Taylor Swift在纽约大学毕业典礼的演讲——努力做不甘平凡的自己

Hi, I’m Taylor.

嗨，我是泰勒。

Last time I was in a stadium this size, I was dancing in heels and wearing a glittery leotard. This outfit is much more comfortable

上次在这么大的体育场里，我还是穿着高跟鞋和闪亮的紧身衣跳舞。这套衣服要舒服多了。

I’d like to say a huge thank you to NYU‘s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Bill Berkeley and all the trustees and members of the board, NYU’s President Andrew Hamilton, Provost Katherine Fleming, and the faculty and alumni here today who have made this day possible. I feel so proud to share this day with my fellow honorees Susan Hockfield and Felix Matos Rodriguez, who humble me with the ways they improve our world with their work. As for me, I’m…90% sure the main reason I’m here is because I have a song called ‘22.’ And let me just say, I am elated to be here with you today as we celebrate and graduate New York University’s Class of 2022.

我想对纽约大学董事会主席比尔-伯克利和所有董事会成员、纽约大学校长安德鲁-汉密尔顿、教务长凯瑟琳-弗莱明，以及今天在座的教师和校友们表示衷心的感谢，是他们让这一天成为可能。能与我的获奖者苏珊·霍克菲尔德（SusanHockfield）和菲利克斯·马托斯·罗德里格斯（Felix Matos Rodriguez）分享这一天，我感到非常自豪。他们用自己的工作改善了我们的世界，让我感到谦卑。至于我，我......我90%确信我在这里的主要原因是我有一首歌叫《22》。而我想说的是，我很高兴今天能和大家一起庆祝，一起毕业于纽约大学2022届。

Not a single one of us here today has done it alone. We are each a patchwork quilt of those who have loved us, those who have believed in our futures, those who showed us empathy and kindness or told us the truth even when it wasn’t easy to hear. Those who told us we could do it when there was absolutely no proof of that. Someone read stories to you and taught you to dream and offered up some moral code of right and wrong for you to try and live by. Someone tried their best to explain every concept in this insanely complex world to the child that was you, as you asked a bazillion questions like ‘how does the moon work’ and ‘why can we eat salad but not grass.’ And maybe they didn’t do it perfectly. No one ever can. Maybe they aren’t with us anymore, and in that case I hope you’ll remember them today. If they are here in this stadium, I hope you’ll find your own way to express your gratitude for all the steps and missteps that have led us to this common destination.

今天在座的我们中没有一个人独自做到这一点。我们每个人都是由那些爱过我们的人、那些相信我们的未来的人、那些向我们展示同情心和善意的人或在我们并不容易听到时告诉我们真相的人拼凑而成。那些在完全没有把握的情况下，告诉我们我们可以做到的人。有人给你读故事，教你做梦，为你提供一些正确或错误的道德标准去努力生活。有人尽力向你这个孩子解释这个疯狂复杂的世界的每一个概念，因为你问了无数个问题，比如"月亮是如何工作的 "和 "为什么我们可以吃沙拉而不是草"。也许他们做得并不完美，但没有人能够做得完美。也许他们已经不在我们身边，在这种情况下，我希望你们今天能记住他们。如果他们在这个体育场，我希望你能找到自己的方式来表达你的感激之情，感激为实现这一共同目标而经历的好与坏。

I know that words are supposed to be my ‘thing’, but I will never be able to find the words to thank my mom and my dad, and my brother, Austin, for the sacrifices they made every day so that I could go from singing in coffee houses to standing up here with you all today because no words would ever be enough. To all the incredible parents, family members, mentors, teachers, allies, friends and loved ones here today who have supported these students in their pursuit of educational enrichment, let me say to you now: Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you.

我知道我说的话应该只代表我个人，但我永远无法找到话来感谢我的妈妈和爸爸，以及我的弟弟奥斯汀，感谢他们每天做出的牺牲，使我能够从在咖啡馆唱歌到今天和你们一起站在这里，因为任何语言都是不够的。对于今天在座的所有不可思议的父母们、家人们、导师们、老师们、校友们、朋友们和亲人们，他们支持这些学生追求教育的丰富性，现在让我对你们说：“Welcome to New York. It’s been waiting for you！”

I’d like to thank NYU for making me technically, on paper at least, a doctor. Not the type of doctor you would want around in the case of an emergency, unless your specific emergency was that you desperately needed to hear a song with a catchy hook and an intensely cathartic bridge section. Or if your emergency was that you needed a person who can name over 50 breeds of cats in one minute.

