【精英翻譯】的部落格

What If Anything Were Possible?

最貧窮的哈佛女孩

精英翻譯社轉自https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0061/355954/web/

Liz Murray’s life story is sure to leave anyone awed and inspired. Murray grew up in poverty with parents who were drug addicts. Both parents later became HIV positive, and Murray became homeless. In 1996, Murray’s mother passed away, and at this point, Murray decided that she wanted to go to school. At the age of 17, while still living on the streets, she enrolled in high school. Two years later, she was accepted into Harvard and received a scholarship. Despite taking several years off to care for her father, Murray graduated from Harvard before going on to become an author and motivational speaker.

莉姿．茉芮的人生故事一定會讓任何人感到崇敬並受到鼓舞。茉芮在貧窮中長大，和有毒癮的父母一同生活。她的雙親後來都檢驗出 HIV 陽性，茉芮也變得無家可歸。1996 年，茉芮的母親離世，而在此時，茉芮決定要去上學。她在十七歲仍流落街頭時上了高中。兩年後，她獲准進入哈佛大學就讀並拿到了一筆獎學金。儘管茉芮為了照顧父親而休學了幾年，她仍然從哈佛畢業，接著成為一名作家及勵志演講者。

Murray addressed much of her past in a TED Talk in San Diego, but she didn’t just share her story. She also talked about Ben Underwood, a young man that had his eyes removed at the age of three because of cancer. Afterward, Ben learned to use echolocation to “see” his environment and easily move about. *As notable as it was that Ben was able to rely on sound waves to establish where things were, Murray found that his ultimate success was less important than the drive that Ben had to develop that amazing ability. As she asks, “What is it inside a person that refuses to say ‘I will label myself as blind’ and find another way?”

茉芮在聖地牙哥的 TED Talk 中談到許多她的過去生活，但她不光是分享自身的故事而已。她也提到了班．安德伍德 ── 一名因為罹患癌症而在三歲時被摘除雙眼的年輕男子。之後，班學會利用回聲定位來「看」他的環境並行動自如。雖然班能靠聲波來確定物體位置這件事很值得注意，但茉芮發現，和班培養出這種驚人能力的動力相比，他最終的成功就沒那麼重要了。她在演說中問道：「一個拒絕說『我會為自己貼上盲人的標籤』並尋找其他方法的人，他的內心世界會是什麼樣子？」

As Murray explains, this drive comes down to the “what if” voice. For Ben, it was: what if he could find a new way to see? For herself, she wondered what would happen if she went to school, if she got good grades, and if she applied to college. In asking these questions and acting on them, Murray argues that anyone can find new opportunities for themselves and their future.

茉芮在演說中說明，這種動力要歸結於「要是」的內在聲音。就班來說，那就是：要是他能找到新方法讓自己看得見呢？就茉芮自己而言，她想知道要是自己去上學、得到好成績並申請上大學，會發生什麼事。在提出這些問題並針對它們展開行動的過程中，茉芮認為每個人都能為自己跟未來找到新的機會。