of his neighborhood to accommodatethe crowd of people who came out to mourn him. and so these days i try to learnfrom my grandfather's e_ample in my own way.
但是有这么一件关于我祖父的事情 在这个正式的角色下隐藏着 他是一个非常谦虚的非常内向的人 是那么的谦虚内向以至于当他在向人们讲述的时候他都不敢有视线上的接触 和同样的教堂会众 他已经发言有62年了 甚至都还远离领奖台 当你们让他说“你好”的时候 他总会提早结束这对话 担心他会占用你太多的时间但是当他94岁去世的时候 警察们需要封锁他所居住的街道邻里 来容纳拥挤的人们 前来哀悼他的人们 这些天来我都试着从我祖父的事例中学习 以我自己的方式
so i just published a book about introversion, and it took me about sevenyears to write.and for me, that seven years was like total bliss, because i wasreading, i was writing, i was thinking, i was researching. it was my version ofmy grandfather's hours of the day alone in his library. but now all of a suddenmy job is very different, and my job is to be out here talking about it, talkingabout introversion. (laughter) and that's a lot harder for me,because as honoredas i am to be here with all of you right now, this is not my natural milieu.
所以我就出版了一本关于内向性格的书 它花了我7年的时间完成它 而对我来说，这七年像是一种极大的喜悦 因为我在阅读，我在写作 我在思考，我在探寻这是我的版本 对于爷爷一天中几个小时都要独自待在图书馆这件事 但是现在突然间我的工作变得很不同了 我的工作变成了站在这里讲述它 讲述内向的性格 (笑声)而且这对于我来说是有一点困难的 因为我很荣幸 在现在被你们所有人所倾听 这可不是我自然的文化背景
so i prepared for moments like these as best i could. i spent the last yearpracticing public speaking every chance i could get. and i call this my "year ofspeaking dangerously." (laughter) and that actually helped a lot. but i'll tellyou, what helps even more is my sense, my belief, my hope that when it comes toour attitudes to introversion and to quiet and to solitude, we truly are poisedon the brink on dramatic change. i mean, we are. and so i am going to leave younow with three calls for action for those who share this vision.
所以我准备了一会就像这样 以我所能做到的最好的方式 我花了最近一年的时间练习在公共场合发言 在我能得到的每一个机会中我把这一年称作我的“危险地发言的一年” (笑声) 而且它的确帮了我很大的忙 但是我要告诉你们一个帮我更大的忙的事情 那就是我的感觉，我的信仰，我的希望当谈及我们态度的时候 对于内向性格的，对于安静，对于独处的态度时 我们确实是在急剧变化的边缘上保持微妙的平衡 我的意思是，我们在保持平衡现在我将要给你们留下一些东西 三件对于你们的行动有帮助的事情 献给那些观看我的演讲的人
number one: stop the madness for constant group work. just stop it.(laughter) thank you. (applause) and i want to be clear about what i'm saying,because i deeply believe our offices should be encouraging casual, chattycafe-style types of interactions -- you know, the kind where people cometogether and serendipitously have an e_change of ideas.that is great. it's greatfor introverts and it's great for e_troverts. but we need much more privacy andmuch more freedom and much more autonomy at work. school, same thing.we need tobe teaching kids to work together, for sure, but we also need to be teachingthem how to work on their own. this is especially important for e_trovertedchildren too.they need to work on their own because that is where deep thoughtcomes from in part.
第一： 停止对于经常要团队协作的执迷与疯狂 停止它就好了 (笑声) 谢谢你们 (掌声) 我想让我所说的事情变得清晰一些 因为我对于我们的办公深信不疑应该鼓励它们 那种休闲随意的，聊天似的咖啡厅式的相互作用-- 你们知道的，道不同不相为谋，人们聚到一起 并且互相交换着宝贵的意见 这是很棒的这对于内向者很好，同样对于外向者也好 但是我们需要更多的隐私和更多的自由 还有更多对于我们本身工作的自主权 对于学校，也是同样的。我们当然需要教会孩子们要一起学习工作 但是我们同样需要教会孩子们怎么样独立完成任务 这对于外向的孩子们来说同样是极为重要的 他们需要独立完成工作因为从某种程度上，这是他们深刻思考的来源
okay, number two: go to the wilderness. be like buddha, have your ownrevelations. i'm not saying that we all have to now go off and build our owncabins in the woods and never talk to each other again, but i am saying that wecould all stand to unplug and get inside our own heads a little more often.
