What are some of the best things and life lessons you have learned from an animal?
你从动物身上学到的最好的人生经验是什么？
The greatest life lesson I ever received was from a cockroach.
我是从蟑螂身上学到的最好的人生经验的。
When I was first diagnosed with cancer, I was also left by the man I loved, and at the time, it seemed like my entire life was spiraling out of my control. I lost my job. I lost my youth. I lost my love. I lost my future.
当时我第一次诊断出患了癌症，我爱的男人离开了我，在那时，看起来我的整个人生已经失控了。我失去了工作，失去了青春，失去了爱人，失去了未来。
At the beginning no one was quite certain if I was going to survive. I kept collapsing, and my organs kept failing. For a long time I felt abandoned. Not just by the man I loved, but also by God.
一开始没有人能十分确定我会活下来。我不停的崩溃，我的器官不断的衰竭。很长时间我都觉得自己被抛弃了。不仅是我爱的男人，同时也被上帝抛弃了。
I would ask Him why He was doing all of this to me. I wanted to know what I had done to deserve so much pain. Then the more and more often I went to the hospital, the more people I met who were suffering, or were on their way to their deaths.
我想问问他为什么他会这么对我，我想知道我做了什么要遭受这么多的痛苦。我去医院去的次数越多，我认识的遭受病魔折磨的人，或是离死期不远的人就越多。
I'd hear people pray for these people and beg God for a miracle, but miracles never seemed to come. I started feeling myself become bitter. I asked God, why are you doing this? These are good people! They do not deserve to suffer like this.
我经常听到人们为这些病人祈祷，祈求上帝能出现奇迹，但是奇迹始终没有发生。我开始感觉到自己越来越痛苦。我问上帝，为什么你要这么做？这些人多善良啊！他们不应该遭受这么多的痛苦。
Please, help them, please stop killing these people! I'd even offer to let God give me their pain, if it meant that they could exist for a little while without being in agony.
求求你，帮帮他们，不要再让这些人死去了！如果他们可以不那么痛苦的活过一段时间，我恳求上帝把他们的痛苦都转移到我身上吧。
But it didn't help.I felt so helpless. My life was not in my control. Several dice rolls had been made at my expense and I had failed them.
可是并没有什么用。我感觉到很无助。我的生活失去了控制。我的命运已经通过掷骰子决定了，我已经输了。
Then, one day when I was very slowly walking up to steps to my home, on the way back from a hospital visit, one of these guys scuttled across my path:
然后，有一天我慢慢挪着步子回到家时，当时我从医院看完病回来，有只蟑螂在我面前仓促跑过：
A big cockroach.
一只大蟑螂。
At first I instinctively moved to crush it with my foot, but then I paused. For some reason it didn't seem to be afraid of me. It just stood there waiting for me to crush it.
一开始，我本能的想用脚把它踩死，不过我停顿了一下。因为似乎这只蟑螂看上去并不怕我。它就停在那里，等着被我踩扁。
At that moment I thought about how big I was and how small it was. How there was no way for us to understand each other.This cockroach's life was alien to mine, and more importantly, it was completely with in my power to kill it.
那时候我在想，我是有多么巨大，而它是多么的渺小。怎么会没有我们相互理解的方式呢。这种蟑螂的生命里，我就像是个外星人，更重要的是，它的生杀大权都在我的手上。
I wondered what it would be like to be a cockroach. What would it be like to be so small? Would I understand what was happening to me if a person came and crushed me?Wouldn't my death seem like something cruel and meaningless?
我想知道成为一只蟑螂是什么感觉，变成这么渺小会是什么感觉？如果一个人过来直接把我踩死了，我能明白的回来发生了什么事吗？我的死亡会看起来很残酷很没有意义吗？
A cockroach doesn't know that it's dirty or that it spreads disease. It is unable to understand that we kill its kind because we see them as disgusting and unpleasant. When a cockroach dies, it does not understand why it is dying.
一只蟑螂并不知道自己很脏，会传播疾病。它们并不知道人们踩死它们是因为它们看起来恶心和讨厌。当一只蟑螂死了，它不明白为什么自己死了。
I thought about how something greater than man could exist and one day I too could suddenly find myself in the same position as that little cockroach. I would hope whatever looked down at my strange, unclean, alien body would look past my smallness and recognize that we both shared one very crucial thing:
We are both alive.
我在想还有什么事比人们活着更棒的，有一天我突然发现自己和蟑螂处在同一位置。
我希望无论什么东西朝下看我这具奇形怪状，不干净的，外星人一般的躯体，会看在我的渺小上，体会到同一件非常重要的事：我们都还活着。
Even if everything else about us is different we both share birth, life and death. In this fundamental way we are equal.
即使其他事我们都不同，到我们都一起经历着生老病死。这一点上，我们都是平等的。
I decided on that day that I would exchange the same courtesy to all I had power over. It only seems fair to treat others as one wishes to also be treated.
我决定在那一天在有力量能得到相同的恩惠时，对待他们如同他们期待被对待的一样，这样才看起来公平。
原文作者及出处：Teela Wyman, Quora
本译文所涉翻译行为已取得著作权人许可，本译文所涉法律后果均由本人承担。本人亦同意简书平台在接获有关著作权人的通知后，删除文章。
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