Most people learn over time, butoften learning comes too late to be fully useful. There arecertainly many things that I know now that would have beenextremely useful to me earlier in my life; things that could havesaved me from many of the mistakes and hurts I suffered over theyears—and most of those that I inflicted on others too。

　　随着时间的流逝我们一直在获得新的知识，但是这些学问却往往在我们需要它的时候姗姗来迟。很多对我早期生活应该极其有用的事情我却现在才知道，它们本可以帮助我在那些年里避免很多错误跟伤害----大部分事情我也曾经强加于别人身上过。

　　I don’t buy the romantic notion that my life has been somehowricher or more interesting because of all the times I screwed up;nor that the mistakes were “put” there to help me learn. I madethem myself—through ignorance, fear, and a dumb wish to haveeveryone like me—and life and work would have been less stressfuland more enjoyable(and certainly more successful)without them. Sohere are some of the things I wish I had learned long ago. I hopethey may help a few of you avoid the mistakes that I made backthen。

　　我不相信生活会无故地变得富裕而有情趣，那只是浪漫的妄想。因为我一生都充满动荡和不安。也不同意错误是已经存在于某个地方好帮助我们学习的。那些错误都是我自己犯的----出于无知、害怕还有希望所有人都喜欢自己的愚蠢愿望----没有了它们我们的生活工作就会有更少的压力更多的快乐(当然还包括成功)。下面有几点是我很久以前就希望自己能够了解的。期待它们能帮助大家，即使是小部份人，能够避免重蹈我的覆辙。

　　1. Most of it doesn’t matter.Somuch of what I got excited about, anxious about, or wasted my timeand energy on, turned out not to matter. There are only a fewthings that truly count for a happy life. I wish I had known toconcentrate on those and ignore the rest。

　　1.拥有一颗平常心

　　太多我曾经为其兴奋，为其焦虑，亦或是浪费了我时间以及精力的事情到最后却被证明是无关紧要的。它们只是幸福生活里极其微小的一部分。我多么希望早点知道这些，以便能把精力都投入到这些关乎幸福的事，而不是其他。

　　2. The greatest source of miseryand hatred in this world is clinging to past hurts.Look at all theterrorists and militant groups that hark back to some event longgone, or base their justification for killing on claims of somesupposed historical right to a bit of land, or redress for a wrongdone hundreds of years ago。

　　2.这个世界上痛苦与仇恨最大源泉是对过去的执迷。

　　看看那些恐怖组织和激进分子，他们总是抓住过去的一些事情不放，或把一小片土地的历史归属问题作为他们进行杀戮的理由，更或是为了修正几百年前的所谓的历史错误。

　　3. Waiting to do something untilyou can be sure of doing it exactly right means waiting forever.One of the greatest advantages anyone can have is thewillingness to make a fool of themselves publicly and often.There’s no better way to learn and develop. Heck, it’s funtoo。

　　3.等待有把握时再去做一件事，往往意味着永远的等待。

　　一个人能做的最大的冒险事情，就是乐意在公共场合经常暴露自己的愚昧。没有什么能比这样学得更快。“哎呀”， 也是一种乐趣。

　　4.Following the latest fashion,in work or in life, is spiritual and intellectual suicide.You canbe a cheap imitation of the ideal of the moment; or you can be aunique individual. The choice is yours. Religion isn’t the opiateof the masses, fashion is。

　　4.盲目追赶潮流是对精神和智力的扼杀

　　你可以成为一个廉价的时尚木偶，也可以成为独一无二的你，这些都在于自己的选择。信仰不是群众的鸦片，流行才是。

　　5. If people complain that you’retoo fond of going your own way and aren’t fitting in, you must beon the right track.Who wants to live life as a herd animal? Theguys in power don’t want you to fit in for your own sake; they wantyou to stop causing them problems and follow their orders. Youcan’t have the freedom to be yourself and meekly fit in at the sametime。

　　5.如果有人抱怨你太特立独行，恭喜你，你正走在正确的路上

　　谁愿意像动物一样活着？那些强有力的家伙们不希望你按照自己的意愿去做，他们希望你停止给他们制造麻烦并听从他们的命令。但你得知道，你无法做到在卑躬屈膝的同时又能活出自我。

　　6. If you make your work yourlife, you’re making your life into hard work. Like most people,Iconfused myself by looking at people like artists and musicianswhose life’s “work” fills their time. That isn’t work. It’s whothey are. Unless you have some overwhelming passion that alsohappens to allow you to earn a living doing it, always rememberthat work should be a means to an end: living an enjoyable life.Spend as little time on the means as possible consistent withachieving the end. Only idiots live to work。

