雷蒙校长2019届本科生毕业典礼致辞全文（中英）

上海纽约大学2019届本科生毕业典礼致辞

常务副校长 | 雷蒙

2019届的同学们：

Members of the Class of 2019.

今天我们共聚于此，怀着喜悦的心情，回顾你们在上海纽约大学度过的四年时光，并展望你们光明的未来。

Today we all celebrate. We look back over your four years at NYU Shanghai with fondness, and we look ahead to the future with optimism.

此刻，我感慨良多。你们是我教“全球视野下的社会”课的最后一届。我教完你们之后，这门课由Corpis和Weslake教授接手了。

To be sure, for me it is a wistful day. You are the last class of NYU Shanghai students to whom I taught Global Perspectives on Society. After your class, I handed GPS over to Professors Corpis and Weslake, and I haven’t taught it since.

有人问我，是不是因为你们的关系我才不教下去了。

Some of you asked me whether it was something you did. Whether you are the reason I quit. Whether it’s your fault.

说实话，的确是的。我怕再也碰不到像你们这么好的学生。

The honest answer is yes. After teaching GPS to your class, I realized I could never again study this material with such amazingly gifted students. The class was perfect, and after you it could only go downhill. So I just had to stop.

还记得两个月前，我在特别版的“全球视野下的社会”课上和你们分享了阿图·葛文德的著作《最好的告别》。他在书中告诫医生们，病人要的不仅仅是活着，而是活得“有价值、有意义”。我和你们探讨了何为有价值、有意义的生活。

You will remember that during our last GPS class two months ago we talked about Atul Gawande’s book, Being Mortal. We talked about his message to doctors that their patients place much less value on just being alive than they do on living what he calls “a life of worth and purpose.” We talked about what such a life might involve.

碰巧，几周之前《美国医学协会杂志》刊登了泰勒·范德维尔的文章，也表达了类似的意思。文章指出，医生不仅要看重病人的生理健康，更要关注病人的生活是否还在“进步”。

As it happens, a few weeks ago the Journal of the American Medical Association published an essay by Tyler VanderWeele with a very similar message, asking doctors to think not only about whether their patients are physically healthy, but rather about whether their patients are “flourishing.”

读了范德维尔的文章，我开始自责。因为在和你们讨论《最好的告别》的时候，我又用了“苏格拉底式教学法”，说“对于生命是否有价值、有意义，人生是否进步的看法”是“因人而异”的。

After reading VanderWeele’s essay, I started to feel guilty. Because during our discussion of Being Mortal, I did the “Socratic Method” thing. I suggested that the right answer to the question, “What makes a life worthy, purposeful, and flourishing?” is, “It depends.” I suggested that the answer is different for every person.

我自责是因为，其实我知道让人生进步、有价值、有意义的方法，但没有告诉你们。

I started to feel guilty because, in reality, I know the answer. I know what you need to do in order to have flourishing lives of worth and purpose. And I didn’t tell you.

所以我决定借今天的机会补上这一课。有八个方面能让你们在毕业之后的人生不断进步，更加有价值和有意义。

So, I have decided to tell you now. Here are the eight things that you need to do to have flourishing lives of worth and purpose after you graduate today.

第一，不要在意别人对“成功”的看法。遵从你们的内心，相信自己的感受，去尝试各种新的事情，收获丰富的人生经历。

First, do not focus on whether you are meeting some other person’s definition of “success.” Focus instead on whether you feel, in your heart of hearts, that you are lucky to be doing the variety of things that you are doing each day, each month, each year.

第二，人生的进步、价值和意义取决于三个要素的融合：家庭、社会、工作——不管有没有收入。在人生的不同阶段，三者的偏重也会有所不同，有时重工作，有时重家庭，有时重社交。但最好的状态肯定是同时兼具三者，可多可少，但不要偏废。

Second, understand that worth and purpose and flourishing involve a mix of activity in three different domains: family relationships, other social and community relationships, and productive work for which you may or may not get paid. That mix will vary over the course of your life. In some phases you will emphasize work, in others family, and in others community. But you will probably be happiest if you keep all three domains going, at least a little bit, at all times.

第三，保持你在上海纽约大学培养起来的，能激发你创造力的兴趣爱好。比如，和来自不同文化的人交流；到其他国家走走，至少两年一次；大量阅读，无论小说还是传记、科幻还是纪实，至少一年六本书；不断尝试新鲜事物，做一些你不擅长的事，做一些不功利的事，不要虚度光阴。

Third, sustain the habits that you built up as students at NYU Shanghai, the habits that research shows will nourish your creativity. For example, keep hanging out with people whose first culture was different from your own. Keep visiting other countries, at least once every two years. Keep reading tons of books, at least six each year, regardless of whether they are fiction or nonfiction, biography or fantasy. Keep on tasting the widest variety of experiences you can. Protect time for yourself to feel bored, to do things you are bad at, to do things that have no value for your resume.

第四，选择和坚持一个工作的理由有很多。比如：不菲的收入，帮助他人的喜悦，激发潜能的兴奋，精于所长的满足，拥有值得信赖的团队，受人景仰的成就感，全情投入的执着，亦或是能让你有足够的时间开展兴趣爱好。

Fourth, understand that there are many perfectly good reasons to take a job or to stay with a job. It may pay you well in money or prestige. It may leave you feeling every day that you have helped someone enjoy a better life. It may require you to use all your skills. It may require you to use the one skill you most enjoy using. It may offer you colleagues who are exceptionally talented. It may offer you colleagues whose values you admire and who treat you with respect. It may be pleasurably all-consuming. Or it may allow you to invest significant time each week in meaningful activities that have no relation to your work.

