If I were a freshman again (1) - 職涯

If I Were a Freshman Again
~~Thomas Arkle Clark

It is the habit of age to give sage advice to youth. One of the pastimes
in which everyone periodically indulges is the pleasant hallucination that
if he were given the opportunity to live his youth over again he would do
it differently and more successfully. We are all of us, even though we have
no more than reached middle age, given to regretting our neglected
opportunities and our lost youth. It gives one a virtuous feeling in
imagination to dodge all error but it is extremely doubtful if many of us,
even if we had a second chance, would avoid many of the pitfalls into which
we stumbled, or follow a straighter path than that by which we have so far
come. If it is merely pleasant for us to conjecture what we should do if we
had a second try at it, it may be profitable for those who are younger to
listen. If only foresight could be as accurate as the backward view!

給年輕人一些金玉良言是老人們的習慣。大家偶爾喜歡的一種娛樂就是美滋滋地幻想
如果有機會再年輕一次，他會少走彎路、更加成功。儘管不過人到中年，我们都習慣
於後悔曾經坐失良機、虚度青春，這讓我們在想像中有一種高尚的感覺避免所有的错
誤。而特别值得懷疑的是，即使有第二次機會，我們當中的許多人真的就能避免我們
犯過的错誤，或者少走一些我們走過的彎路。如果說猜測再给一次機會我們會怎麼做，
對於我們只是自我安慰，對於那些聽我們講故事的年輕人可能就會獲益匪淺。先見要
是與後見一樣準確無誤該多好！



Learn to Work with People about Me 鬧中取靜
I should learn to work with people about me. As it was I lived a somewhat
isolated life. I did my reading and my studying alone, and though there
were some advantages in this method, there were serious objections. Now I
must often work under different conditions than those by which I was
surrounded in college; there is work to be done where there is no quiet,
and I do it with difficulty. As I tried on a crowded ocean steamer to put
these wandering thoughts on paper I was constantly annoyed by the confusion
about me and by the spasmodic attempts at conversation made by a well-
intentioned but misguided young man at my side. If I had learned to work
under different conversations I might have turned the conversation aside
as a steep roof sheds the rain. I believe it is a great advantage for a
young man to do his work himself, but he should not subject himself to the
slavery of doing it alone.

我會學會在周圍有人的環境中工作。實際上，我的生活有些與世隔绝。我一個人看書，
一個人學習，這種方法雖然也有一些優點，卻也有著嚴重的缺點。現在我經常要在與
大學完全不同的環境裡工作，手裡有活兒要幹，周圍卻不那麼安静，結果我就感到很
吃力。曾經有一次在一艘擁擠的海船上，我正想把這些紛亂的思緒寫下來，卻不時受
到一些干擾，身邊一位出於好心但誤入歧途的年輕人有一愣兒没一愣兒地想跟我说话。
如果我學會了在不同的對話場合工作，我可能就避免了和他的談話，就像陡屋頂讓雨
水滑落一樣。我認為讓年輕人自己做事好處不少，但是他不應該一個人死扛。


Take More Difficult Work 知難而進
I should take as a freshman, if I had my work to do over again, more work
that I have no especial fondness for or that I find difficult. I like an
easy time as well as any one, and I do not wish to give the impression that
I think it an error for a student to follow the profession he enjoys or to
do the work he likes. In point of fact I believe that a student should choose
those lines of work along which his tastes lead him. I think it very likely
that those things we do most easily we shall do best; but I have found that
training comes through struggle, and that those people are developed most
who resist most, or who struggle against difficulty and opposition and
overcome. I had known a good many geniuses, but they generally had the most
commonplace careers because they never learned to do difficult or disagreeable
things.

如果重新來過，作為大一學生，我會做一些我不喜歡或者發現很難做的工作。我跟每
個人一樣，喜歡随遇而安，我不希望給人留下這樣的印象：認為學生從事自己喜歡的
職業或者做他喜歡的工作是一種錯誤。實際上，我認為學生應該根據他的興趣愛好選
擇這些工作。我認為我們做得最順手的工作可能做得最好，但我發現訓練来自鬥爭，
反抗最厲害，迎着困難和反對意見上並克服障礙的人發展得最好。我認識許多天才，
他們一般都從事最普通的職業，因為他們從未學會做難度很大或者不合意的事情。

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