The times I was told no or wasn’t included, wasn’t chosen, didn’t win, didn’t make the cut…looking back, it really feels like those moments were as important, if not more crucial, than the moments I was told ‘yes.’
当我被拒绝、被排挤在外、没被选中、输了、失败的时候……回过头来看，我真的觉得被否定和被肯定是一样的重要，甚至更加重要。
Not being invited to the parties and sleepovers in my hometown made me feel hopelessly lonely, but because I felt alone, I would sit in my room and write the songs that would get me a ticket somewhere else. Having label executives in Nashville tell me that only 35-year-old housewives listen to country music and there was no place for a 13-year-old on their roster made me cry in the car on the way home. But then I’d post my songs on my MySpace and yes, MySpace, and would message with other teenagers like me who loved country music, but just didn’t have anyone singing from their perspective. Having journalists write in-depth, oftentimes critical, pieces about who they perceive me to be made me feel like I was living in some weird simulation, but it also made me look inward to learn about who I actually am. Having the world treat my love life like a spectator sport in which I lose every single game was not a great way to date in my teens and twenties, but it taught me to protect my private life fiercely. Being publicly humiliated over and over again at a young age was excruciatingly painful but it forced me to devalue the ridiculous notion of minute by minute, ever fluctuating social relevance and likability. Getting canceled on the internet and nearly losing my career gave me an excellent knowledge of all the types of wine.
我还在家乡的时候，没有被邀请参加派对或和朋友一同过夜，会让我感到绝望与孤独，但正因为我感到孤独，我才能坐在房间里写歌，让我获得去其他地方发展的机会。纳什维尔一家唱片公司的高管告诉我，只有35岁的家庭主妇才听乡村音乐，他们的花名册容不下我这个13岁的小孩，这让我在开往回家的汽车上哭泣。但后来我把歌发布到MySpace，是的，是MySpace，和那些像我一样喜欢乡村音乐的青少年留言互动，从来没有人唱从他们的角度写的歌。许多记者写的关于我的文章常常都是批评性的，他们眼中的我让我感觉我好像活在一个奇怪的仿真躯壳里，但这也让我开始内省，去了解真实的自己。让全世界谈论我的感情生活，每段感情都以失败告终，这对十几二十岁的我来说，并不是好的恋爱方式，但它教会我严格保护自己的隐私。在年少之时被公众一次又一次地羞辱，让我感到十分痛苦，但这也迫使我不去重视那无时无刻不在变化的社会相关性以及喜爱度这样荒谬的概念。那次遭到网络抵制几乎断送了我的职业生涯，这让我对各种类型的酒有了很深的认识。
I know I sound like a consummate optimist, but I’m really not. I lose perspective all the time. Sometimes everything just feels completely pointless. I know the pressure of living your life through the lens of perfectionism. And I know that I’m talking to a group of perfectionists because you are here today graduating from NYU. And so this may be hard for you to hear: In your life, you will inevitably misspeak, trust the wrong people, under-react, overreact, hurt the people who didn’t deserve it, overthink, not think at all, self sabotage, create a reality where only your experience exists, ruin perfectly good moments for yourself and others, deny any wrongdoing, not take the steps to make it right, feel very guilty, let the guilt eat at you, hit rock bottom, finally address the pain you caused, try to do better next time, rinse, repeat. And I’m not gonna lie, these mistakes will cause you to lose things.
我知道我听起来像个完美的乐观主义者，但我真的不是。我常常失去判断力。有时一切都感觉完全没有意义。我知道透过完美主义视角的生活所带来的压力。我也知道我正在和一群完美主义者聊天，正因如此，你们今天会从纽约大学毕业。这些话对你们来说可能会有些残酷：在你的生活中，你会不可避免地说错话，错信他人，反应不足，反应过度，伤害不值得伤害的人，过度思考，毫不思考，自我毁灭，固步自封，破坏自己和他人的完美时刻，否认任何错误，不采取行动纠正，感到内疚，让内疚侵蚀自己，跌入谷底，最后消除你造成的痛苦，试着下次做得更好，冲洗伤口，重蹈覆辙。我不会对你们撒谎，这些错误会让你们失去一些东西。
I’m trying to tell you that losing things doesn’t just mean losing. A lot of the time, when we lose things, we gain things too.
我想告诉你们的是，失去并不仅仅意味着失去。很多时候，我们失去的同时也会有所收获。
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