我要感谢纽约大学使我在技术上，至少在纸面上，成为一名Doctor。这不是你在紧急情况下想要的那种Doctor，除非你的特殊紧急情况是：你迫切需要听到一首歌，一首有朗朗上口的歌词和强烈的宣泄性桥段的歌。或者，如果你的紧急情况是：你需要一个能在一分钟内说出50多个猫种的人。

I never got to have the normal college experience, per se. I went to public high school until tenth grade and finished my education doing homeschool work on the floors of airport terminals. Then I went out on the road on a radio tour, which sounds incredibly glamorous but in reality it consisted of a rental car, motels, and my mom and I pretending to have loud mother daughter fights with each other during boarding so no one would want the empty seat between us on Southwest.

我没有过的大学经历。我在公立高中读到十年级，在机场航站楼的地板上完成了我的学业。在那之后，我开始了做了一场公路的巡回演出。这听起来非常迷人，但实际上这场巡演只是由租来的汽车和汽车旅馆，还有在登机时，为了不让人想要坐在我和我妈妈两侧的空座位，我们母女会在登机时假装互相大声争吵组成。

As a kid, I always thought I would go away to college, imagining the posters I’d hang on the wall of my freshmen dorm. I even set the ending of my music video for my song “Love Story” at my fantasy imaginary college, where I meet a male model reading a book on the grass and with one single glance, we realize we had been in love in our past lives. Which is exactly what you guys all experienced at some point in the last 4 years, right?

小时候，我一直想着自己会上大学，思考着该在大学新生宿舍墙上贴哪些张海报。我甚至把我梦想中的大学生活拍摄成了“Love Story”MV的结尾，在那里，我遇到了一位在青青草地上看书的男模特，只一眼，就意识到我们曾相爱过。这正是你们在过去4年中的某个时刻所经历的，对吗？

But I really can’t complain about not having a normal college experience to you because you went to NYU during a global pandemic, being essentially locked into your dorms or having to do classes over Zoom. Everyone in college during normal times stresses about test scores, but on top of that you also had to pass like a thousand COVID tests. I imagine the idea of a normal college experience was all you wanted too. But in this case you and I both learned that you don’t always get all the things in the bag that you selected from the menu in the delivery service that is life. You get what you get. And as I would like to say to you, you wholeheartedly should be very proud of what you’ve done with it. Today you leave New York University and then you go out into the world searching for what’s next. And so will I.

但我真的不能抱怨没有正常大学经历的你，因为你在全球疫情期间上的纽约大学，基本上被隔离在宿舍里，或者不得不在Zoom上网课。在正常的情况下，每位大学生都焦虑着他们的学业成绩，但你们却还要通过审上千次核酸检测。我觉得，你们也渴望能够拥有正常的大学经历。但如今的情况下，我们都清楚，很多时候你难以获得你所选择的，这就是生活，你得到的仅仅是你所能够得到的。正如我想对你说的，你应该真心实意地为自己所做到的一切感到非常自豪。今天你从纽约大学毕业，走向世界去寻找下一个目标。我也将如此。

So as a rule, I try not to give anyone unsolicited advice unless they ask for it. I’ll go into this more later. I guess I have been officially solicited in this situation, to impart whatever wisdom I might have and tell you the things that helped me in my life so far. Please bear in mind that I, in no way, feel qualified to tell you what to do. You’ve worked and struggled and sacrificed and studied and dreamed your way here today and so, you know what you’re doing. You’ll do things differently than I did them and for different reasons.

作为一项规则，除非被要求，我尽量不给任何人提供不请自来的建议。此项我会在后面详细阐述。在今天这种情况下，我已经被正式征求意见，要求我向你们传授我所可能拥有一些智慧，并告诉你们迄今为止一些能够提供帮助的建议。请记住，我绝不觉得自己有资格告诉你该做什么。你们在这儿工作、奋斗、牺牲、学习和梦想，所以，你们最应该知道自己在做什么。你们做事的方式、原因也与我不尽相同。

So I won’t tell you what to do because no one likes that.

所以我不会告诉你该怎么做，没人会喜欢这样的建议。

I will, however, give you some life hacks I wish I knew when I was starting out my dreams of a career, and navigating life, love, pressure, choices, shame, hope and friendship.

