梦想与责任(5)

I know it's not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

我知道要做到学业优秀并非易事。我知道你们许多人在生活中面临挑战，难以集中精力学习。

I get it. I know what it's like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mom who had to work and who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn't always able to give us the things that other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and I felt like I didn't fit in.

我明白这一点。我有亲身感受。我两岁时，父亲离家而去，我是由单身母亲抚养成人的，母亲不得不工作，并时常为支付生活费用而苦苦挣扎，但有时仍无法为我们提供其他孩子享有的东西。有时候，我渴望生活中能有一位父亲。有时候我感到孤独，感到自己不适应社会。

So I wasn't always as focused as I should have been on school, and I did some things I'm not proud of, and I got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

我并非总是像我应该做到的那样专心学习，我也曾做过一些我如今不能引以为豪的事情，我曾惹过不少不应该惹的麻烦。我的人生原本会轻易陷入更糟糕的境地。

But I was—I was lucky. I got a lot of second chances, and I had the opportunity to go to college and law school and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, she has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn't have a lot of money. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

但是，我很...我很幸运。我有过许多第二次机会，我有机会上大学，上法学院，追求自己的理想。我的妻子，我们的第一夫人米歇尔·奥巴马，她也有类似的经历。她的父母都未曾上过大学，他们没有多少钱。但他们非常勤奋，她也是如此，因此她得以进入美国一些最好的学校。

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.

你们中有一些人可能没有那些有利条件。或许你们生活中没有成年人为你们提供所需要的支持。或许你们家中有人失业，经济非常拮据。或许你们生活在使你们感觉不安全的社区，或有朋友逼迫你们去做你们知道不对的事情。