10歲有兒童時代不知為什麼煩惱的煩惱，20歲有初涉社會的迷茫，30歲有不知所去的漂泊感，每個人生階段都會遇到各種的選擇，那麼究竟怎麼選擇前行的路呢？現在我們來欣賞這篇TED演講，12條寶貴的人生經驗。
12個最寶貴的人生經驗
My seven-year-old grandson sleeps just down the hall from me, and he wakes up a lot of mornings and he says, "You know, this could be the best day ever."
我七歲大的孫子就睡在我隔壁的房間， 他常常在清晨醒來， 然後說，“你知道，今天也許會是最棒的一天。”
And other times, in the middle of the night, he calls out in a tremulous voice, "Nana, will you ever get sick and die?"
也有的時候，在午夜時分，他會怯生生的問我，“奶奶，你也會生病和死亡嗎？“
I think this pretty much says it for me and most of the people。I know, that we're a mixed grill of happy anticipation and dread. So I sat down a few days before my 61st birthday, and I decided to compile a list of everything I know for sure.
我想，我和大多數我認識的人可能都是這樣， 我們同時擁有著樂觀與恐懼的情緒。所以在我61歲生日的前幾天，我坐下來，決定把我確信的一切都列出來。
There's so little truth in the popular culture, and it's good to be sure of a few things. For instance, I am no longer 47, although this is the age I feel, and the age I like to think of myself as being.
流行文化中的真理太少了， 能看清一些事實是有益的。比方說，我已經不再是47歲了，雖然我依然覺得自己才47歲，我也希望自己一直是47歲。
My friend Paul used to say in his late 70s that he felt like a young man with something really wrong with him. Our true person is outside of time and space, but looking at the paperwork, I can, in fact, see that I was born in 1954.
我的朋友保羅在他80歲將至時曾說，他覺得自己是個身體出了點故障的年輕人。真正的我們不因時間和空間而改變，但是當我看到那些文書，事實上，我能認識到自己是1954年出生的。
My inside self is outside of time and space. It doesn't have an age. I'm every age I've ever been, and so are you, although I can't help mentioning as an aside that it might have been helpful
我的內在不因時間和空間而改變，它沒有年齡。我存在於我所活過的每一個年齡，你也一樣，雖然我不得不提一句，
if I hadn't followed the skin care rules of the '60s, which involved getting as much sun as possible while slathered in baby oil and basking in the glow of a tinfoil reflector shield.
如果我當時沒有遵循60年代那一套護膚理論可能會對我大有好處，那會建議你儘可能多曬太陽，並塗抹厚厚的嬰兒油，然後拿錫箔反光板來吸收更多陽光。
It was so liberating, though, to face the truth that I was no longer in the last throes of middle age, that I decided to write down every single true thing I know. People feel really doomed and overwhelmed these days, and they keep asking me what's true.
不過，面對現實也是一種解脫， 我再也不用在中年之際作最後的掙扎，我也決定寫下我所知道的每一件真相。近來，人們感到非常絕望和茫然，他們不斷問我什麼是真的。
So I hope that my list of things I'm almost positive about might offer some basic operating instructions to anyone who is feeling really overwhelmed or beleaguered.
所以我希望這些我確信的事情 可以向那些不知所措或陷入困境的人 提供一些基本的指引。
Number one: the first and truest thing is that all truth is a paradox. Life is both a precious, unfathomably beautiful gift, and it's impossible here, on the incarnational side of things. It's been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive.
第一：第一個也是最真實的事情就是，所有真相都是有對立面的。生命是精美絕倫的無價之寶，同時從另一方面看，它又是完全相反的。這對我們這些天生敏感的人來說，真是不相匹配啊。
It's so hard and weird that we sometimes wonder if we're being punked. It's filled simultaneously with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, desperate poverty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. I don't think it's an ideal system.
人生如此艱辛， 以至於有時候我們懷疑 自己是不是被耍了。生命同時充滿了令人心碎的甜蜜和美麗， 令人絕望的貧困， 以及洪水、嬰兒、粉刺和莫扎特， 全都纏繞在一起。我不認為這是一個理想的體系。
Number two: almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes -- including you.
第二：如果你把插頭拔掉幾分鐘， 幾乎所有事情都能恢復運轉—— 你們也是。
Three: there is almost nothing outside of you that will help in any kind of lasting way, unless you're waiting for an organ. You can't buy, achieve or date serenity and peace of mind. This is the most horrible truth, and I so resent it.
第三：幾乎不存在什麼外在的力量，可以長久的幫助你自己，除非你在等器官移植。你無法買到或獲取心靈的安寧。這是最可怕的事實，我非常憎恨它。
But it's an inside job, and we can't arrange peace or lasting improvement for the people we love most in the world. They have to find their own ways, their own answers. You can't run alongside your grown children with sunscreen and ChapStick on their hero's journey.