　　6.如果你将工作等同于生活，那么你将为工作而生活

　　和很多人一样，当看到那些艺术家和音乐家的工作几乎是全部的生活，我感到很困惑。其实那不是工作，那是他们的自我。除非你有无法抵挡的激情，恰巧也能让你从中得以谋生，否则请永远记住，工作只是一种手段，而不是目的，我们的最终目的是享受生活。在实现目的的同时，尽可能地少花时间在手段上。只有傻瓜才是为工作而生活。

　　7. The quickest and simplest wayto wreck any relationship is to listen to gossip.The worst way tospend your time is spreading more. People who spread gossip are theplague-carriers of our day. Cockroaches are clean, kindly creaturesin comparison。

　　7.破坏关系的最快最简单的方法就是听信谣言

　　浪费你时间的最糟糕方式是传播这些谣言。传播流言蜚语的人好比瘟疫的携带者，相比之下，蟑螂都比他们干净、善良。

　　8. Trying to please other peopleis largely a futile activity. Everyone will be mad at yousometime.Most of the people you deal with will dislike, disparage,belittle, or ignore what you say or do most of the time. Besides,you can never really know what others do want, so a good deal ofwhatever you do in that regard will go to waste. Be comforted.Those who love you will probably love you regardless, and they arethe ones whose opinions are worth caring about. The rest aren’tworth five minutes of thought between them。

　　8.试图取悦别人是徒劳无益的做法

　　总有些人会对你发飙。很多你接触的人，在很多时候也会不喜欢、贬低、轻视或忽略你。另外，你永远也不知道别人真正的需要，因此你为此所做的所有努力都会付诸东流。放松些吧，爱你的人终究会包容你的过失，他们才是值得我们在乎的人。其他那些人，他们甚至都不值得花5分钟去考虑。

　　9. Every winner is destined to bea loser in due course.It’s great to be up on the winner’s podium.Just don’t imagine you can stay there for ever. Worst of all isbeing determined to do so, by any means available。

　　9.没有永久的胜利者

　　踏上冠军宝座是件好事情。但不要梦想着可以永久占据这个位置，最糟糕的是，你正决定为达此目的而不择手段。

　　10.You can rarely, if ever,please, placate, change, or mollify an asshole.The best thing youcan do is stay away from every one you encounter. Being an assholeis a contagious disease. The more time you spend around one, themore likely you are to catch it and become onetoo。

　　10.不可能取悦、平息或改造一个混蛋

　　你能做的最好方式，是和他们敬而远之。变成混蛋也能传染，你和他们呆的时间越长，你也越有可能染上混蛋的习气或者你就成为混蛋。

　　11. Everything takes twiceas longas you plan for and produces results about half as good as youhoped. There’s no reason to be downhearted about this. Just allowfor it and move on。

　　11.努力加倍，期望减半

　　任何事情都是花掉你计划的两倍时间，最后却只换来你一半的期望结果。没什么好为此沮丧的，(中国俗话说：事倍功半)让它去吧，你要继续前行。

　　12. People are oddlyconsistent.Liars usually tell lies. Cheaters cheat whenever itsuits them. A person who confides in you has usually confided inseveral others first—but not got the response they wanted. A loyalfriend will stay loyal under enormous amounts of thoughtlessabuse。

　　12.人是奇怪的偏执狂

　　撒谎者总是撒谎，骗子总要行骗。一个人对你倾诉的时候，通常已在其它人的面前倾诉过，只是可能没有得到想要回应。一位忠诚的朋友，无论遭受多大的冤屈依旧忠诚。

　　13.However hard you try, youcan’t avoid being yourself.Who else could you be? You can act andpretend, but the person acting and pretending is still you. And ifyou won’t accept yourself—and do the best you can with what youhave—who then has any obligation to accept you?

　　13.接纳自己

　　不管你怎么努力，你都无法逃避成为自己。除了自己，你还能成为谁呢？你可以扮演和假装，但进行扮演和假装的人还是你自己。如果你都无法接纳自己，没有努力挖掘自己已有的东西，那么谁有义务接纳你呢？

　　14. When it comes to blatantlies, there are none more egregious than budget figures.Time spentagonizing over them is time wasted. Even if (miracle of miracles!)yours are honest and accurate, no one else will have been sofoolish。

　　14.谈到公众谎言，没有比预算数字更令人震惊的

　　把时间折腾在这上面，是浪费时间。既使(奇迹中的奇迹)你是实事求是并且准确的， 其他人也不会那么愚蠢。

　　15. The loudest noise in theworld is the sound of people whining.Don’t add toit。

　　15.世界上最大的噪音是人们的抱怨不要再增加了。