人生不设限·爱自己爱到可以嘲笑自己
Our friends and loved ones can tell us one hundred times a day that we are beautiful and we are loved and that the hard times will pass, but too often we shrug off the supportive words and hang on to the hurt. I did that for the longest time. My parents would spend weeks trying to undo the damage done by one or two kids who teased me on the playground. But finally when someone my own age reached out, I was transformed. When one girl in my class told me that I was "looking good," I walked on a cloud for a month.
当然，不久之后，13岁的我有天醒来，发现鼻头冒出一颗青春痘，它可不好看。这是一颗熟番茄形的超大青春痘。
Of course, a short time later, I woke up at thirteen years old with a pimple on my nose. It was not pretty. It was a huge, ripe tomato of a pimple.
“看看这个，这也太惨了吧。”我告诉妈妈。
"Look at this, it's crazy," I told my mum.
“不要抓它。”妈妈说。
"Don't scratch it," my mum said.
用什么抓?我很好奇。
What would I scratch it with? I wondered.
带着这颗青春痘去上学时，我觉得自己是地球上最丑的男孩。每次经过一间教室，在窗户上看见自己的倒影时，我只想逃开、躲起来。其他的孩子猛盯着我的痘痘瞧，我真希望它消失，但两天后它却变得更大，成了全宇宙最大、最红的青春痘。我开始担心，有一天这颗痘子会变得比我整个人还重。
I went to school feeling like the ugliest dude on the planet. Every time I passed a classroom and saw my reflection in the windows, I wanted to run and hide. Other kids stared at it. I kept hoping it would go away, but two days later it was even bigger, the largest and reddest pimple in the universe. I began to think it would one day outweigh the rest of me.
这颗怪物青春痘并没有消失，八个月后还在那里。我觉得自己就像澳大利亚版的“红鼻子鲁道夫”[15]。
The monstrous deformity would not go away! My humongous zit was still there eight months later. I felt like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Australian. Finally my mum took me to a dermatologist. I told him I wanted the pimple removed even if it took major surgery. He examined it with a huge magnifying glass—as if he couldn't see it—and said, "Hmmmm. It's not a pimple."
后来妈妈终于带我去看皮肤科医生。我跟医生说，就算要动大手术，我也要把这东西弄走。他用超大的放大镜仔细检查——仿佛他看不见这颗痘子似的，然后说：“嗯，这不是青春痘。”
Whatever it is, I thought, let's just get rid of it, shall we?
我心想，管它是什么，帮我弄掉就是了，可以吗?
"It's a swollen oil gland," he said. "I can cut it off or burn it off, but either way it will leave you with a scar bigger than this little red dot."
“这是皮脂腺肿大，我可以切掉或烧掉，但无论用哪种方法，留下来的疤痕都会超过原来这个小红点。”他说。
Little red dot?
小红点?
"It's so big I can't see around it," I protested.
“它大到我都看不见它周围了。”我提出异议。
"Would you rather be scarred for life?" he asked.
“你宁愿带着疤痕过一辈子吗?”医生问道。
The giant not-a-zit remained on my nose. I prayed and fretted about it for a while, but finally I realized that the bright red bulb on my nose was no more of a distraction than my lack of limbs. If people aren't willing to talk to me, that is their loss, I decided.
这个巨大的非青春痘继续留在我的鼻子上，我祷告，也为它苦恼了好一阵子，但最后我了解到，这颗红色发亮的小球不会比我没有四肢这件事让我更容易被人消遣。如果人家不愿意跟我讲话，那是他的损失。我决定要这么想。
If I caught someone staring at it, I made a joke. I told them I was growing an extra nose to sell on the black market. When people saw that I could laugh at myself, they laughed with me and empathized. After all, who hasn't had a pimple? Even Brad Pitt has pimples.
如果我发现有人正盯着它瞧，我会开玩笑说我正在养另外一个鼻子，打算将来拿到黑市卖掉。当别人发现我可以嘲笑自己，就跟着我一起笑了起来，而且心有戚戚焉。毕竟，谁没长过青青痘?就算布拉德·皮特也有啊。
Sometimes, through our own doing, we make little problems big by taking them way too seriously. Having a pimple is part of the deal. We are all perfectly imperfect human beings, some of us maybe more than others, but we all have our flaws and our shortcomings. It's important to not take every little wart or wrinkle too seriously because one day you will have something truly serious go wrong, and then what will you do? So stand prepared to laugh at life's little knocks on the heads and bumps on the nose.
有时候，是我们自己把事情看得太严重，才会让小事变大。青春痘是其中一个例子。我们都是全然不完美的人类，有些人或许比其他人好一点，但每个人都有缺陷和短处。不要把每个面疱或皱纹看得太严重，因为有一天，你碰到真正麻烦的大事，那时你要怎么办?所以，当生命让你头上、鼻子上肿了几个小包时，不妨一笑置之吧。
Laughter has been shown to reduce stress by releasing endorphin hormones, the body's natural relaxant, boosting your immune system and improving your blood flow while also increasing oxygen to the brain. Not bad, eh? Studies have also shown that laughter makes you more attractive. A double bonus!
