你该如何面对艰难选择演讲稿

　　Think of a hard choice you'll face in the near future. It might be between two careers--artist and accountant--or places to live--the city or the country--or even between two people to marry--you could marry Betty or you could marry Lolita. Or it might be a choice about whether to have children, to have an ailing parent move in with you, to raise your child in a religion that your partner lives by but leaves you cold. Or whether to donate your life savings to charity.

　　设想在不久的未来，你将面对一个艰难的决定。这也许是在两份职业中做出一个选择，艺术家还是会计师;也许是选择居住的地方，城市还是乡村;也许是在两个人中选择和谁结婚，Betty 或者是Lolita;抑或思考是否要孩子;是否让年老体衰的父母跟你一起住;是否让你的孩子信奉你配偶信仰的宗教，即便你会因自身不信奉而被冷落;又或者说，是否将毕生积储捐赠给慈善机构。

　　Chances are, the hard choice you thought of was something big, something momentous, something that matters to you. Hard choices seem to be occasions for agonizing, hand-wringing, the gnashing of teeth. But I think we've misunderstood hard choices and the role they play in our lives. Understanding hard choicesuncovers a hidden power each of us possesses.

　　有可能，你所思考的这些艰难抉择都十分庞大，十分重要你也十分重视。每当困难的选择出现，他都会让你感到痛苦、绝望，让你咬牙切齿。但我认为我们误解了艰难抉择的定义，更误解了其在我们生活中扮演的角色。倘若能理解这些艰难决定，我们每个人便会发掘出 一种隐藏的潜力。

　　What makes a choice hard is the way the alternatives relate. In any easy choice, one alternative is better than the other. In a hard choice, one alternative is better in some ways, the other alternative is better in other ways, and neither is better than the other overall. You agonize over whether to stay in your current job in the city or uproot your life for more challenging work in the country, because staying is better in some ways,moving is better in others, and neither is better than the other overall.

　　一个抉择之所以难是由于选项之间相互关联。任何简单的抉择中，总有一种选择比另一种要好。可在艰难抉择中，一种选择在某些方面较好，另一种选择在其他方面较好，二者各有千秋让人无法定夺。你痛苦地纠结于应该继续呆在这座城市里干这份工作，还是改变一下你的生活方式到乡村去接受更具挑战性的工作，因为留下有留下的好处，离开也有好处，两种选择各有千秋难以定夺。

　　We shouldn't think that all hard choices are big. Let's say you're deciding what to have for breakfast. You could have high fiber bran cereal or a chocolate donut. Suppose what matters in the choice is tastiness and healthfulness. The cereal is better for you, the donut tastes way better, but neither is better than the other overall, a hard choice.

　　我们不应该认为所有的艰难抉择都很庞大。打个比方，你正决定吃什么早餐。你可以吃高纤维全谷干麦片，或者吃巧克力甜甜圈。假设在此抉择中的决定性因素是美味程度和健康程度。麦片对你身体好，甜甜圈却好吃很多，但两者都有自身优势，这就是一个艰难抉择。

　　Realizing that small choices can also be hard, may make big hard choices seem less intractable. After all, we manage to figure out what to have for breakfast, so maybe we can figure out whether to stay in the city or uproot for the new job in the country.

　　如果意识到小的选择也可能会变得困难，那面对大的艰难抉择时我们可能就不会觉得那么棘手了。毕竟，我们总能决定早餐吃什么，所以我们也许能够想明白，究竟要留在市区，还是到乡下接手新的工作。

　　We also shouldn't think that hard choices are hard because we are stupid. When I graduated from college, I couldn't decide between two careers, philosophy and law. I really loved philosophy. There are amazing things you can learn as a philosopher, and all from the comfort of an armchair. But I came from a modest immigrant family where my idea of luxury was having a pork tongue and jelly sandwich in my school lunchbox, so the thought of spending my whole life sitting around in armchairs just thinking ... Well, that struck me as the height of extravagance and frivolity.

　　同时，我们也不应该觉得，选择之所以难是因为自己很愚蠢。在我刚大学毕业的时候，我无法从两种职业中抉择，哲学还是法律。我真心喜欢哲学，若能成为哲学家，便能学到很多惊奇的东西，而且舒舒服服地坐在椅子上就好。可我出生自一个朴实简素的移民家庭，我对奢侈的概念，就是能在上学的午餐盒里找到一块猪舌和一份果冻三明治。所以这种一辈子仅坐在椅子上思考的想法，其实，对我来说只是一种奢侈和轻浮的假象罢了。

　　So I got out my yellow pad, I drew a line down the middle, and I tried my best to think of the reasons for and against each alternative. I remember thinking to myself, if only I knew what my life in each career would be like. If only God or Netflix would send me a DVD of my two possible future careers, I'd be set. I'd compare them side by side, I'd see that one was better, and the choice would be easy.

　　所以我拿出自己黄色笔记本，在中间划了一条线，然后竭尽所能地写出每种选择的利与弊。当时我就想：如果能知道选择某种职业后我的人生会变成怎样就好了。如果上帝或者网飞公司能送我一张DVD来向我描述这两种充满可能性的职业生涯，那我就能做出选择了。我就能一一对比，看看哪种更好，这样一来抉择就简单多了。

　　But I got no DVD, and because I couldn't figure out which was better, I did what many of us do in hard choices: I took the safest option. Fear of being an unemployed philosopher led me to become a lawyer, and as I discovered, lawyering didn't quite fit. It wasn't who I was.

　　但我没有收到这种DVD，而且由于我实在想不出哪一种更优，我就和大多数人一样：选择了最安全的一项。成为失业哲学家的恐惧，驱使我成了一名律师。可后来我发现，当律师不大适合我，这不是真正的我。

　　So now I'm a philosopher, and I study hard choices, and I can tell you, that fear of the unknown, while a common motivational default in dealing with hard choices, rests on a misconception of them.

　　所以我现在是名哲学家，我钻研艰难抉择，我可以告诉大家，对未知产生恐惧是在进行困难抉择时的自然反应，而这种恐惧来源于对艰难抉择的误解。