I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

我今天很榮幸能和你們一起參加畢業(yè)典禮，斯坦福大學是世界上最好的大學之一。我從來沒有從大學中畢業(yè)。說實話,今天也許是在我的生命中離大學畢業(yè)最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不是什么大不了的事情,只是三個故事而已。

The first story is about connecting the dots.

第一個故事是關(guān)于如何把生命中的點點滴滴串連起來。

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

我在Reed大學讀了六個月之后就退學了,但是在十八個月以后——我真正的作出退學決定之前,我還經(jīng)常去學校。我為什么要退學呢？

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

故事從我出生的時候講起。我的親生母親是一個年輕的,沒有結(jié)婚的大學畢業(yè)生。她決定讓別人收養(yǎng)我, 她十分想讓我被大學畢業(yè)生收養(yǎng)。所以在我出生的時候，她已經(jīng)做好了一切的準備工作，能使得我被一個律師和他的妻子所收養(yǎng)。但是她沒有料到,當我出生之后,律師夫婦突然決定他們想要一個女孩。 所以我的生養(yǎng)父母（他們還在我親生父母的觀察名單上）突然在半夜接到了一個電話:“我們現(xiàn)在這兒有一個不小心生出來的男嬰,你們想要他嗎？”他們回答道:“當然！”但是我親生母親隨后發(fā)現(xiàn)，我的養(yǎng)母從來沒有上過大學,我的父親甚至從沒有讀過高中。她拒絕簽這個收養(yǎng)合同。只是在幾個月以后,我的父母答應她一定要讓我上大學,那個時候她才同意。

And 17 years later I did go to college. 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. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. 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. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

在十七歲那年,我真的上了大學。但是我很愚蠢的選擇了一個幾乎和你們斯坦福大學一樣貴的學校, 我父母還處于藍領(lǐng)階層，他們幾乎把所有積蓄都花在了我的學費上面。在六個月后, 我已經(jīng)看不到其中的價值所在。我不知道我想要在生命中做什么,我也不知道大學能幫助我找到怎樣的答案。 但是在這里，我?guī)缀趸ü饬宋腋改高@一輩子的所有積蓄。所以我決定要退學,我覺得這是個正確的決定。不能否認,我當時確實非常的害怕, 但是現(xiàn)在回頭看看,那的確是我這一生中最棒的一個決定。在我做出退學決定的那一刻, 我終于可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了。然后我還可以去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。