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We grow up - inevitably - with a strong attachment to a plan A, that is, an idea of how our lives will go and what we need to do to achieve our particular set of well-defined goals.
我们在成长过程中——不可避免地——对A计划有着强烈的依恋，也就是说，我们的生活将如何发展，我们需要做什么来实现我们特定的一系列定义明确的目标。
For example, we’ll do four years of law school, then move out west, buy a house and start a family.
举个例子，我们在法学院读4年，然后搬到西部，买栋房子，组建家庭。
Or, we’ll go to medical school for 7 years, then go to another country and train in our speciality of interest and hope to retire by fifty.
或者，我们去医学院读7年，然后去另一个国家，在我们感兴趣的专业上接受培训，希望在50岁退休。
Or we’ll get married and raise two children with an emphasis on the outdoors and doing good in the world.
或者我们可以结婚，养两个孩子，重点放在户外活动上，在世界上做些好事。
But then, for some of us and at one level all of us, life turns out to have made a few other plans.
但是，对于我们中的一些人，在某种程度上，对我们所有人来说，生活原来有一些其他的计划。
A sudden injury puts a certain career forever out of reach.
一次突然的受伤会让某项事业永远无法实现。
A horrible and unexpected bit of office politics blackens our name and forces us out of our professional path.
一个可怕的和意想不到的办公室政治，抹黑了我们的名字，迫使我们离开我们的职业道路。
We discover an infidelity or make a small but significant error which changes everything about how crucial others view us.
我们发现对方不忠，或者犯了一个很小但很重要的错误，而这一错误会改变别人对我们的看法。
And so, promptly, we find we have to give up on plan A altogether.
因此，很快，我们发现我们必须完全放弃A计划。
The realisation can feel devastating.
意识到这一点可能会让人感到不知所措。
Sobbing or terrified, we wonder how things could have turned out this way.
哭泣或恐惧，我们想知道事情怎么会变成这样。
By what piece of damnation has everything come to this?
什么该死的东西把一切弄成这样?
Who could have predicted that the lively and hopeful little boy or girl we once were would have to end up in such a forlorn and pitiful situation?
谁能预料到，我们曾经是充满活力和希望的小男孩或小女孩，会有这样一个孤独和可怜的结局?
We alternately weep and rage at the turn of events.
随着事情的发展，我们时而哭泣，时而愤怒。
It is for such moments that we should, even when things appear calm and hopeful, consider one of life’s most vital skills: that of developing a plan B.
正是在这样的时刻，我们应该考虑生活中最重要的技能之一:制定B计划，即使事情看起来平静而充满希望。
The first element involves fully acknowledging that we are never cursed for having to make a plan B.
第一个要素包括完全承认，我们永远不会因为不得不制定B计划而受到诅咒。
Plan As simply do not work out all the time.
简单来说，A计划不总是能实现。
No one gets through life with all their careful plan As intact.
没有人能在周密的计划下安然度过一生。
Something unexpected, shocking and abhorrent regularly comes along, not only to us, but to all human beings.
一些意想不到的、令人震惊的、令人憎恶的事情经常发生，不仅发生在我们身上，而且发生在所有人身上。
We are simply too exposed to accident, too lacking in information, too frail in our capacities, to avoid some serious avalanches and traps.
我们只是太容易受到事故的影响，太缺乏信息，我们的能力太脆弱，无法避免一些严重的“雪崩”和陷阱。
The second point is to realise that we are, despite moments of confusion, eminently capable of developing very decent plan Bs.
第二点是要意识到，尽管有困惑的时候，我们完全有能力制定出非常体面的B计划。
The reason why we often don’t trust that we can is that children can’t so easily - and childhood is where we have all came from and continue to be influenced by in ways it’s hard to recognise.
我们常常不相信自己能做到的原因是，孩子们做不到这一点——童年是我们所有人的起源，并将继续受到其难以识别的影响。
When children’s plans go wrong, they can’t do much in response: they have to stay at the same school, they can’t divorce their parents, they can’t move to another country or shift job.
当孩子们的计划出了问题，他们也无能为力:他们必须呆在同一所学校，他们不能和父母分开，他们不能搬到另一个国家或换工作。
They’re locked in and immobile.
他们被锁在里面，动弹不得。
But adults are not at all this way, a glorious fact which we keep needing to refresh in our minds and draw comfort from in anxious moments.
但成年人却完全不是这样，这是一个光荣的事实，我们需要不断刷新我们的头脑，并从焦虑的时刻获得安慰。
We have enormous capacities to act and to adapt.
我们有巨大的行动和适应能力。
The path ahead may be blocked, but we have notable scope to find other routes through.
前面的路可能被堵住了，但我们有很大的空间找到其他的路。
One door may close, but there truly are many other entrances to try.
一扇门可能会关闭，但确实有许多其他入口可以尝试。
We do not have only one way through this life, even if - at times - we cling very fervently to a picture of how everything should and must be.
我们的一生并非只有一条路可走，即使——有时——我们非常执着于一幅画面：每件事应该怎样和必须怎样。
We’re a profoundly adaptable species.
我们是适应性很强的物种。
Perhaps we’ll have to leave town forever, maybe we’ll have to renounce an occupation we spent a decade nurturing, perhaps it will be impossible to remain with someone.
也许我们将永远离开这个城市，也许我们将不得不放弃我们花了十年培育的职业，也许我们将不可能继续和某人在一起。
It can feel desperate - until we rediscover our latent plan B muscle.
这会让人感到绝望——直到我们重新发现潜在的B计划。
In reality, there would be a possibility to relocate, to start afresh in another domain, to find someone else, to navigate around the disastrous event.
在现实中，我们有可能会搬迁，在另一个领域重新开始，找到另一个人，在灾难性事件中找到方向。
There was no one script for us written at our birth, and nor does there need to be only one going forward.
没有人在出生的时候就为我们写下了剧本，我们未来也不需要只有一个剧本。
It helps, in flexing our plan B muscles, to acquaint ourselves with the lives of many others who had to throw away plan As and begin anew:
这有助于我们展示B计划，让我们了解许多不得不放弃A计划并重新开始的人的生活:
the person who thought they’d be married forever, then suddenly weren’t - and coped;
那些以为他们会永远结婚的人，突然就不结婚了——然后就应付过去了;
the person who was renowned for doing what they did, then had to start over in a dramatically different field - and found a way.
这个人因为他们所做的事情而出名，然后不得不在一个截然不同的领域重新开始——并找到了一条路。
Amidst these stories, we’re liable to find a few people who will tell us, very sincerely, that their plan B ended up, eventually, superior to their plan A.
在这些故事中，我们很容易发现一些人，他们会非常真诚地告诉我们，他们的B计划最终比A计划更好。
They worked harder for it, they had to dig deeper to find it and it carried less vanity and fear within it.
他们更努力地工作，他们不得不挖得更深才能找到B计划，它里面装的虚荣和恐惧就少了。
Crucially, we don’t need to know right now what our plan Bs might be.
最重要的是，我们现在不需要知道我们的B计划可能是什么。
We should simply feel confident that we will, if and when we need to, be able to work them out.
我们应该相信，如果需要，我们将能够解决这些问题。
We don’t need to ruminate on them all now or anticipate every frustration that might come our way;
我们现在不需要反复思考这些问题，也不需要预测可能会出现的每一个挫折;
we should simply feel confident that, were the universe to command it, we would know how to find a very different path.
我们应该相信，如果宇宙能掌控它，我们就会知道如何找到一条非常不同的道路。
