财富精英励志演讲 02:我生命中的三个故事(2)

[00:00.54] And 17 years later I did go to college. 17年后，我真的上了大学。 [00:04.35] But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working class parents ' savings were being spent on my college tuition. 但是我很天真，选择了一所几乎和斯坦福大学一样贵的学校，我那工薪阶层的养父母把全部积蓄都用来支付我的大学学费。 [00:14.31] After six months, I could not see the value in it. 六个月后，我看不到上大学有什么价值。 [00:17.46] I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. 我不知道自己一生中想做什么，我也不知道大学怎样帮我找到答案。 [00:23.51] And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. 而此时，我正在花光父母一辈子攒下的钱。 [00:29.37] So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. 所以我决定退学，并且相信这是个不错的决定。 [00:34.37] It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. 在那时候，这样做多少有些心里没底，但是回过头来看，那是我至今做出的最正确的决定之一。 [00:41.05] The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that did not interest me, 从我退学的那一刻起，我可以不用选学那些我不感兴趣的必修课，可以去旁听那些看上去有趣的课程。 [00:46.44] and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. 可以去旁听那些看上去有趣的课程。 [00:51.45] It was not all romantic. 那个时候并非事事如意。 [00:53.36] I did not have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends ' rooms, 我没有了宿舍，因此只能睡在朋友房间的地板上; [00:57.34] I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. 我退还可乐瓶，换回5美分押金买东西吃;每个星期天的晚上，我总是走上七英里，穿城到哈瑞·奎师那(Hare Krishna)礼拜堂去，吃上一顿每周一次的大餐。 [01:09.08] I loved it. 我喜欢这样。 [01:10.43] And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. 我凭着好奇心和直觉所做的大多数事情，结果被证明是无价之宝。让我给你们举一个例子： [01:17.13] Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. 让我给你们举一个例子：那时候，里德学院开设的书法课可能是全美国最好的。 [01:25.19] Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. 校园里的所有海报、所有抽屉标签上的字都写得漂漂亮亮 。 [01:32.20] Because I had dropped out and did not have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. 由于我已经退学，不用上常规课程，我决定选一门书法课，学学怎样写好字。 [01:40.03] I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. 我学习了serif(衬线字)和san serif(非衬线字)字体，学会了根据不同的字母组合调整间距，懂得了了不起的活版印刷之所以了不起的原因。 [01:50.23] It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can not capture, and I found it fascinating. 书法课真是太美妙了，具有历史性和科学无法捕捉的艺术上的精妙，我觉得它趣味无穷。 [01:59.04] None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. 这些对我的一生本应该是毫无实际用处的， [02:04.29] But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. 可是十年后，在我们设计第一台麦金塔(Macintosh)电脑的时候，书法课上的所学全都浮现在我的脑海里。 [02:10.27] And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. 我们把它全部融入Mac电脑的设计之中。这是史上第一台拥有精美字体版式的电脑。 [02:16.24] If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. 如果我在大学时期从未旁听过那一课，Mac电脑就不会有如此丰富的字体，或是如此适当的字体间距。 [02:24.19] And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. 而且，要不是Windows电脑抄袭了Mac，那么PC机很可能就不会有这么美妙的字体。 [02:36.53] If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, 如果我没有退学，我就不会旁听书法课， [02:40.59] and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. 而个人电脑也可能就不会拥有如此美妙的字体了。 [02:45.15] Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. 然，当时还在大学的时候不可能从这一点看到未来，。 [02:49.58] But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. 但十年后回首往事，一切都非常非常清晰。 [02:54.04] Again, you can not connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. 再次说明，你们不可能从现在的点看到未来，只有回首看时才能看清来龙去脉。 [02:59.48] So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. 因此，你要相信，这些点在你的未来终将连接起来。 [03:03.37] You have to trust in something? your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. 你们必须相信某种东西——你的胆识、命运、生命、业力，等等。 [03:08.44] This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. 这样做从来没有让我失望，而且还彻底改变了我的生活。

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