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And I remember looking at these two versions of my obituary and thinking, "Oh boy, I'm on totally the wrong track here.
我记得我面对着我的这两份讣告，心想：“哦，天呐，我处在错误的人生轨道上，
If I carry on living as I am now, I'm just not going to end up where I want to be in five years, or 10 years, or at the end of my life."
如果我继续这样生活下去，我是不会完成我生命的终极目标的，不论是在5年还是10年内，甚至到生命走到尽头是，我都不会完成。
I made a few changes, let go of some loose trappings of my old life,
我做了一些改变，放弃了一些以前生活的奢华，
and through a bit of a leap of logic, decided to row across the Atlantic Ocean.
经过几次逻辑跳跃，然后决定去横渡大西洋。
The Atlantic Rowing Race runs from the Canaries to Antigua, it's about 3,000 miles,
划船横渡大西洋的行程从卡纳里亚斯群岛到安提瓜，行程大约3000英里，
and it turned out to be the hardest thing I had ever done.
而这次旅程也成为了我所完成的最困难的事。
Sure, I had wanted to get outside of my comfort zone,
的确，我曾很想摆脱我安逸的生活，
but what I'd sort of failed to notice was that getting out of your comfort zone is, by definition, extremely uncomfortable.
但是我确从来没意识到，跳出我的舒适生活之外，我却过得如此不舒服，
And my timing was not great either: 2005, when I did the Atlantic, was the year of Hurricane Katrina.
而且，我对时机的把握也不是很好，2005年，我正在横渡大西洋的时候，也正是卡特里娜飓风肆虐的那一年。
There were more tropical storms in the North Atlantic than ever before, since records began.
北大西洋上的热带风暴也多于史上有纪录的任何时候。
And pretty early on, those storms started making their presence known.
很快，这些风暴就显示出了它们的威力。
All four of my oars broke before I reached halfway across.
我的四个桨在我的行程还没有达到一半的时候就全坏了。
Oars are not supposed to look like this. But what can you do?
看上去桨不应该是这样的。但你又能怎么办？
You're in the middle of the ocean. Oars are your only means of propulsion.
你正处在大洋当中，这些桨是你唯一的动力来源。
So I just had to look around the boat and figure out what I was going to use to fix up these oars so that I could carry on.
我只好找遍了整条船，想办法找到能够修好这些桨的东西，这样才能继续我的旅程。
So I found a boat hook and my trusty duct tape and splintered the boat hook to the oars to reinforce it.
我找到了一个船竿和我信赖的多功能胶布，然后我把船竿弄断，用它们加固船桨。
Then, when that gave out, I sawed the wheel axles off my spare rowing seat and used those.
然后，等它们不起作用了，我又把我的备用划船座椅的轮轴锯了下来，用它们来修我的桨。
And then when those gave out, I cannibalized one of the broken oars.
当它们不起作用了，我又把我的一支坏桨拆下来使用。
I'd never been very good at fixing stuff when I was living my old life,
我以前并不是一个擅长修补的人，
but it's amazing how resourceful you can become when you're in the middle of the ocean and there's only one way to get to the other side.
但当你身处海洋之中的时候，你会惊奇地发现你变得能够随机应变，而这也是通向彼岸的唯一办法。