但這是一項自身的工作，我們無法為世上最愛的人 去安排一份寧靜或持續的改善。他們必須找到自己的路 和自己的答案。你不能在孩子成為英雄的征程中替他們擋風遮雨。
You have to release them. It's disrespectful not to. And if it's someone else's problem, you probably don't have the answer, anyway.
你必須給他們自由。不這麼做就是不尊重他們。更何況當別人遇到問題的時候， 你可能也不知道到底該怎麼辦。
Our help is usually not very helpful. Our help is often toxic. And help is the sunny side of control. Stop helping so much. Don't get your help and goodness all over everybody.
我們的幫助常常沒什麼用， 往往還是有害的。所謂“幫助”就是“控制”的褒義詞。別老是幫忙啦。別再老是施以你的援手和友善。
This brings us to number four: everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy and scared, even the people who seem to have it most together. They are much more like you than you would believe, so try not to compare your insides to other people's outsides.
這也牽引出第四條：每個人都是糟糕的、破碎的、依賴的、膽小的，甚至有的人同時擁有這些負面情緒， 要相信他們其實和你差不多， 所以不要拿自己的內在與別人的外表比較。
It will only make you worse than you already are. Also, you can't save, fix or rescue any of them or get anyone sober. What helped me get clean and sober 30 years ago was the catastrophe of my behavior and thinking.
這隻會讓你感到雪上加霜。同時，你無法拯救他們，或是讓他們認清事實。30年前幫助我變得清醒的是我行為和思想帶來的巨大災難。
So I asked some sober friends for help, and I turned to a higher power. One acronym for God is the "gift of desperation," G-O-D, or as a sober friend put it, by the end I was deteriorating faster than I could lower my standards.
當時我請求一些理智的朋友幫我，我也求助於更強大的力量。“上帝”一詞可以看做是“絕望中的禮物”的縮寫，G-O-D,或者像一個清醒的朋友說的，到頭來，我墮落的速度 比我降低底線的速度還要快。
So God might mean, in this case, "me running out of any more good ideas."
所以在這種情況下，“上帝”的意思是，“我已經沒什麼好主意了。”
While fixing and saving and trying to rescue is futile, radical self-care is quantum, and it radiates out from you into the atmosphere like a little fresh air. It's a huge gift to the world. When people respond by saying, "Well, isn't she full of herself,"
當修復、挽救、和拯救都變成徒勞， 積極的自我保護就是量子，這種力量被你激發後飄散在空氣中，就像新鮮空氣一樣。這是給世界的一份大禮。當人們回應說，“好吧，她是不是太自我了？”
just smile obliquely like Mona Lisa and make both of you a nice cup of tea. Being full of affection for one's goofy, self-centered, cranky, annoying self is home. It's where world peace begins.
只要像蒙娜麗莎一樣微微一笑，然後給彼此都倒杯好茶就好。能包容一個人的憨傻、自我中心、暴躁、討厭 是家。家是讓世界和平開始的地方。
Number five: chocolate with 75 percent cacao is not actually a food.
第五：可可含量75%的巧克力不可以稱作是食物。
Its best use is as a bait in snake traps or to balance the legs of wobbly chairs. It was never meant to be considered an edible.
它的最佳用途是作為蛇陷阱裡的誘餌 或者用來墊椅子腿來防止晃動。它從未被認為是可以食用的。
Number six -- writing. Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That's the secret of life. That's probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it.
第六--寫作。你認識的每一個作家，初稿寫得都很糟糕，但他們會堅持釘坐在椅子上。這就是生活的秘密。這也許就是你們之間的主要區別。他們想做就去做了。
They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little. When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn't started.
他們在做之前就預先準備好了。他們把這當做一種義務。他們講述自己曾經歷過的故事， 一天一點、一點一點地講出來。在我哥哥上四年級的時候，有次有一篇關於鳥類的學期論文，第二天就要交，然而他還沒有開始寫。
So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils and brads -- for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads -- and he said to my brother, "Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice.
於是我爸爸在他身旁坐下來，拿著一本Audubon的書、 一些紙張、鉛筆和兩腳釘—— 知道兩腳釘的都不再年輕了吧—— 然後他對我哥哥說，“一隻鳥一隻鳥的寫，孩子。先讀一些關於鵜鶘的東西，然後用你自己的理解把鵜鶘的知識寫下來。
And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese." So the two most important things about writing are:
接著找到山雀， 然後用你自己的理解告訴我們山雀的知識。再然後是鵝。”所以寫作最重要的兩點：
bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it. If people wanted you to write more warmly about them, they should've behaved better.
