今天，我很榮幸能參加你們的畢業典禮，斯坦福大學是世界上最好的大學之一。我從來沒有從大學畢業。說真的，今天也許是在我的生命中離大學畢業最近的一天了。今天我想向你們講述我生活中的三個故事。不是什麼大不了的事情，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大學讀了六個月之後就退學了，但是在十八個月以後——我真正地作出退學決定之前，我還經常去學校。那麼，我爲什麼要退學呢?
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.
故事從我出生的時候講起。我的生母當時是一個年輕的，尚未結婚的研究生，她決定讓別人收養我。她十分想讓我被大學畢業生收養。所以在我出生的時候，她已經做好了一切的準備工作，我將被一位律師和他的妻子收養。但是她沒有料到，當我出生之後，律師夫婦突然決定他們想要的是一個女孩。
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.
所以我的養父母(他們在候選名單上)突然在半夜接到了一個電話:“我們現在這兒有一個親生父母無法撫養的男嬰，你們想要他嗎?”他們回答道:“當然!”但是我親生母親隨後發現，我的養母大學沒畢業，我的父親甚至高中沒畢業。她拒絕籤這個收養合同。只是在幾個月以後，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.
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， 而我父母只是藍領階層，我的學費幾乎要花光了他們所有積蓄。而六個月後， 我卻看不到其中的價值所在。我不知道我想要在生命中做什麼，我也不知道大學能怎麼樣幫助我找到答案。
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.
但是在這裏，我幾乎花光了我父母這一輩子的所有積蓄。所以我決定要退學，並且相信一切會有辦法的。我當時確實非常的害怕， 但是現在回頭看看，那的確是我這一生中曾經做過的最棒的一個決定。在我退學的那一刻， 我終於可以不必去讀那些令我提不起絲毫興趣的課程了，然後我還可以去修那些看起來有點意思的課程。
It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room， so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms， I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with， and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:
但是事實並不是那麼浪漫。我沒有了宿舍住，所以我只能睡在朋友房間的地板上，我去撿可樂瓶子，以五分一個的價格賣掉，這樣我就可以有點錢買吃的， 在每個星期天的晚上，我會走七英里的路程，到城市另一端的Hare Krishna寺廟(注：位於紐約Brooklyn下城)，可以吃上每星期唯一一頓飽飯。我愛聖餐。我跟着我的直覺和好奇心走， 遇到了很多東西，此後被證明是無價之寶。我來舉個例子吧：
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster， every label on every drawer， was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes， I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.
在那時，Reed大學提供全美最好的美術字課程。在這個大學裏，每張海報， 每個抽屜的每個標籤，全都是漂亮的手寫美術字。因爲我退學了， 不用去上那些常規的課程， 所以我決定去參加這個課程，去學學怎樣寫出漂亮的美術字。
I learned about serif and san serif typefaces， about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations， about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful， historical， artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture， and I found it fascinating.
我學到了san serif 和serif字型， 我學會了怎麼樣在不同的字母組合之中改變空格的長度， 還有怎麼樣才能作出最棒的印刷式樣。那是一種科學永遠不能捕捉到的、美麗的、歷史性的藝術精妙， 我發現那實在是太美妙了。