好了，第二个：去到野外(打开思维) 就像佛祖一样，拥有你们自己对于事物的揭示启迪 我并不是说 我们都要跑去小树林里建造我们自己的小屋并且之后就永远不和别人说话了 但是我要说我们都可以坚持去去除一些障碍物 然后深入我们自己的大脑思想 时不时得再深入一点
number three: take a good look at what's inside your own suitcase and whyyou put it there. so e_troverts, maybe your suitcases are also full of books. ormaybe they're full of champagne glasses or skydiving equipment. whatever it is,i hope you take these things out every chance you get and grace us with yourenergy and your joy. but introverts, you being you, you probably have theimpulse to guard very carefully what's inside your own suitcase. and that'sokay. but occasionally, just occasionally, i hope you will open up yoursuitcases for other people to see, because the world needs you and it needs thethings you carry.
第三点： 好好看一眼你的旅行箱内有什么东西 还有你为什么把它放进去 所以外向者们 也许你们的箱子内同样堆满了书 或者它们装满了香槟的玻璃酒杯或者是跳伞运动的设备 不管它是什么，我希望每当你们有机会你们就把它拿出来 用你的能量和你的快乐让我们感受到美和享受 但是内向者们，你们作为内向者你们很可能有仔细保护一切的冲动 在你箱子里的东西 这没有问题 但是偶尔地，只是说偶尔地 我希望你们可以打开你们的手提箱，让别人看一看因为这个世界需要你们，同样需要你们身上所携带的你们特有的事物
so i wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speaksoftly.
所以对于你们即将走上的所有旅程，我都给予你们我最美好的祝愿 还有温柔地说话的勇气
thank you. thank you.
非常感谢你们!
瞧，她笑的多开心呀，两只眼睛成了弯弯的月亮，微微的翘起的小鼻子向上耸起，红红的小嘴随着咯咯的笑声一张一合的，就连那两只小羊角辫也在抖动着。你知道她是谁吗?告诉你，那就是我。
我个儿不高，大约1米1左右。我有很多特点，最大的特点就是喜欢动物。
初冬，我在街上花钱买了两只小鸡，一只乳白色，一只橘黄色。买了它们满以为妈妈也会像我一样高兴，可一进门，妈妈就不高兴的说：“你怎么把这小东西买回来啦?他会冻死的。”我不以为然，我决心要把它们养活。我先把它们放在地上，又拿来小米喂它们，可它们只是叽叽叽地叫，不肯吃。妈妈走过来说：“天气冷，它们冻得顾不上吃了。”我仔细一看，果然，它们冻得直发抖。于是，我把它们放在手心上，它们才叽叽叽地吃起来。晚上，我在桌前写作业，小鸡在旁边并不吃我给它们的小米，总是叽叽叽地叫。每办法，只好把它们放在我的棉衣里，它们才不叫了。我安心地写完作业，把它们拿出来，它们又开始叫了，我只好跟它们“同床共枕”。
总算熬到开暖气的那一天了，房间变暖了，小鸡的羽毛也长了。晚上，我把它们放在盒子里，怕它们跑了，就在上面又蒙上了一层布。结果第二天，小鸡闷死了。我伤心的哭了，并且一连好几天都很伤心。
我曾经被赵忠祥伯伯主持的《动物世界》所感动，希望自己长大以后，为保护动物做宣传。我也曾被那些铺杀动物的不法分子所激怒，为那些无辜被害的动物流泪。有一次，我在电视上看到公安局抓获一批走私动物皮的犯罪分子，既高兴，又伤心，伤心的是有那么多的动物被他们残忍的杀害了，高兴的是公安局的叔叔终于把那一伙惨无人道的走私分之抓获了，侥幸生存的一批动物可以得到保护了。
这就是我，一个喜欢动物，爱护动物的小女孩。
简介：残奥会短跑冠军aimeemullins天生没有腓骨，从小就要学习靠义肢走路和奔跑。如今，她不仅是短跑选手、演员、模特，还是一位稳健的演讲者。她不喜欢字典中“disabled”这个词，因为负面词汇足以毁掉一个人。但是，坦然面对不幸，你会发现等待你的是更多的机会。
i'd like to share with you a discovery that i made a few months ago whilewriting an article for italian wired. i always keep my thesaurus handy wheneveri'm writing anything, but i'd already finished editing the piece, and i realizedthat i had never once in my life looked up the word "disabled" to see what i'dfind.