然而，我将给你提供一些，我希望自己在开始职业生涯以及在生活、爱情、压力、选择、羞耻、希望和友谊中所希望自己能明白的生活小窍门。

The first of which is…life can be heavy, especially if you try to carry it all at once. Part of growing up and moving into new chapters of your life is about catch and release. What I mean by that is, knowing what things to keep, and what things to release. You can’t carry all things, all grudges, all updates on your ex, all enviable promotions your school bully got at the hedge fund his uncle started. Decide what is yours to hold and let the rest go. Oftentimes the good things in your life are lighter anyway, so there’s more room for them. One toxic relationship can outweigh so many wonderful, simple joys. You get to pick what your life has time and room for. Be discerning.
第一，生活可能是沉重的，尤其是当你试图背负这一切的时候。成长并进入你生命中的新篇章的一部分应该是关于抓住与释放。我的意思是，知道哪些东西是应该保留的，哪些东西是要释怀的。你无法背负所有东西前行，如怨恨，那些关于你前任的最新消息，或者那个校霸在他叔叔创办的对冲基金公司获得令人羡慕的晋升。决定好什么是你要保留的，其余的都放下吧。通常情况下，你生活中的好东西都是生命可承受之轻，所以有更多的空间来容纳它们。而一段糟糕的关系会重过许多美妙的、简单的快乐。你可以自由选择以哪些来填充你的生活、时间和空间。要有鉴别力。

Secondly, learn to live alongside cringe. No matter how hard you try to avoid being cringe, you will look back on your life and cringe retrospectively. Cringe is unavoidable over a lifetime. Even the term ‘cringe’ might someday be deemed ‘cringe.’

第二，学会与尴尬和难为情并存。无论你多么努力地避免陷入尴尬境地，当回溯以往，一些尴尬和难为情总是伴随而来。这些在一生中是不可避免的。甚至‘cringe’这个词有一天也可能被视为是一种难为情。

I promise you, you’re probably doing or wearing something right now that you will look back on later and find revolting and hilarious. You can’t avoid it, so don’t try to. For example, I had a phase where, for the entirety of 2012, I dressed like a 1950s housewife. But you know what? I was having fun. Trends and phases are fun. Looking back and laughing is fun.

我敢肯定，你现在可能正在做或穿着一些你以后回想起来会觉得反感和搞笑的事情。你无法避免，所以不要试图去避免。例如，我有一个阶段，在2012年的全部时间里，我穿得像一个50年代的家庭主妇。但你知道吗？我当时很开心。趋势和阶段真的很有趣。回头看看，笑一笑也很有趣。

And while we’re talking about things that make us squirm but really shouldn’t, I’d like to say that I’m a big advocate for not hiding your enthusiasm for things. It seems to me that there is a false stigma around eagerness in our culture of ‘unbothered ambivalence.’ This outlook perpetuates the idea that it’s not cool to ‘want it.’ That people who don’t try hard are fundamentally more chic than people who do. And I wouldn’t know because I have been a lot of things but I’ve never been an expert on ‘chic.’ But I’m the one who’s up here so you have to listen to me when I say this: Never be ashamed of trying. Effortlessness is a myth. The people who wanted it the least were the ones I wanted to date and be friends with in high school. The people who want it most are the people I now hire to work for my company.
当我们在谈论那些让我们感到不安但确实不应该的事情时，我想说的是，不要隐藏你对事物的热情。在我看来，在我们的“无拘无束的矛盾心理”的文化理念中，热切是一种虚假的污名。这种观点延续了这样一种想法，即 "想要 "是不酷的，不努力的人从根本上说比努力的人更时髦。我不知道，因为我经历过很多事情，但我从来没有成为那些不努力的时髦专家。但我才是那个站在这上面的人，所以当我说这句话时，你得认真听：永远不要羞于尝试。永远不要因为尝试而感到羞耻。不劳而获是一个神话。最不想要它的人是我在高中时想要约会和做朋友的人。最想得到它的人是我现在雇用为我的公司工作的人。

I started writing songs when I was twelve and since then, it’s been the compass guiding my life, and in turn, my life guided my writing. Everything I do is just an extension of my writing, whether it’s directing videos or a short film, creating the visuals for a tour, or standing on stage performing. Everything is connected by my love of the craft, the thrill of working through ideas and narrowing them down and polishing it all up in the end. Editing. Waking up in the middle of the night and throwing out the old idea because you just thought of a newer, better one. A plot device that ties the whole thing together. There’s a reason they call it a hook. Sometimes a string of words just ensnares me and I can’t focus on anything until it’s been recorded or written down.