一隻鳥一隻鳥的寫 和慘不忍睹的初稿。如果你不知道從哪開始， 記得那些發生在你身上的事， 它們每件都屬於你， 你就直接說出來。如果人們希望你把他們寫得更溫和一些， 那他們應該表現得更好。
You're going to feel like hell if you wake up someday and you never wrote the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves of your heart: your stories, memories, visions and songs -- your truth,
也許某天你清醒了會覺得糟糕透了， 因為你發現你從來沒寫過那些 一直牽扯著你的內心的東西，比如你的故事，回憶，幻想，與歌曲-- 你的真實，
your version of things -- in your own voice. That's really all you have to offer us, and that's also why you were born.
你對事物的看法－－用你自己的聲音，那些都是你必須要帶給我們的東西，也是你生命的意義。
Seven: publication and temporary creative successes are something you have to recover from. They kill as many people as not. They will hurt, damage and change you in ways you cannot imagine.
第七：你必須要從出版發行和短暫創造出的成就中恢復過來。這些名利殺死了迷失其中的人。它們會以你無法想象的方式 傷害你、改變你。
The most degraded and evil people I've ever known are male writers who've had huge best sellers. And yet, returning to number one, that all truth is paradox, it's also a miracle to get your work published, to get your stories read and heard.
我所認識的最墮落和邪惡的人是一些出版過超級暢銷書的男作家。這又說回第一點：所有事都是有對立面的。把你的作品出版當然也是一個奇蹟， 可以讓你的故事被世人閱讀和聽聞。
Just try to bust yourself gently of the fantasy that publication will heal you, that it will fill the Swiss-cheesy holes inside of you. It can't. It won't. But writing can. So can singing in a choir or a bluegrass band.
但要努力讓自己從出版發行的幻想中抽身，你以為出版發行可以治癒你，可以填滿你內心一個個如同瑞士乾酪的洞。它不能。它也不會。但是寫作本身可以。在合唱團或藍草樂隊唱歌也可以。
So can painting community murals or birding or fostering old dogs that no one else will.
在社區作壁畫或觀鳥也可以。或者養一條其他人都不想養的老狗，也可以治癒你。
Number eight: families. Families are hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. Again, see number one.
第八：家庭。無論家人有多麼珍貴和精彩， 家庭生活都是難、難、難。參見第一條。
At family gatherings where you suddenly feel homicidal or suicidal -- remember that in all cases, it's a miracle that any of us, specifically, were conceived and born.
如果在家庭聚會上，你突然很想殺人或自殺-- 記住，在所有情況下，我們每一個人的孕育和誕生都是一個奇蹟
。Earth is forgiveness school. It begins with forgiving yourself, and then you might as well start at the dinner table. That way, you can do this work in comfortable pants.
地球是一個教會我們寬恕的學校。從原諒自己開始，你最好從坐在餐桌前開始。這樣，你還能穿著舒服的褲子來做這件事。
When William Blake said that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love, he knew that your family would be an intimate part of this, even as you want to run screaming for your cute little life. But I promise you are up to it. You can do it, Cinderella, you can do it, and you will be amazed.
當William Blake說， 我們在這世上是要學會承受愛的光芒， 他想說，你的家人會成為密不可分的一部分， 即使你要為了你可愛的人生尖叫奔跑， 但我保證，你能行。你能做到，灰姑娘，你能做到， 然後你會感到大為驚奇。
Nine: food. Try to do a little better. I think you know what I mean.
第九：食物。試著做得更好一些。我想你明白我的意思。
Number 10 -- grace. Grace is spiritual WD-40, or water wings. The mystery of grace is that God loves Henry Kissinger and Vladimir Putin and me exactly as much as He or She loves your new grandchild. Go figure.
第十-- 恩澤。恩澤是精神上的WD-40或者是游泳圈。恩澤的神秘之處在於，上帝愛Henry Kissinger和Vladimir Putin，也愛我，就像他或她也愛你們剛出生的小孫子。想想看吧！
The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and heals our world. To summon grace, say, "Help," and then buckle up. Grace finds you exactly where you are, but it doesn't leave you where it found you.
是恩澤改變了我們，治癒了我們，它也治癒了我們的世界。想要受到恩澤，就說“救命“，然後繫好安全帶。恩澤會在你需要的時候出現，但它不會將你遺棄那裡。
And grace won't look like Casper the Friendly Ghost, regrettably. But the phone will ring or the mail will come and then against all odds, you'll get your sense of humor about yourself back. Laughter really is carbonated holiness.
