2011 MIT commencement adress/ 2011 MIT 畢業典禮演講稿

兩年MBA的生活，終於在2011六月三日這一天，正式劃上了句點。一個月後的現在，我還是時常想著這兩年究竟給我帶來甚麼樣的改變? 我得到了什麼又失去了什麼?...這些問題理所當然是申論題而不是簡答題，答案恐怕要洋洋灑灑寫上一大篇; 若是完整的把想法寫了下來，大概每年的六月三號再回頭看一次，又要修修改改許多吧。

我想像中（或是說經驗過）的畢業典禮，就是有著數不完的來賓致詞，MIT的畢業典禮出乎我意料的並沒有這些冗長的致詞，真正讓典禮冗長的是上千名的畢業生，因為每一個人都要唱名上台領畢業證書，前後花了將近兩個鐘頭才頒發完證書。更讓我意外的是，每一個演說或表演都很有趣，尤其是Ursula M. Burns, chairman and chief executive officer of Xerox Corporation, 給所有畢業生的致詞，我聽的非常感動，整個人都熱血起來了，恨不得有台錄影機在手邊，把整個演說都紀錄下來。

以下節錄並試譯我最喜歡的部份。分隔線之後是在MIT網頁上刊登的全文(http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/burns-address-0603.html)

1.
Yes, we have problems. But we also have great opportunities. Despite the tremendous challenges you face, I implore you to embrace them. The truth is the world needs you as perhaps never before. We need your passion, creativity and drive. We need the spirit of exploration and the thirst for knowledge that you embraced here. We’re finding that some of our old assumptions and ideas don’t work anymore, and we can use people who are willing to ask “why do we do it that way?” and “how can we do it differently and better?

是的，我們有許多的問題，但我們同時也有很多大好機會，儘管在你們面前有著巨大的挑戰，我懇請你們擁抱這些挑戰。事實是這個世界需要你們遠勝於過往，這世界需要你們的熱情，創造力和衝勁;這世界需要你們在MIT時懷抱著的探索的精神和對知識的渴求。我們已經發現過去的許多假設和想法都不再適用當前的環境，所以我們需要那些願意去質疑“為什麼這件事情這麼做?“ 和“我們怎麼用不同的方法來作這件事情並且把它們做的更好呢？”的人。


2.
I can't pretend to know how your world will change — but I know it will and at a pace that will continue to increase exponentially. You can’t stop it. In many ways, you are the cause of it. Learn to love it. Make it your ally.

我沒有辦法假裝知道你們的世界將會如何改變，但我知道這世界一定會改變並且是以一種指數式增長(註1)的速度變化。你沒有辦法阻止這樣的改變，從不同的層面來看，你自身也是造成這改變的原因。學會去喜愛這樣的改變吧！讓這個改變成為你的盟友。

註1:就是指這樣的改變的速度是以平方立方等等像是指數一樣的快速，而不僅僅是兩倍三倍的改變。


3.
You should also have fun. Enjoy life. Choose a career that gives you pleasure and fulfillment. Surround yourselves with people who make you laugh. People you love and people who are good.

I know that people are more likely to be successful if they have a passion for what they do. Make yourself a promise today. If down the road, you find that your career, your life, is not fun, revert to my first piece of advice — change!

Change, but be true to yourself in the process. Your family … MIT … your church or synagogue or mosque or mountaintop … have given you a set of core values — a moral compass. Hang on to it.

你也應該擁有樂趣。享受你的生活。選擇一份能夠讓你感受快樂和成就感的工作，使你身邊環繞著會讓你開心發笑的人們，那些你愛的人，那些很好的人。

我知道那些對於自己做的事情懷抱著熱情的人更容易成功。今天對你自己許下一個承諾吧！如果在往後的日子裡，你發現你的工作，你的生活不再有趣，那就回到我給你們的第一個建議：改變它！

改變它，但同時也在改變的過程中對你自己誠實。你的家庭. MIT. 你的教堂(或是猶太教堂.清真寺)...等等給了你一個核心價值，那是道德的指南針，你要堅定的遵守它。


4.
I have a great sign that hangs on the wall of my office:

“Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud!”

Your life's journey will include some turbulent waters. You will face difficult choices. You will be challenged and tested. The values you have developed through family and MIT will hold you in good stead. They are your roots, but you have also been given wings — the ability to dare to dream the impossible and then make that dream a reality.

Set your on changing the world — in leaving this planet a little better than you found it. That need not be as grandiose as it sounds. It can take the form of getting involved with one of the big ideas of our time … or working for an organization that creates decent jobs for its workers … or raising a family that will carry good values into the future.

Believe in something larger than yourself. Make a difference. Live your life so that at the end of your journey, you will know that your time here was well spent, that you left behind more than you took away.

我辦公室的牆上掛了一個牌子，上面寫著：" 別做任何不會讓你媽媽感到驕傲的事！“

你人生的旅程將會遭遇一些波折動盪，你會面臨困難的抉擇。你會被挑戰和試驗。而你在家庭裡和MIT培養出來的價值觀將會是你的助力。這些價值是你的根，但你同時也被給予了翅膀--那敢於夢想不可能並且把夢想成真的能力。

設定一個你要怎麼改變這個世界的目標，讓這個世界比你初次發現它時更美好一些。這個目標需要的不比它本身聽起來浮誇，它只需要你去參與，也許是參與一個當代的改變世界的好方法，或是為一個能夠為員工創造好職務的組織工作，或是培養一個家庭使良善的價值觀能夠繼續傳承下去。

你要相信一些比你自身更偉大的事物。作有意義的事情。好好的過你的生活，讓你在到了生命旅程的終點時，知道你善用了每分每秒，知道你留給這個世界的比你帶走的更多。



--------------------Hi! 不要懷疑，我就是分隔線------------------------



This is a very special day for our family. Our son Malcolm is among the undergraduates receiving his Bachelor’s degree today.