let me read you the entry. "disabled, adjective: crippled, helpless,useless, wrecked, stalled, maimed, wounded, mangled, lame, mutilated, run-down,worn-out, weakened, impotent, castrated, paralyzed, handicapped, senile,decrepit, laid-up, done-up, done-for, done-in cracked-up, counted-out; see alsohurt, useless and weak. antonyms, healthy, strong, capable." i was reading thislist out loud to a friend and at first was laughing, it was so ludicrous, buti'd just gotten past "mangled," and my voice broke, and i had to stop andcollect myself from the emotional shock and impact that the assault from thesewords unleashed.
you know, of course, this is my raggedy old thesaurus so i'm thinking thismust be an ancient print date, right? but, in fact, the print date was the early1980s, when i would have been starting primary school and forming anunderstanding of myself outside the family unit and as related to the other kidsand the world around me. and, needless to say, thank god i wasn't using athesaurus back then. i mean, from this entry, it would seem that i was born intoa world that perceived someone like me to have nothing positive whatsoever goingfor them, when in fact, today i'm celebrated for the opportunities andadventures my life has procured.
so, i immediately went to look up the __ online edition, e_pecting to finda revision worth noting. here's the updated version of this entry.unfortunately, it's not much better. i find the last two words under "nearantonyms," particularly unsettling: "whole" and "wholesome."
so, it's not just about the words. it's what we believe about people whenwe name them with these words. it's about the values behind the words, and howwe construct those values. our language affects our thinking and how we view theworld and how we view other people. in fact, many ancient societies, includingthe greeks and the romans, believed that to utter a curse verbally was sopowerful, because to say the thing out loud brought it into e_istence. so, whatreality do we want to call into e_istence: a person who is limited, or a personwho's empowered? by casually doing something as simple as naming a person, achild, we might be putting lids and casting shadows on their power. wouldn't wewant to open doors for them instead?
one such person who opened doors for me was my childhood doctor at the a.i.dupont institute in wilmington, delaware. his name was dr. pizzutillo, anitalian american, whose name, apparently, was too difficult for most americansto pronounce, so he went by dr. p. and dr. p always wore really colorful bowties and had the very perfect disposition to work with children.
i loved almost everything about my time spent at this hospital, with thee_ception of my physical therapy sessions. i had to do what seemed likeinnumerable repetitions of e_ercises with these thick, elastic bands --different colors, you know -- to help build up my leg muscles, and i hated thesebands more than anything -- i hated them, had names for them. i hated them. and,you know, i was already bargaining, as a five year-old child, with dr. p to tryto get out of doing these e_ercises, unsuccessfully, of course. and, one day, hecame in to my session -- e_haustive and unforgiving, these sessions -- and hesaid to me, "wow. aimee, you are such a strong and powerful little girl, i thinkyou're going to break one of those bands. when you do break it, i'm going togive you a hundred bucks."
now, of course, this was a simple ploy on dr. p's part to get me to do thee_ercises i didn't want to do before the prospect of being the richestfive-year-old in the second floor ward, but what he effectively did for me wasreshape an awful daily occurrence into a new and promising e_perience for me.and i have to wonder today to what e_tent his vision and his declaration of meas a strong and powerful little girl shaped my own view of myself as aninherently strong, powerful and athletic person well into the future.
this is an e_ample of how adults in positions of power can ignite the powerof a child. but, in the previous instances of those thesaurus entries, ourlanguage isn't allowing us to evolve into the reality that we would all want,the possibility of an individual to see themselves as capable. our languagehasn't caught up with the changes in our society, many of which have beenbrought about by technology. certainly, from a medical standpoint, my legs,laser surgery for vision impairment, titanium knees and hip replacements foraging bodies that are allowing people to more fully engage with their abilities,and move beyond the limits that nature has imposed on them -- not to mentionsocial networking platforms allow people to self-identify, to claim their owndescriptions of themselves, so they can go align with global groups of their ownchoosing. so, perhaps technology is revealing more clearly to us now what hasalways been a truth: that everyone has something rare and powerful to offer oursociety, and that the human ability to adapt is our greatest asset.