遺憾的是， 恩澤不會像鬼馬小精靈一樣。但是電話會響的，郵件會來的，儘管困難重重，你會得到屬於你自己的幽默感。笑聲真的是含著二氧化碳的聖潔。
It helps us breathe again and again and gives us back to ourselves, and this gives us faith in life and each other. And remember -- grace always bats last.
它幫助我們一次又一次地呼吸 讓我們迴歸最真的自我，這也帶給我們對生活和彼此的信心。記住，恩澤總是與我們相伴。
Eleven: God just means goodness. It's really not all that scary. It means the divine or a loving, animating intelligence, or, as we learned from the great "Deteriorata," "the cosmic muffin." A good name for God is: "Not me."
十一：上帝就是善良。他真的不那麼可怕。它意味著神聖或是慈愛的，朝氣蓬勃的智慧，就像我們從偉大的Deteriorata中知道的，宇宙中的鬆餅 。上帝的美名是:“不是我。”
Emerson said that the happiest person on Earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot and look up. Emerson
曾說：地球上最幸福的人，是那個從自然中學會了尊敬的人。所以到外面去走走，抬頭看看。
My pastor said you can trap bees on the bottom of mason jars without lids because they don't look up, so they just walk around bitterly bumping into the glass walls. Go outside. Look up. Secret of life.
我的牧師說你可以將蜜蜂困在 無蓋玻璃瓶的底部，因為它們不會抬頭看，所以它們只會四處碰壁。走出去，抬頭看看，這是生活的秘密。
And finally: death. Number 12. Wow and yikes. It's so hard to bear when the few people you cannot live without die. You'll never get over these losses, and no matter what the culture says, you're not supposed to.
最後，死亡。第十二。哇，天哪。有時候至親的人死去真的難以承受，你永遠無法從悲痛中平復，無論老話怎麼說，你不應該如此。
We Christians like to think of death as a major change of address, but in any case, the person will live again fully in your heart if you don't seal it off. Like Leonard Cohen said, "There are cracks in everything, and that's how the light gets in."
我們基督徒喜歡把死亡想象成只是更換了住址，但無論如何，如果你不把心門封鎖，這個人就還將活在你的心中。就像Leonard Cohen說的，“萬物皆有裂痕，那將是光照進來的地方。“
And that's how we feel our people again fully alive. Also, the people will make you laugh out loud at the most inconvenient times, and that's the great good news.
那也將會是我們感到重獲新生的地方。而且，有些人會讓你在不適宜的時候，開懷大笑，那是個超讚的好消息。
But their absence will also be a lifelong nightmare of homesickness for you. Grief and friends, time and tears will heal you to some extent. Tears will bathe and baptize and hydrate and moisturize you and the ground on which you walk.
但他們的缺席也將是你一生的思鄉之夢。悲傷和朋友，時間和眼淚， 會在一定程度上治癒你。眼淚將沐浴、洗禮、和滋潤你 以及你一路走來的土地。
Do you know the first thing that God says to Moses? He says, "Take off your shoes." Because this is holy ground, all evidence to the contrary. It's hard to believe, but it's the truest thing I know.
你知道上帝對摩西說的第一件事嗎？他說：“脫下你的鞋子。”因為你所站之地是聖地，事實都是相反的。很難相信，但這是我所知道的最真實的事情。
When you're a little bit older, like my tiny personal self, you realize that death is as sacred as birth. And don't worry -- get on with your life. Almost every single death is easy and gentle with the very best people surrounding you for as long as you need.
當你再年長一點，像我這般，你會意識到死亡和出生一樣神聖。也別擔心，繼續你的生活。只要你需要 與周圍的親人一起面對死亡，那麼死亡將會是簡單而溫柔的。
You won't be alone. They'll help you cross over to whatever awaits us. As Ram Dass said, "When all is said and done, we're really just all walking each other home."
你不會孤單的。不論等待我們的是什麼他們都會幫你一同度過。正如Ram Dass所說，“說到底，我們只是互相把對方送回家。”
I think that's it, but if I think of anything else, I'll let you know. Thank you. Thank you.
我想說的就是這些， 但如果我想到別的東西， 我會告訴你們的， 謝謝你們。
I was very surprised to be asked to come, because it is not my realm, technology or design or entertainment. I mean, my realm is sort of faith and writing and kind of lurching along together.
能被邀請到這裡我很驚喜， 因為這兒不是我的領域， 技術、設計或娛樂（TED的核心主題）。我的意思是，我更擅長談論信仰和寫作， 以及相互協作之類的話題。
And I was surprised, but they said I could give a talk, and I said I'd love to.
所以我很驚訝， 但是當他們告訴我可以做個演講， 我說我很願意。
If you don't know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours and you get to tell it.
願你眼中有光，心中有愛，在每一個難行的階段都能奮力向上。
