Not a small topic this is, finding happiness. But in some ways I think it's the simplest of all. Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children. It's called "Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward". And she says at the end, "Live not for battles won./ Live not for the-end-of-the-song./ Live in the along." She's saying, like Eckhart Tolle, that you have to live for the present. You have to be in the moment. Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.
追求幸福并不是一个小话题,但在某种程度上来说又是最简单的话题。格温多琳·布鲁克林曾给她的孩子们写了一首诗,诗名是《寄语青少年:关于向前迈进的寄语》。她在诗的最后写道:不要为了战胜而生活,不要为了结局而生活,要活在当下。她的意思和埃尔托克·托拉一样,你应当为了现在而活,你要活在当下。无论过去发生了什么都不应该影响到现在,因为生活就是过好现在。
But I think she's also saying, be a part of something. Don't live for yourself alone. This is what I know for sure: In order to be truly happy, you must live along with and you have to stand for something larger than yourself. Because life is a reciprocal exchange. To move forward you have to give back. And to me, that is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back.
我想她还在说,去参与一些事。不要仅仅为了自己而生活。我非常确定的是:为了追求真正的幸福,你必须为了一些更有意义的事而生活,而不是只为了自己而活。因为生活就是相互给予。有所付出才能不断前行。这对我来说是人生中最重要的经验。想要得到幸福,你就必须学会给予。
I know you know that, because that's a lesson that's woven into the very fabric of this university. It's a lesson that Jane and Leland Stanford got and one they've bequeathed to you. Because all of you know the story of how this great school came to be, how the Stanfords lost their only child to typhoid at the age of 15. They had every right and they had every reason to turn their backs against the world at that time, but instead, they channeled their grief and their pain into an act of grace. Within a year of their son's death, they had made the founding grant for this great school, pledging to do for other people's children what they were not able to do for their own boy.
我知道你们明白这个教训,因为它已经深深地融入了斯坦福。这个经验是简和利兰德·斯坦福给你们的馈赠。因为你们所有的人都知道这所伟大的大学是如何建成的。斯坦福夫妇的独子在15岁时得了伤寒离开了他们。在那个时候他们有充分的权利和理由去憎恨这个世界,但是他们却用优雅的行动疏导了心中的悲伤,在他们儿子死后不到一年时,他们已经为这所伟大的大学筹集了建设经费,并发誓要为别人的孩子做一些没能给自己的孩子做到的事情。