the human ability to adapt, it's an interesting thing, because people havecontinually wanted to talk to me about overcoming adversity, and i'm going tomake an admission: this phrase never sat right with me, and i always felt uneasytrying to answer people's questions about it, and i think i'm starting to figureout why. implicit in this phrase of "overcoming adversity" is the idea thatsuccess, or happiness, is about emerging on the other side of a challenginge_perience unscathed or unmarked by the e_perience, as if my successes in lifehave come about from an ability to sidestep or circumnavigate the presumedpitfalls of a life with prosthetics, or what other people perceive as mydisability. but, in fact, we are changed. we are marked, of course, by achallenge, whether physically, emotionally or both. and i'm going to suggestthat this is a good thing. adversity isn't an obstacle that we need to getaround in order to resume living our life. it's part of our life. and i tend tothink of it like my shadow. sometimes i see a lot of it, sometimes there's verylittle, but it's always with me. and, certainly, i'm not trying to diminish theimpact, the weight, of a person's struggle.
there is adversity and challenge in life, and it's all very real andrelative to every single person, but the question isn't whether or not you'regoing to meet adversity, but how you're going to meet it. so, our responsibilityis not simply shielding those we care for from adversity, but preparing them tomeet it well. and we do a disservice to our kids when we make them feel thatthey're not equipped to adapt. there's an important difference and distinctionbetween the objective medical fact of my being an amputee and the subjectivesocietal opinion of whether or not i'm disabled. and, truthfully, the only realand consistent disability i've had to confront is the world ever thinking that icould be described by those definitions.
in our desire to protect those we care about by giving them the cold, hardtruth about their medical prognosis, or, indeed, a prognosis on the e_pectedquality of their life, we have to make sure that we don't put the first brick ina wall that will actually disable someone. perhaps the e_isting model of onlylooking at what is broken in you and how do we fi_ it, serves to be moredisabling to the individual than the pathology itself.
by not treating the wholeness of a person, by not acknowledging theirpotency, we are creating another ill on top of whatever natural struggle theymight have. we are effectively grading someone's worth to our community. so weneed to see through the pathology and into the range of human capability. and,most importantly, there's a partnership between those perceived deficiencies andour greatest creative ability. so it's not about devaluing, or negating, thesemore trying times as something we want to avoid or sweep under the rug, butinstead to find those opportunities wrapped in the adversity. so maybe the ideai want to put out there is not so much overcoming adversity as it is openingourselves up to it, embracing it, grappling with it, to use a wrestling term,maybe even dancing with it. and, perhaps, if we see adversity as natural,consistent and useful, we're less burdened by the presence of it.
this year we celebrate the 200th birthday of charles darwin, and it was 150years ago, when writing about evolution, that darwin illustrated, i think, atruth about the human character. to paraphrase: it's not the strongest of thespecies that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives; it is theone that is most adaptable to change. conflict is the genesis of creation. fromdarwin's work, amongst others, we can recognize that the human ability tosurvive and flourish is driven by the struggle of the human spirit throughconflict into transformation. so, again, transformation, adaptation, is ourgreatest human skill. and, perhaps, until we're tested, we don't know what we'remade of. maybe that's what adversity gives us: a sense of self, a sense of ourown power. so, we can give ourselves a gift. we can re-imagine adversity assomething more than just tough times. maybe we can see it as change. adversityis just change that we haven't adapted ourselves to yet.
i think the greatest adversity that we've created for ourselves is thisidea of normalcy. now, who's normal? there's no normal. there's common, there'stypical. there's no normal, and would you want to meet that poor, beige personif they e_isted? (laughter) i don't think so. if we can change this paradigmfrom one of achieving normalcy to one of possibility -- or potency, to be even alittle bit more dangerous -- we can release the power of so many more children,and invite them to engage their rare and valuable abilities with thecommunity.
anthropologists tell us that the one thing we as humans have alwaysrequired of our community members is to be of use, to be able to contribute.there's evidence that neanderthals, 60,000 years ago, carried their elderly andthose with serious physical injury, and perhaps it's because the life e_perienceof survival of these people proved of value to the community. they didn't viewthese people as broken and useless; they were seen as rare and valuable.