我12岁时开始写歌，从那时起，它就成为我生活的指南针，反过来，我的生活也指导我的写作。我所做的一切都只是我写作的延伸，无论是指导视频或短片，亦或者为巡演创造视觉效果，还是站在舞台上表演。每件事都与我对这项工作的热爱有关，这是通过灵感付诸实际并缩小它们的范围，最后把它们都打磨好的快感。半夜醒来并扔掉旧的想法，因为你刚刚想到了一个全新的、更好的想法。这将整个故事联系起来。他们称之为 "hook "是有原因的。有时一连串的文字就会让我着迷，在它被记录或写下来之前我无法专注于任何事情。

As a songwriter I’ve never been able to sit still, or stay in one creative place for too long. I’ve made and released 11 albums and in the process, I’ve switched genres from country to pop to alternative to folk. This might sound like a very songwriter-centric line of discussion but in a way, I really do think we are all writers. And most of us write in a different voice for different situations. You write differently in your Instagram stories than you do your senior thesis. You send a different type of email to your boss than you do your best friend from home. We are all literary chameleons and I think it’s fascinating. It’s just a continuation of the idea that we are so many things, all the time. And I know it can be really overwhelming figuring out who to be, and when. Who you are now and how to act in order to get where you want to go. I have some good news: it’s totally up to you. I also have some terrifying news: it’s totally up to you.

作为一个词曲作者，我从来不能坐以待毙，或者在一个创造性的地方停留太久。我已经制作并发行了11张专辑，在这个过程中，我转换了流派，从乡村到流行到另类到民谣。这听起来可能是一个以词曲作者为中心的讨论，但在某种程度上，我真的认为我们都是作家。我们大多数人在不同的情况下用不同的声音写作。你在Instagram上写的故事和你的毕业论文是不同的。你给你的老板发的电子邮件和你在家里给你最好的朋友发的电子邮件类型是不同的。我们都是文学的变色龙，我认为这很吸引人。这只是让我们延续了我们的多面性。而且我知道，弄清楚要成为谁以及何时成为，这可能会让人不知所措。你现在是谁以及如何行动才能到达你想去的地方。对此我有一些好消息：这完全取决于你；我还有一些可怕的消息：这完全取决于你。

I said to you earlier that I don’t ever offer advice unless someone asks me for it, and now I’ll tell you why. As a person who started my very public career at the age of 15, it came with a price. And that price was years of unsolicited advice. Being the youngest person in every room for over a decade meant that I was constantly being issued warnings from older members of the music industry, the media, interviewers, executives. This advice often presented itself as thinly veiled warnings. See, I was a teenager in the public eye at a time when our society was absolutely obsessed with the idea of having perfect young female role models. It felt like every interview I did included slight barbs by the interviewer about me one day ‘running off the rails.’ That meant a different thing to everyone person said it me. So I became a young adult while being fed the message that if I didn’t make any mistakes, all the children of America would grow up to be perfect angels. However, if I did slip up, the entire earth would fall off its axis and it would be entirely my fault and I would go to pop star jail forever and ever. It was all centered around the idea that mistakes equal failure and ultimately, the loss of any chance at a happy or rewarding life.

我之前曾说过，除非有人问我，否则我从不提供建议，现在我告诉你为什么。作为一个15岁就开始我众所周知的职业生涯的人，我的事业是有代价的。而这个代价就是多年来不请自来的建议。在超过十年的时间里，作为每个房间里最年轻的人，意味着我不断地被音乐界的前辈、媒体、记者、高管发出警告。这些建议经常以隐晦的警告形式出现。看，当我们的社会完全沉迷于拥有完美的年轻女性榜样的想法时，我还是公众眼中的青少年。感觉我做的每一次采访都包括记者对我有一天 "脱轨 "的轻微讽刺。这对每个人来说意味着不同的事情。因此，我成为一个年轻的成年人，同时被灌输这样的信息：如果我不犯任何错误，所有美国的孩子都会成长为完美的天使。然而，如果我真的做错了，整个地球就会从地轴上掉下来，这完全是我的错，我就会被永远关进流行歌坛的监狱。这一切都围绕着这样的想法：错误等于失败，最终，失去了任何幸福或有价值的生活的机会。

 This has not been my experience. My experience has been that my mistakes led to the best things in my life. And being embarrassed when you mess up is part of the human experience. Getting back up, dusting yourself off and seeing who still wants to hang out with you afterward and laugh about it? That’s a gift. The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.

这并不是我所想的。我的想法是，我这样的错误往往产生了我生命中最美好的事物。当我们搞砸某事而感到尴尬这是情理之中的，大部分人都会这样。我们应该做的是重新站起来，振作起来，当作是一个机会，去看看出糗之后谁还愿意和我一起玩，并一起经历酸甜苦辣。当我被拒绝、或者没有被包括在内、没有被选中、输了、失败的时候......回过头看看，真的感觉被否定与我被肯定的时刻一样重要，甚至更重要。

Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35 year old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13 year old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.

