J.K.罗琳：失败与成功

当我像你们这么大的时候，我最害怕的还不是贫穷，而是失败。

我在你们这么大时，我对大学里的课程没什么兴趣，总是在咖啡馆里花上大把时间写小说，而用于听课的时间则寥寥无几。尽管如此，我却有些让自己能通过考试的窍门，并且这也是数年来评价我，以及我的同龄人是否成功的标准。

我不会笨到认为你们这些年轻、有天赋、受过良好教育的孩子从来不知道困难和心碎的滋味。

天赋和智力并不能让人免受命运的捉弄；我也从不认为在这里的所有人都会冷静地享受自己现在的优越感。

然而，毕业于哈佛大学这一事实暗示着你们并不很了解失败。

你们也许非常渴望成功，所以也很害怕失败。

事实上，你们心目中的失败很可能与普通人设想的成功相差无几，毕竟你们在学业上的成功已经高到遥不可及。

最终，我们都要按自己的想法给失败下一个定义；但是如果你愿意，世界会迫不及待的给你一套标准。

因此我觉得，不管按照什么惯行标准，在毕业七年之后，我都确确实实的失败了，而且败得彻彻底底。

我那短的可怜的婚姻走到了尽头，自己又失业了。一个单身母亲，沦落到当代英国最为贫困的境地，只不过还没到无家可归的程度而已。

我父母害怕发生在我身上的事情，和我害怕发生在自己身上的事情，都降临了。无论按照什么标准来看，我都是我所知道的最大的失败。

现在，我站在这里，告诉你们失败可不是件好玩的事情。

那个时候我的人生被黑暗笼罩，根本想不到在未来的时光里这段经历竟会被报道为神话般的坚定意志。

那时候我不知道黑暗的隧道何时才是尽头，而尽头的任何光亮都像是渺茫的希望，而不是一种现实。

Failure and Success

By J.K. Rowling

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

Now I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known heartbreak, hardship or heartache.

Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure.

You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success.

Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far removed from the average person's idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it.

So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale.

An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless.

The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun.

That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.

I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

整理：2024年5月16日于普洱金融超市