a few years ago, i was in a food market in the town where i grew up in thatred zone in northeastern pennsylvania, and i was standing over a bushel oftomatoes. it was summertime: i had shorts on. i hear this guy, his voice behindme say, "well, if it isn't aimee mullins." and i turn around, and it's thisolder man. i have no idea who he is.
and i said, "i'm sorry, sir, have we met? i don't remember meetingyou."
he said, "well, you wouldn't remember meeting me. i mean, when we met i wasdelivering you from your mother's womb." (laughter) oh, that guy. and, but ofcourse, actually, it did click.
this man was dr. kean, a man that i had only known about through mymother's stories of that day, because, of course, typical fashion, i arrivedlate for my birthday by two weeks. and so my mother's prenatal physician hadgone on vacation, so the man who delivered me was a complete stranger to myparents. and, because i was born without the fibula bones, and had feet turnedin, and a few toes in this foot and a few toes in that, he had to be the bearer-- this stranger had to be the bearer of bad news.
he said to me, "i had to give this prognosis to your parents that you wouldnever walk, and you would never have the kind of mobility that other kids haveor any kind of life of independence, and you've been making liar out of me eversince." (laughter) (applause)
the e_traordinary thing is that he said he had saved newspaper clippingsthroughout my whole childhood, whether winning a second grade spelling bee,marching with the girl scouts, you know, the halloween parade, winning mycollege scholarship, or any of my sports victories, and he was using it, andintegrating it into teaching resident students, med students from hahnemannmedical school and hershey medical school. and he called this part of the coursethe _ factor, the potential of the human will. no prognosis can account for howpowerful this could be as a determinant in the quality of someone's life. anddr. kean went on to tell me, he said, "in my e_perience, unless repeatedly toldotherwise, and even if given a modicum of support, if left to their own devices,a child will achieve."
see, dr. kean made that shift in thinking. he understood that there's adifference between the medical condition and what someone might do with it. andthere's been a shift in my thinking over time, in that, if you had asked me at15 years old, if i would have traded prosthetics for flesh-and-bone legs, iwouldn't have hesitated for a second. i aspired to that kind of normalcy backthen. but if you ask me today, i'm not so sure. and it's because of thee_periences i've had with them, not in spite of the e_periences i've had withthem. and perhaps this shift in me has happened because i've been e_posed tomore people who have opened doors for me than those who have put lids and castshadows on me.
see, all you really need is one person to show you the epiphany of your ownpower, and you're off. if you can hand somebody the key to their own power --the human spirit is so receptive -- if you can do that and open a door forsomeone at a crucial moment, you are educating them in the best sense. you'reteaching them to open doors for themselves. in fact, the e_act meaning of theword "educate" comes from the root word "educe." it means "to bring forth whatis within, to bring out potential." so again, which potential do we want tobring out?
there was a case study done in 1960s britain, when they were moving fromgrammar schools to comprehensive schools. it's called the streaming trials. wecall it "tracking" here in the states. it's separating students from a, b, c, dand so on. and the "a students" get the tougher curriculum, the best teachers,etc. well, they took, over a three-month period, d-level students, gave thema's, told them they were "a's," told them they were bright, and at the end ofthis three-month period, they were performing at a-level.
and, of course, the heartbreaking, flip side of this study, is that theytook the "a students" and told them they were "d's." and that's what happened atthe end of that three-month period. those who were still around in school,besides the people who had dropped out. a crucial part of this case study wasthat the teachers were duped too. the teachers didn't know a switch had beenmade. they were simply told, "these are the 'a-students,' these are the'd-students.'" and that's how they went about teaching them and treatingthem.
so, i think that the only true disability is a crushed spirit, a spiritthat's been crushed doesn't have hope, it doesn't see beauty, it no longer hasour natural, childlike curiosity and our innate ability to imagine. if instead,we can bolster a human spirit to keep hope, to see beauty in themselves andothers, to be curious and imaginative, then we are truly using our power well.when a spirit has those qualities, we are able to create new realities and newways of being.
i'd like to leave you with a poem by a fourteenth-century persian poetnamed hafiz that my friend, jacques dembois told me about, and the poem iscalled "the god who only knows four words": "every child has known god, not thegod of names, not the god of don'ts, but the god who only knows four words andkeeps repeating them, saying, 'come dance with me. come, dance with me. come,dance with me.'"
thank you. (applause)