没有被邀请参加我家乡的聚会和过夜，让我感到无奈与孤独，但因为我感到孤独，所以我会坐在我的房间里写歌，得到另一个发展的机会。纳什维尔的唱片公司高管告诉我，只有35岁的家庭主妇才听乡村音乐，他们的花名册容不下我这个十三岁小孩，这让我在开往回家的汽车上哭泣。但后来我在我的空间上发布了自创的歌曲，是的，我的空间，并与其他像我一样喜欢乡村音乐的青少年留言互动，但我无法听到他们的歌声。许多记者写的关于我的文章经常都是批评性的，这让我觉得自己生活在某种奇怪的模拟中，但这也让我内省，充分了解自己，定义自己。在我十几岁二十几岁的时候，全世界把我的爱情生活当作一项我每次都会不顺利的娱乐谈资，这不是一个好的约会方式，但这让我学会了有力地保护我的私人生活。在年轻的时候，我被一次又一次公开羞辱，这非常痛苦，但迫使我对分秒必争、不断波动的社会相关性和友好度的荒谬概念逐渐淡然。那次网暴几乎断送了我的职业生涯，但我也因此成为了一位出色的鉴酒师。

I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.

我知道我听起来像是一个完美的乐观主义者，但我真的不是。我总是失去方向。有时一切都感觉完全没有意义。我知道通过完美主义的视角生活的压力。因为今天大家从纽约大学毕业，所以我知道我在和一群完美主义者谈话，因此，这些话可能很少听到：在我们的生活中可能不可避免地说错话、相信错误的人、可能反应不足、反应过度、伤害到不应当被伤害的人、自我内耗、完全不顾及任何、自我伤害，创造经验存在的现实、破坏自己和别人的完美时刻、否认任何错误的行为，不采取步骤使其正确，感到非常内疚、让内疚侵蚀自己并跌入谷底，最终解决自己造成的痛苦，尝试希望下次做得好一些，辩解之后重蹈覆辙。我没撒谎，这些错误会导致你失去一些东西。

I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.

我想告诉大家，失去并不是真正意味着失去。很多时候，当我们失去的同时也会收获。

Now you leave the structure and framework of school and chart your own path. Every choice you make leads to the next choice which leads to the next, and I know it’s hard to know sometimes which path to take. There will be times in life when you need to stand up for yourself. Times when the right thing is to back down and apologize. Times when the right thing is to fight, times when the right thing is to turn and run. Times to hold on with all you have and times to let go with grace. Sometimes the right thing to do is to throw out the old schools of thought in the name of progress and reform. Sometimes the right thing to do is to listen to the wisdom of those who have come before us. How will you know what the right choice is in these crucial moments? You won’t.

现在你离开了学校的条条框框，规划自己的道路。你的每一个选择都会让下一个选择接踵而至下，我知道有时很难知道该走哪条路。生活中的一些时候需要为自己站出来。当正确的事情是退缩和道歉的时候，当正确的事情是抗争的时候，当正确的事情是转身就跑的时候。我们有的时候要全力以赴地坚持，有的时候要优雅地放手，有时正确的做法是以进步和改革的名义抛弃旧的思想流派。有时正确的做法是听取前人的智慧。在这些关键时刻，选择正确的方法是让我们左右为难的。

How do I give advice to this many people about their life choices? I won’t. Scary news is: you’re on your own now. Cool news is: You’re on your own now.

我该怎么给这么多人的人生选择提供建议呢？我不会的。坏消息是：你现在要靠自己了。好消息是：你现在要靠自己了。

I leave you with this: We are led by our gut instincts, our intuition, our desires and fears, our scars and our dreams. And you will screw it up sometimes. So will I. And when I do, you will most likely read about on the internet. Anyway…hard things will happen to us. We will recover. We will learn from it. We will grow more resilient because of it.

我们被我们的内心深处的直觉、欲望、恐惧、伤疤和梦想所引导。有时你可能会搞砸一切，我也是。当我沦落如此时，会在互联网上到处传播。困难的事情会发生在我们身上。我们将从中走出，我们将从中吸取教训。我们会因此而变得更有韧性。

As long as we are fortunate enough to be breathing, we will breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out. And I’m a doctor now, so I know how breathing works.

只要我们有幸还在呼吸，我们就会吸气、呼气、深呼吸、呼气。我现在怎么说也算是一名博士了，呼吸这种事情我还是会的。

I hope you know how proud I am to share this day with you. We’re doing this together. So let’s just keep dancing like we’re…the class of 22.

我希望你知道我有多骄傲能与你分享这一天。我们在一起做这件事。所以，让我们继续跳舞，就像我们是......22届的学生。