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I took a train to Oxford last Wednesday to give a speech to the benefactors of my old college. I was in excellent spirits. The sun was shining and I was amusing myself reading a blog post by Chip Conley, the entrepreneur, about the wisdom that comes with age. At 56, he likes to see himself less as a carton of milk bearing a sell-by date than a bottle of fine wine that gets better every year.
不久前的一个周三，我坐火车前往牛津，为我母校的赞助人做一次演讲。那天我精神不错。阳光灿烂，我读着企业家奇普?康利(Chip Conley)的一篇博文自娱自乐，其内容是智慧随年龄增长。56岁的他，不把自己视为一盒带有保质期的牛奶，而是一瓶放得越久就越香醇的上等葡萄酒。
As I walked through Oxford I felt inclined to agree. I too was like an improving bottle of wine. No longer did the honey stone whisper: “You aren’t good enough.” The intensity — both the misery and the odd spurt of joy — I felt as an undergraduate had finally receded. Lady Margaret Hall, whose fa?ade used to look like a prison to me, has had vast sums spent on it and in the late afternoon sun looked borderline handsome.
在我走过牛津街头时，我倾向于赞同他的观点。我也像是一瓶渐入佳境的葡萄酒。蜂蜜石不再低语：“你不够好。”我在本科生期间体验过的强烈感受——无论是痛苦还是偶尔迸发的喜悦——终于消退了。玛格丽特夫人学堂（Lady Margaret Hall，牛津大学的一个学院——译者注）教学大楼的外立面在我眼里曾经像是监狱，近年这栋楼花了大量资金修缮，在夕阳下看起来竟然有点美丽。
I was even looking forward to giving the speech. Nothing could go wrong, the audience was captive and I had written something that I felt balanced comic reminiscence with sincerity, and was edgy enough to keep the audience from nodding off over the port.
我甚至开始期待做演讲。不会有什么问题，观众会全神贯注，而我写的演讲稿既包含有趣的回忆、又不失真诚，而且妙语连珠，足以阻止观众在波尔图葡萄酒的影响下打盹。
Two minutes in, and I was aware the laughter was strained — and it became more so as I ploughed on. Within seconds of my sitting down, two men were jostling at my elbow in protest. One of them, teeth gritted in rage, demanded to know what was going through my head when I had decided to insult everyone. The other simply said: “Just go!” pointing at the door.
开讲2分钟后，我就意识到笑声很牵强——随着我继续演讲，气氛变得愈发紧张。我坐下才几秒钟，就有两位男士挤我的手肘表示抗议。其中一人气得咬牙切齿，要求知道当我决定侮辱所有人时大脑里在想什么。另一个人只是指着大门说：“出去吧！”
In the space of 15 minutes I had got up the noses of assorted former students, benefactors and dons. I had somehow told the men they were dim, the women frumpy, and had taken the name of the absent Stephen Hester, (chief executive at RSA Insurance, and a student in the year below me) in vain. Mine was a tour de force of clangers.
在15分钟时间里，我惹恼了形形色色的校友、赞助人和大学老师。我不知不觉地告诉在场的男士们他们很蠢，告诉女士们她们很土，还在背地里议论了不在场的史蒂芬?赫斯特（Stephen Hester，RSA保险集团的首席执行官，比我晚一届）。我的演讲简直是充满过失的代表作。
I have made a few people cross over the years, but what was remarkable about this was not the strength of the feeling but that, for once, I was trying to do the reverse. My college changed my life. It taught me how to work, how to think — and how to spot cant and feeble logic. LMH took me on despite atrocious A-levels and being entirely undeserving, but it is now doing something more worthwhile. It has set up a foundation year for students from poor backgrounds who despite difficult starts in life have performed far better at school than I ever did.
这些年来我曾经惹怒过一些人，但这次经历的不同寻常之处不在于感受的强烈程度，而是我本来想（仅此一回）做相反的事情。我的母校改变了我的人生。它教会我如何工作、如何思考——以及如何发现虚伪和不堪一击的逻辑。玛格丽特夫人学堂录取了我，尽管我的A级考试成绩很糟糕，根本不配录取，但该校现在开始做一些更有价值的事情。它为家境贫困的学生设立了为期一年的预科课程，这些学生虽然在人生起跑线上经受了艰难坎坷，但在中小学的成绩比我当年要好得多。
It is not nice to have people shouting in your face, but what shook me more was wondering how on earth, with all my experience, I could have misjudged my speech so badly.
有人当着你的面斥责你不是好事，但更令我震撼的是，以我的丰富经验，我竟然会如此严重地误判自己的演讲效果，简直匪夷所思。
By the end of the night I had worked out that Chip Conley was talking rot. I have nothing in common with an old bottle of fine wine, though if I at that moment had had one to hand, I would have downed the whole thing.
那晚结束时我想明白了：奇普?康利是在胡说八道。我和一瓶陈年佳酿毫无共同点，尽管如果我当时手头有一瓶那样的好东西的话，我会一滴不剩地喝掉它。
Instead of getting wiser with age, the reverse appears to be happening. The most noticeable change (apart from the ones that I see in the mirror) is that I am not frightened any more.
随着年龄增长，我的智慧非但没有增长，反而似乎下降了。最明显的变化（除了我在镜子里看到的自己的模样）是我不再恐惧。
I used to be scared of failing at work, or of being found out, or of what people thought of me. Being post-fear makes life more comfortable, but also more dangerous, because fear fends off disaster. It discourages you from packing a speech with sarky, teasing asides which, though possibly amusing to you, might be less so to those who are the butt of them.
我曾经害怕在工作中失败，或者害怕被别人发现我没本事，或者害怕别人对我的看法。不再恐惧让日子更好过，但也更危险，因为恐惧可以避免灾难。恐惧会让你打消在演讲中夹带挖苦、戏弄性的离题话的念头，尽管这些调侃对你可能很好玩，但对那些被当成笑柄的人来说可能就没有那么幽默了。
The incident has taught me something even more uncomfortable — how hard it is to learn from mistakes. I have form on this: I go on hitting the kerb when parking. I go on misspelling “separate”, despite the assiduousness of Google in correcting me.
这件事让我知道了一个更让人不舒服的教训——从错误中吸取教训有多难。我是这一点的活教材：我在泊车时一再撞上马路牙子。我仍然会错误地拼写“separate”，尽管辛勤的谷歌(Google)一次又一次纠正我的拼写错误。
Doing something badly is painful. And as being in pain is not nice, I am getting good at pain-reduction strategies. Already in my head I am spinning the story so I come out of it less badly, and I daresay in a day or two I will be blaming the audience for not seeing the funny side.
把事情搞砸是令人痛苦的。正因为痛苦的感觉不太好，我开始擅长于减轻痛苦的策略。现在我脑海里已经在炒作这个故事，使自己的形象不那么糟糕，而且我敢说一两天后，我会责怪听众们缺乏幽默感。
Which leads me to one thing I have got better at with age — recovering from a setback. A calamity on the scale of last week would once have left me cringing for a couple of years at least.
这让我想到，随着年龄增长，我日益擅长的一件事是——从挫折中恢复过来。那种程度的演讲灾难以前至少会让我畏缩两年。
I have spent the past 24 hours in a state of advanced mortification. But now that I have got this off my chest it may soon be time to pretend none of it ever happened.
那次演讲后的24小时期间我处于深度难堪状态。不过既然我已经宣泄自己的感受，我可能很快就会假装这一切从未发生过。
