When I was nine years old I went off to summer camp for the first time. And my mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. Because in my family, reading was the primary group activity. And this might sound antisocial to you, but for us it was really just a different way of being social. You have the animal warmth of your family sitting right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland inside your own mind. And I had this idea that camp was going to be just like this, but better. (Laughter) I had a vision of 10 girls sitting in a cabin cozily reading books in their matching nightgowns.
当我九岁的时候 我第一次去参加夏令营 我妈妈帮我整理好了我的行李箱 里面塞满了书 这对于我来说是一件极为自然的事情 因为在我的家庭里 阅读是主要的家庭活动 听上去你们可能觉得我们是不爱交际的 但是对于我的家庭来说这真的只是接触社会的另一种途径 你们有自己家庭接触时的温暖亲情 家人静坐在你身边 但是你也可以自由地漫游 在你思维深处的冒险乐园里我有一个想法 野营会变得像这样子，当然要更好些 (笑声) 我想象到十个女孩坐在一个小屋里 都穿着合身的女式睡衣惬意地享受着读书的过程
(Laughter)
(笑声)
Camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol. And on the very first day our counselor gathered us all together and she taught us a cheer that she said we would be doing every day for the rest of the summer to instill camp spirit. And it went like this: R-O-W-D-I-E, thats the way we spell rowdie. Rowdie, rowdie, lets get rowdie. Yeah. So I couldnt figure out for the life of me why we were supposed to be so rowdy, or why we had to spell this word incorrectly. (Laughter) But I recited a cheer. I recited a cheer along with everybody else. I did my best. And I just waited for the time that I could go off and read my books.
野营这时更像是一个不提供酒水的派对聚会 在第一天的时候呢 我们的顾问把我们都集合在一起 并且她教会了我们一种今后要用到的庆祝方式 在余下夏令营的每一天中 让“露营精神”浸润我们 之后它就像这样继续着 R-O-W-D-I-E 这是我们拼写“吵闹的口号 我们唱着“噪音，喧闹，我们要变得吵一点” 对，就是这样 可我就是弄不明白我的生活会是什么样的 为什么我们变得这么吵闹粗暴 或者为什么我们非要把这个单词错误地拼写 (笑声) 但是我可没有忘记庆祝。我与每个人都互相欢呼庆祝了 我尽了我最大的努力 我只是想等待那一刻 我可以离开吵闹的聚会去捧起我挚爱的书
But the first time that I took my book out of my suitcase, the coolest girl in the bunk came up to me and she asked me, Why are you being so mellow? -- mellow, of course, being the exact opposite of R-O-W-D-I-E. And then the second time I tried it, the counselor came up to me with a concerned expression on her face and she repeated the point about camp spirit and said we should all work very hard to be outgoing.
但是当我第一次把书从行李箱中拿出来的时候 床铺中最酷的那个女孩向我走了过来 并且她问我：“为什么你要这么安静?” 安静，当然，是R-O-W-D-I-E的反义词 “喧闹”的反义词 而当我第二次拿书的时候 我们的顾问满脸忧虑的向我走了过来 接着她重复了关于“露营精神”的要点并且说我们都应当努力 去变得外向些
And so I put my books away, back in their suitcase, and I put them under my bed, and there they stayed for the rest of the summer. And I felt kind of guilty about this. I felt as if the books needed me somehow, and they were calling out to me and I was forsaking them.But I did forsake them and I didnt open that suitcase again until I was back home with my family at the end of the summer.
于是我放好我的书 放回了属于它们的行李箱中 并且我把它们放到了床底下 在那里它们度过了暑假余下的每一天 我对这样做感到很愧疚 不知为什么我感觉这些书是需要我的 它们在呼唤我，但是我却放弃了它们 我确实放下了它们，并且我再也没有打开那个箱子 直到我和我的家人一起回到家中 在夏末的时候
Now, I tell you this story about summer camp. I could have told you 50 others just like it --all the times that I got the message that somehow my quiet and introverted style of beingwas not necessarily the right way to go, that I should be trying to pass as more of an extrovert. And I always sensed deep down that this was wrong and that introverts were pretty excellent just as they were. But for years I denied this intuition, and so I became a Wall Street lawyer, of all things, instead of the writer that I had always longed to be -- partly because I needed to prove to myself that I could be bold and assertive too. And I was always going off to crowded bars when I really would have preferred to just have a nice dinner with friends. And I made these self-negating choices so reflexively, that I wasnt even aware that I was making them.
现在，我向你们讲述这个夏令营的故事 我完全可以给你们讲出其他50种版本就像这个一样的故事-- 每当我感觉到这样的时候 它告诉我出于某种原因，我的宁静和内向的风格 并不是正确道路上的必需品 我应该更多地尝试一个外向者的角色 而在我内心深处感觉得到，这是错误的内向的人们都是非常优秀的，确实是这样 但是许多年来我都否认了这种直觉 于是我首先成为了华尔街的一名律师 而不是我长久以来想要成为的一名作家 一部分原因是因为我想要证明自己 也可以变得勇敢而坚定 并且我总是去那些拥挤的酒吧 当我只是想要和朋友们吃一顿愉快的晚餐时 我做出了这些自我否认的抉择 如条件反射一般 甚至我都不清楚我做出了这些决定
