Princeton President Christopher L. Eisgrube: Touched by Tragedy
My generation experienced nothing like that. For the most part, we had it rather easy.
我们这一代人却没有经历过那样的事情。在大多数情况下，我们都活得比较轻松。
You graduate in much harder times. The awful contagion that now spreads among us tends to afflict the old more harshly than the young, so you may or may not feel your own life at risk. Some of you, however, have lost relatives or friends to this virus, or struggled with it yourselves.
你们在最艰难的时期毕业。比起年轻人，在我们中间蔓延着的可怕传染病往往更残酷地折磨着老年人，因此你们可能会，也可能不会感受到自己的生命处于危险之中。但你们中有些人，在疫情中已失去了一些亲戚朋友，又或是你们自己正在与之抗争。
Many of you have seen jobs disappear or felt the economic devastation inflicted by this pandemic. Each and every one of you has lost something precious and irreplaceable.
许多人已经目睹了岗位的流失，或感受到了这次大流行病所造成的经济崩塌。你们每个人都失去了一些宝贵而不可替代的东西。
In far too many ways, you have seen how fragile our world is. So much vanished so fast: scholarly projects, artistic performances, athletic competitions, even the simple pleasures of sharing meals or hugging friends. This ordeal affects us all, but it comes at a particularly formative moment in your lives.
你们早已从太多方面看清了我们的世界有多么的脆弱。太多东西消失得如此之快：学术项目、艺术表演、体育比赛，甚至是分享食物和拥抱朋友时的简单乐趣，也都消失殆尽。这场磨难影响到了我们所有人，但它却偏偏在你们生命中特别重要的时刻来临。
So what will you do with this hardship? The losses are real and painful. What they took from you was beyond your control. What you take from them, however — that is at least partly up to you.
那么，在这样一种困境下你会怎么做呢？我知道你们都的的确确失去了一些东西，这让你们很悲痛。疫情从你们那夺走的东西是你们无法掌控的。但你从它们那里能学到什么，这至少有部分是取决于你的。
It is thus worth asking: how will you remember these difficult times when you look back on them many years from now? Might you say, do you want to say, after Oliver Wendell Holmes, that "In our youths, our lives were touched by tragedy, and so it was given to us to learn that life is a profound and passionate thing"?
因此值得一问的是，从现在起到多年后，当你回顾这些困难时刻时，你的想法是怎样的？你可能会说，你是否想说，在奥利弗·温德尔·霍姆斯之后，“在青年时代，我们的生活被悲剧所撼动了，这让我们认识到生活是一件深刻而充满激情的事情”?
I have no doubt that you will continue to impress us with your achievements in the years to come.
毫无疑问，我相信你们在未来的几年中将继续用成就为我们留下最深刻的印象。
I believe, however, that your class has the chance to be the start of something truly extraordinary, to appreciate anew the value of ordinary human experience and to cooperate afresh for the common good.
我相信，我相信你们很有机会开启一些真正非凡的东西，以此来重新审视普通人类经验所带来的价值并为人类共同利益而重新合作。
You enter a world that needs not only your talent, but also your insight, your courage, and your compassion. With those qualities and with the education you complete today, you have the opportunity to chart a new course. I hope you seize that opportunity.
你们步入的世界不仅要你们有才能，还要你们有远见，勇气和同情心。有了这些品质和你们如今已完成的教育，你们才有机会来规划新的方向。我希望你们抓住这个机会。
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