TED演讲：不要一悔再悔(9)

 　　But I want to suggest that there's also a fifth one.  但我想说还有第五阶段。

　　And I think of this as a kind of existential wake-up call.  我想这是一种自我觉醒。

　　That night in my apartment, after I got done kicking myself and so forth¹, I lay in bed for a long time, and I thought about skin grafts².  那晚我在公寓里反反复复讨伐自己后，我躺在床上很久，想着植皮。

　　And then I thought about how, much as travel insurance doesn't cover acts of God, probably my health insurance did not cover acts of idiocy³.  然后我想到旅行保险可不保自然灾害，那么我的医疗保险自然也不包括自己干的蠢事。

　　In point of fact, no insurance covers acts of idiocy.  没有什么保险保自己干的蠢事。

　　The whole point of acts of idiocy is that they leave you totally uninsured; they leave you exposed to the world and exposed to your own vulnerability and fallibility in face of, frankly⁴, a fairly indifferent universe. 愚蠢的结果就是自己完全无保障；你完全袒露在这个世界面前，袒露在你自身的脆弱和不可谱面前，事实上，这是个相对无情的世界。

　　This is obviously an incredibly painful experience.  这很明显是个十分痛苦的经历。

　　And I think it's particularly painful for us now in the West in the grips of what I sometimes think of as a Control-Z culture-Control-Z like the computer command, undo⁵.  我想这对于西方人来说，这种Control-Z文化是无比痛苦的—Control-Z就是电脑键盘上的命令，撤消。

　　We're incredibly used to not having to face life's hard realities, in a certain sense.  在某种意义上，我们曾经不用去面对残酷的现实。

　　We think we can throw money at the problem or throw technology at the problem-we can undo and unfriend and unfollow.  我们以为用钱或者科技就能解决问题—我们能撤消，能解除好友关系，取消关注。

　　And the problem is that there are certain things that happen in life that we desperately⁶ want to change and we cannot.  但问题是生活中有很多我们迫切地期望改变，但是不行。

　　Sometimes instead of Control-Z, we actually have zero control.  有时候不是撤消，而是无法控制。

　　And for those of us who are control freaks and perfectionists-and I know where of I speak-this is really hard, because we want to do everything ourselves and we want to do it right. 而对于那些控制狂和完美主义者—我知道我说自己呢—这是非常糟糕的，因为我们想亲力亲为每件事并绝对做好。

1 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

2 grafts   

移植( graft的名词复数 )； 行贿； 接穗； 行贿得到的利益

参考例句：

• He's gone to London for skin grafts on his thighs. 他去伦敦做大腿植皮手术了。
• Her burns were treated with skin grafts. 她的烧伤是用植皮方法进行治疗的。

3 idiocy   

n.愚蠢

参考例句：

• Stealing a car and then driving it drunk was the ultimate idiocy.偷了车然后醉酒开车真是愚蠢到极点。
• In this war there is an idiocy without bounds.这次战争疯癫得没底。

4 frankly   

adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说

参考例句：

• To speak frankly, I don't like the idea at all.老实说，我一点也不赞成这个主意。
• Frankly speaking, I'm not opposed to reform.坦率地说，我不反对改革。

5 undo   

vt.解开，松开；取消，撤销

参考例句：

• His pride will undo him some day.他的傲慢总有一天会毁了他。
• I managed secretly to undo a corner of the parcel.我悄悄地设法解开了包裹的一角。

6 desperately   

adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地

参考例句：

• He was desperately seeking a way to see her again.他正拼命想办法再见她一面。
• He longed desperately to be back at home.他非常渴望回家。