英语专业晨读美文-人生篇 6 Failure Is a Good Thing

[00:06.56]Failure is a Good Thing
[00:07.80]Last week, my grand-daughter started kindergarten,
[00:12.18]and I wished her success. I was lying.
[00:15.04]What I actually wish for her is failure.
[00:17.67]I believe in the power of failure.
[00:19.99]Success is boring. Success is proving
[00:24.19]that you can do something that you already know you can do,
[00:27.18]or doing something correctly the first time,
[00:29.94]which can often be a problematic victory.
[00:32.85]First-time success is usually a fluke.
[00:35.82]First-time failure, by contrast, is expected;
[00:39.32]it is the natural order of things.
[00:41.90]Failure is how we learn. I have been told of an African phrase
[00:46.12]describing a good cook as“she who has broken many pots”.
[00:50.17]If you've spent enough time in the kitchen to
[00:53.32]have broken a lot of pots,
[00:54.93]probably you know a lot about cooking.
[00:57.61]I once had a dinner with a group of chefs,
[01:00.18]and they spent time comparing knife wounds
[01:03.10]and burn scars. They knew how much credibility
[01:06.04]their failures gave them.
[01:07.45]I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column.
[01:10.97]Each week I am aware that one column
[01:13.69]is going to be the worst column.
[01:15.62]I don't set out to write it; I try my best every day.
[01:19.31]I have learned to cherish that column.
[01:22.15]A successful column usually means
[01:24.66]that I am treading on familiar ground,
[01:26.84]going with the tricks that work or dressing¹ up
[01:29.76]popular sentiments in fancy words.
[01:32.65]Often in my inferior columns,
[01:34.65]I am trying to pull off something
[01:36.72]I've never done before,
[01:38.02]something I'm not even sure can be done.
[01:40.40]My younger daughter is a trapeze artist.
[01:43.32]She spent three years putting together an act.
[01:46.54]She did it successfully for years.
[01:48.87]There was no reason for her to change the act—
[01:51.78]but she did anyway. She said she was no longer
[01:55.59]learning anything new and she was bored.
[01:57.94]So she changed the act. She risked failure
[02:02.07]and profound public embarrassment² in order to feed her soul.
[02:05.52]My granddaughter is a perfectionist.
[02:08.30]She will feel her failures,
[02:10.23]and I will want to comfort her. But I will also,
[02:13.94]I hope, remind her of what she learned,
[02:16.62]and how she can do whatever it is better next time.
[02:19.80]I hope I can tell her, though,
[02:21.84]that it's not the end of the world.
[02:23.88]Indeed, with luck, it is the beginning.
 

1 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

2 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。