*夜晚聆聽_浪漫_日記

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don't have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job and there's not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don't feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren't right.

你們中有一些人可能沒有那些有利條件。或許你們生活中沒有成年人為你們提供你們所需要的支援。或許你們家中有人失業，經濟非常拮據。或許你們生活在使你們感覺不安全的社區，或有朋友逼迫你們去做你們知道不對的事情。

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life -- what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you've got going on at home -- none of that is an excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude in school. That's no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. There is no excuse for not trying.

然而説到底，你們生活的環境、你們的膚色、你們的原籍、你們的經濟收入、你們家中的境況等等，這一切都不能成為你們不用功或不努力的理由。你們沒有理由不服從你們的老師、逃學、或輟學。沒有理由不付出努力。

Where you are right now doesn't have to determine where you'll end up. No one's written your destiny for you, because here in America , you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

你們目前的狀況並不決定著你們的未來。沒有人決定你們的命運，在美國，你們決定自己的命運，你們掌握自己的未來。

That's what young people like you are doing every day, all across America .

這就是像你們這樣的年輕人每天都在做的事情，全美各地都是如此。

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma , Texas . Jazmin didn't speak English when she first started school. Neither of her parents had gone to college. But she worked hard, earned good grades, and got a scholarship to Brown University -- is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to becoming Dr. Jazmin Perez.

來自得州羅馬城的賈茲敏‧佩雷斯就是一個例證，她剛開始上學時並不會説英文。她的父母都沒有上過大學。然而，她非常勤奮，成績優秀，獲得了布朗大學的獎學金，她如今正在讀研究生，攻讀公共衛生專業，不久將成為賈茲敏‧佩 雷斯 博士

I'm thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos , California , who's fought brain cancer since he was three. He's had to endure all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer -- hundreds of extra hours -- to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind. He's headed to college this fall.

我想起了加州洛斯阿爾托斯城的安多尼‧舒爾茨他從三歲開始就一直與腦癌進行抗爭，他不得不忍受各類治療和手術帶來的痛苦，其中一項手術曾影響了他的記憶，因此他花在功課上的時間比一般人長得多，要多出數百個小時。然而，他從未落後。他今年秋季將邁進大學。

And then there's Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago , Illinois . Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods in the city, she managed to get a job at a local health care center, start a program to keep young people out of gangs, and she's on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

我還想起家鄉伊利諾伊州芝加哥市的尚特爾‧史帝夫，她曾在芝加哥最困難的社區生活，寄養於多個不同的家庭，但她最終在一家地方醫療中心找到工作，並開始了一項幫助年輕人遠離流氓團夥的計劃，她即將以優異成績從中學畢業，緊接著將上大學。

And Jazmin, Andoni, and Shantell aren't any different from any of you. They face challenges in their lives just like you do. In some cases they've got it a lot worse off than many of you. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their lives, for their education, and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

賈茲敏、安多尼和尚特爾與你們中間的每個人沒什麼兩樣。跟你們一樣，他們在生活中面臨種種挑戰。在某些情況下，他們的處境比起你們許多人更差。但他們拒絕放棄。他們決定要為自己的一生、自己的教育負起責任，為自己設定各項奮鬥目標。我期待你們大家都會這樣做。

That's why today I'm calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education -- and do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time each day reading a book. Maybe you'll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you'll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all young people deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you'll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, by the way, I hope all of you are washing your hands a lot, and that you stay home from school when you don't feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

因此，我今天呼籲你們每一個人為自己的教育設定目標，並儘自己的最大努力來實現這些目標。你的目標可以是一件十分簡單的事情，例如完成家庭作業、上課專心聽講、或每天花一點時間讀一本書。也許你會決定要參加課外活動或在你的社區提供志願服務。

也許你會決定挺身而出保護那些因為身份或長相而受人戲弄或欺負的孩子，原因是你和我一樣認為所有的年輕人都應該享有一個適合讀書和學習的安全環境。

也許你會決定更好地照料自己，以便有更充沛的精力來學習。順便提一下，除了這些事情外，我希望大家要勤洗手，身體感到不舒服的時候要呆在家裏不去上學，這樣我們能防止人們在今年秋冬季節染上流感。

But whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

但無論你決定做什麼，我希望你保證去做，我希望你腳踏實地地去做。

I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. Chances are you're not going to be any of those things.

我知道有時候你會從電視上得到這樣的印象：你不用做任何艱苦的工作就能發財致富並取得成功，唱小調、打籃球或成為真人秀明星是走向成功的途徑。但實際情況是：你可能不會成為其中的一員。

The truth is, being successful is hard. You won't love every subject that you study. You won't click with every teacher that you have. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right at this minute. And you won't necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

事實上，取得成功不是輕而易舉的事情。你不會喜歡你學習的每一門課目，你不會與你的每一位老師都很投契，不是所有的家庭作業似乎都與你眼前的生活完全有關。你第一次嘗試做每件事的時候，不一定成功。

That's okay. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. J.K. Rowling's -- who wrote Harry Potter -- her first Harry Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that's why I succeed."

這些都沒關係。世界上最成功的人士中有一些是遭遇失敗最多的人。寫哈利波特一書的作者J.K.羅林，曾在出版第一集時被退稿12次。麥可喬丹曾經在高中籃球隊落選，他生平輸過幾百場球，有幾千次投籃投不中，但他曾經說：「我一生中失敗過不知多少次，這就是我為什麼會成功。」

These people succeeded because they understood that you can't let your failures define you -- you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time. So if you get into trouble, that doesn't mean you're a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to act right. If you get a bad grade, that doesn't mean you're stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

這些人士獲得成功，因為他們懂得：你不能讓失敗來限制你，而必須讓失敗來開導你。

你必須讓失敗向你展示下次如何以不同的方式去做這件事情。因此，如果你遇到麻煩，那並不表示你是麻煩的製造者，而意味著你需要更加努力去把它做對。如果你有一門課分數低，那不表示你比別人笨，而只表示你需要花更多的時間學習。