英语名篇诵读 生活学校

The School of Life

生活学校

You are enrolled¹ in a full-time² school called “life”. Each day in this school you will have

the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or hate them, but you have designed

them as part of your curriculum .

Why are you here?What is your purpose?Humans have sought to discover the meaning of life

for a very long time. What we and our ancestors have overlooked, however, is that there is no one

answer. The meaning of life is different for every individual.

Each person has his or her own purpose and distinct path, unique and separate from

anyone else's. As you travel your life path, you will be presented with numerous lessons that you

will need to learn in order to fulfill³ that purpose. The lessons you are presented with are specific to

you; learning these lessons is the key to discovering and fulfilling the meaning and relevance⁴ of

your own life.

As you travel through your lifetime, you may encounter challenging lessons that others don't

have to face, while others spend years struggling with challenges that you don't need to deal with.

You may never know why you are blessed with a wonderful marriage, while your friends suffer

through bitter arguments and painful divorces, just as you cannot be sure why you struggle

financially while your peers enjoy abundance. The only thing you can count on for certain is

that you will be presented with all the lessons that you specifically need to learn; whether you

choose to learn them or not is entirely⁵ up to you.

The challenge here, therefore, is to align⁶ yourself with your own unique path by learning

individual lessons. This is one of the most difficult challenges you will be faced with in your

lifetime, as sometimes your path will be radically⁷ different from others. But, remember, don't

compare your path to the people around you and focus on the disparity between their lessons

and yours. You need to remember that you will only be faced with lessons you are capable of

learning and are specific to your own growth.

Our sense of fairness is the expectation of equity⁸ — the assumption that all things are equal

and that justice will always prevail .  Life is not, in fact, fair, and you may indeed have a more

difficult life path than others around you, deserved or not. Everyone's circumstances are unique,

and everyone needs to handle his or her own circumstances differently. If you want to move

toward serenity⁹ , you will be required to move out of the complaining phase of “it's not fair”.

Focusing on the unfairness of circumstances keeps you comparing yourself with others rather than

appreciating your own special uniqueness . You miss out on learning your individual lessons by

distracting yourself with feelings of bitterness and resentment¹⁰.

你已经为一所名叫“生活学校”的全日制学校所录取。在这所学校里，你每天都有机会

学习课程。这些课程你可能喜欢，也可能讨厌，但你已经把它们设置为课程的一部分。

你为什么在这里？你的目标是什么？很久以来，人类都在寻求生命的意义。然而，我

们和我们的祖先所忽略的是，这问题没有唯一的答案。对每个人来说，生命的意义是不同

的。

每个人都有着他或她自己的目的和生活之路，独特而又同他人的生活之路不同。当你

行走于人生旅途的时候，你需要学习很多门课程，以实现你的目的。给你提供的课程是为

你量身定制的；学习这些课程是发现并实现你人生意义和目标的钥匙。

漫漫人生中，你可能会遇到别人不必面对的挑战，而别人也会许多年里都在同你不必

对付的挑战抗争。你也许永远也不会明白，为什么你享有幸福的婚姻，而你的朋友却饱受

婚姻之苦，正如你辛苦劳作，依然生活拮据，而你的朋友却安逸富足。但唯一可以肯定的

是，那些你注定要学的经验和教训一定与你有缘，你是否愿意学全取决于你自己。

因此，这里的挑战是，通过学习个人的课程，使你自己适合你独特的道路。这是你一

生中将面对的最困难的挑战之一，因为有时候，你的人生之路同别人的根本不同。但是要

记住，切莫把你的道路同你周围的人相比，或只关注他们的课程和你的课程的差异。你需

要记住，你只会面临你能够学习的、为你的成长量身打造的课程。

我们的公平感就是期待公平——以为所有的事情都是公平的，正义终将会赢。事实

上，生活是不公平的，你的生活之路可能真的比你周围的人要更为艰难，也许该是这样，

也许不该这样。每个人的情况都是独特的，每个人都需要用不同的方式处理他或她的各种

情况。如果你想获得心灵的安宁，你就需要停止抱怨“它不公平”。专注于境况的不公使你

老在和别人相比，而不去欣赏你自己的独特之处。你感到痛苦、怨恨、心神不定，也就失

去了学习独特课程的机会。

1 enrolled   

adj.入学登记了的v.[亦作enrol]( enroll的过去式和过去分词 )；登记，招收，使入伍（或入会、入学等），参加，成为成员；记入名册；卷起，包起

参考例句：

• They have been studying hard from the moment they enrolled. 从入学时起，他们就一直努力学习。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He enrolled with an employment agency for a teaching position. 他在职业介绍所登了记以谋求一个教师的职位。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

3 fulfill   

vt.履行，实现，完成；满足，使满意

参考例句：

• If you make a promise you should fulfill it.如果你许诺了，你就要履行你的诺言。
• This company should be able to fulfill our requirements.这家公司应该能够满足我们的要求。

4 relevance   

n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性

参考例句：

• Politicians' private lives have no relevance to their public roles.政治家的私生活与他们的公众角色不相关。
• Her ideas have lost all relevance to the modern world.她的想法与现代社会完全脱节。

5 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。

6 align   

vt.使成一线，结盟，调节；vi.成一线，结盟

参考例句：

• Align the ruler and the middle of the paper.使尺子与纸张的中部成一条直线。
• There are signs that the prime minister is aligning himself with the liberals.有迹象表明首相正在与自由党人结盟。

7 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。

8 equity   

n.公正，公平，（无固定利息的）股票

参考例句：

• They shared the work of the house with equity.他们公平地分担家务。
• To capture his equity,Murphy must either sell or refinance.要获得资产净值，墨菲必须出售或者重新融资。

9 serenity   

n.宁静，沉着，晴朗

参考例句：

• Her face,though sad,still evoked a feeling of serenity.她的脸色虽然悲伤，但仍使人感觉安详。
• She escaped to the comparative serenity of the kitchen.她逃到相对安静的厨房里。

10 resentment   

n.怨愤，忿恨

参考例句：

• All her feelings of resentment just came pouring out.她一股脑儿倾吐出所有的怨恨。
• She cherished a deep resentment under the rose towards her employer.她暗中对她的雇主怀恨在心。