第五，鉴于没有哪个工作能做到以上所有，我建议你们每隔五年就思考一下要不要做出改变。25、30、35、40岁，以此类推，花时间想想未来五年要干什么。如果你觉得自己还在进步，那说明你应该继续前进。如果不是，那就要认真考虑是不是该做出改变了。没有冒险的人生是不完整的，去寻找，去探索，去解决问题，去克服困难，全心投入，创造不同。一份工作不能得到，那就用整个职业生涯，一系列的工作去追寻所有。

Fifth, since no one job will have all the virtues I just enumerated, use your 5-year birthdays to think about whether you want to make a change. On your 25th, 30th, 35th, and 40th birthdays, and on and on, spend the day thinking about what you want to do during the next five years. If you feel like you are flourishing, then you may well want to keep doing whatever you’ve been doing. But if you don’t feel like you are flourishing, look around and consider whether you want to try something different. A full life involves adventure, in which you search, explore, solve problems, overcome challenges, invent, and create. Even though no one job can give you all of those things, a series of jobs across a career certainly can.

第六，网上发言要留神，你打的每一个字都会留下印记。尤其注意说话时的语气。说话留一线，日后好相见，以免将来看到自己当初说的话像傻子一样。电子邮件、短消息可以用来讲事实，但不要用来发泄。要怼人你就当面怼，在邮件里发脾气只会激化矛盾，哪怕你再有道理，也解决不了问题。对于网络匿名言论我更是一贯抱以嗤之以鼻的态度，躲在键盘后面说三道四对社会只有破坏没有贡献，所以请大家自重。

Sixth, be careful online, because what you type lasts forever. Focus on the tone of your communications even more than you focus on their content. If you always use a tone that is 10% less confident than you really feel, it will protect your ability to change your mind in the future without looking like an idiot. Use emails and texts to persuade, not to vent; if you want to be angry or snarky or insulting, do it live and in person, face to face. Angry writing is guaranteed not to persuade, even if your logic is perfect. And as you all know, I think anonymous speech is one of the most destructive forces in our world today, so please don’t indulge in it.

第七，说到上网，还有别太在意粉丝数量和点赞次数，你不知道里面多少是僵尸粉，多少是点赞侠。忘掉网络评论的纷扰，找到一些你真心尊重，也真正关心了解你的人，多和他们相处，他们的意见才是对你最有价值的。

Seventh, speaking of online, don’t count followers, or likes, and don’t worry about your ratio of followers to likes. Those are statistics about a large universe that jumbles together people who care about you and people who don’t. Instead, identify two or five or ten people whom you respect and whom you are absolutely certain care for you. Spend quality time with them. Tune out the noise and listen to them. Ask them what they think of your ideas or your pictures. They are the only ones who should matter to your sense of self.

第八，不要为了错误和失败而过度惩罚自己。失败总是在所难免，要是你的错误连累了别人，那就真心诚意地请求原谅，然后振作精神，重新出发。

Eighth, when you make a mistake, when you fail in front of others, don’t beat yourself up about it. Everybody fails from time to time. When it happens, get back up, dust yourself off, ask forgiveness if your mess-up hurt somebody else, and move ahead.

以上。

That’s it.

上海纽约大学2019届毕业生们，你们即将踏上追求有意义、有价值的人生的新旅程，为这个世界贡献你们的热情与才华。在此，我代表你们的老师，向你们表达我们的期许：

And now, members of the NYU Shanghai Class of 2019, as you embark on your flourishing lives of worth and purpose, lives of service to a world that desperately needs you, let me conclude by sharing a few hopes that we, your teachers, hold for you:

愿你们享受工作的快乐——体会过程与结果带来的满足感。

May you enjoy the special pleasures of craft—the private satisfaction of doing a task as well as it can be done.

愿你们享受职业的乐趣——用你的努力给社会带来更大的价值。

May you enjoy the special pleasures of profession—the added satisfaction of knowing that your efforts promote a larger public good.

愿你们拥有好的运气，并心怀谦卑和感恩。

May you be blessed with good luck, and also with the wisdom to appreciate when you have been lucky rather than skillful.

愿你们润物无声地帮助他人。

May you find ways to help others under circumstances where they cannot possibly know that you have done so.

愿你们温良恭俭，关怀包容，不要自鸣得意，目中无人。

May you be patient, and gentle, and tolerant, without becoming smug, self-satisfied, and arrogant.

愿你们坦然面对自己的无知、疑惑、弱点和踌躇。

May you always be able to confess ignorance, doubt, vulnerability, and uncertainty.

愿你们有知音相伴。

May you build long and loving relationships with people whom you respect.

愿你们明白人生不是一帆风顺，要做好应对山重水复的准备，但也要坚信会有柳暗花明的一天。

May you know enough bad weather that you never take sunshine for granted, and enough weather like today that your faith in the coming of spring is never shaken.

愿你们继续精彩的旅程，去体验丰富多彩的人生。

May you continue to travel frequently beyond the places that are comfortable and familiar, so that your appreciation for the miraculous diversity of life grows ever stronger.

愿你们经常回上海、回浦东、回上海纽约大学看看。你们永远是这个大家庭的一员，我们随时欢迎你们回来。

And may your steps lead you often back to Shanghai. Back to Pudong. For you will always be members of the NYU Shanghai family. And even after we have moved our campus to Qiantan, we will always be happy to welcome you home.

祝贺大家！

Congratulations.

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