Malcolm will hate me for this, but I can’t begin to tell you how proud we are of him. Like many of you, Lloyd and I sent one of our two most precious possessions — the other precious possession is Melissa who is also with us today — off to MIT four years ago.

We entrusted this wonderful institution with the education of Malcolm at a pivotal moment in his life. While here, he began to quench his thirst for knowledge … to shape his dreams and begin to turn them into reality … to form relationships that will last a lifetime.

I know that the parents and families who are here today are nodding their heads in agreement. What MIT has done with our children has been spectacular. So before I go any further, will the parents, families and friends join me in sharing our appreciation to President Hockfield and the talented faculty and staff she leads for all they have give to the graduating class of 2011.

When I thought of what I might say, I couldn’t help thinking about what advice I would give my own children so I talked with them. Their advice to me can be boiled down into seven words:

“Keep it real and keep it short!”

So with that in mind, let me give you a little bit of simple advice.

You are about to enter a pretty messy world. The words Charles Dickens used to describe 18th century London are eerily apt:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness.”

As the British would say, that strikes me as “spot-on.” We live in a world of both sobering challenges and awesome opportunities.

As you leave this serene campus, our nation is engaged in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. We are mired in debt and recovering at a painfully slow pace from the deepest recession in 80 years. Our political system at times seems incapable of action and our political rhetoric seems largely devoid of civility. There is a gross mismatch between the skills we need to build a 21st century economy and the product our public education system is producing.

And yet, for all our shortcomings:

＊Our system of government is still the envy of the world. The “Arab spring” is all about a thirst for freedom and democratic rule.

＊Our universities at their best are also the envy of the world. I dare say that the graduates here today are among the best and brightest that have been produced at any time and in any place in the long history of mankind.

＊Our economy is sputtering and yet our ability to innovate continues to lead the world and create new industries.

So my first piece of advice to you is to not be discouraged. In the words of an old Johnny Mercer song that your parents will remember:

“You’ve got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
And don’t mess with Mister In-Between.”

Yes, we have problems. But we also have great opportunities. Despite the tremendous challenges you face, I implore you to embrace them. The truth is the world needs you as perhaps never before. We need your passion, creativity and drive. We need the spirit of exploration and the thirst for knowledge that you embraced here. We’re finding that some of our old assumptions and ideas don’t work anymore, and we can use people who are willing to ask “why do we do it that way?” and “how can we do it differently and better?”

Yes, it’s a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity. That is precisely what is rolled up in your diplomas. It’s all yours. You earned it. You deserve it. And, no one can take it away.

At the same time, I hope none of you will think of your diploma as an end-point. This event is called a commencement, not a curtain call. You’ve been given a wonderful academic foundation — an invitation to begin a journey of lifelong learning. No less an authority than Albert Einstein wrote that “learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

Well, for openers, I would encourage all of you to follow the example of MIT and embrace change and learning willingly and with a sense of excitement and wonder. Think about that. The University is celebrating its 150th anniversary. It has survived and excelled for a century and a half because it has evolved and changed.

The only thing I can predict about your lives with any certainty is that change will be a constant in your lives as well. Back in 1980 when I sat where you are sitting today, there were no cell phones. The Internet, let alone the iPad, was not even the stuff of dreams. Chinese capitalism and the fall of the Soviet Union were unimaginable. Kabul and Islamabad conjured up only the vaguest recognition of places in some distant corner of the world. Genetics was in its infancy. Even as recently as a few years ago, the thought of a global economic melt-down was beyond comprehension.

I can't pretend to know how your world will change — but I know it will and at a pace that will continue to increase exponentially. You can’t stop it. In many ways, you are the cause of it. Learn to love it. Make it your ally.

You should also have fun. Enjoy life. Choose a career that gives you pleasure and fulfillment. Surround yourselves with people who make you laugh. People you love and people who are good.

I know that people are more likely to be successful if they have a passion for what they do. Make yourself a promise today. If down the road, you find that your career, your life, is not fun, revert to my first piece of advice — change!

Change, but be true to yourself in the process. Your family … MIT … your church or synagogue or mosque or mountaintop … have given you a set of core values — a moral compass. Hang on to it.

I have a great sign that hangs on the wall of my office:

“Don’t do anything that wouldn’t make your Mom proud!”

Your life's journey will include some turbulent waters. You will face difficult choices. You will be challenged and tested. The values you have developed through family and MIT will hold you in good stead. They are your roots, but you have also been given wings — the ability to dare to dream the impossible and then make that dream a reality.

Set your sights on changing the world — in leaving this planet a little better than you found it. That need not be as grandiose as it sounds. It can take the form of getting involved with one of the big ideas of our time … or working for an organization that creates decent jobs for its workers … or raising a family that will carry good values into the future.

Believe in something larger than yourself. Make a difference. Live your life so that at the end of your journey, you will know that your time here was well spent, that you left behind more than you took away.

The Bible teaches us that “to whom much has been given, much is expected.” You sit here today a privileged few having received a great education from a great university. Now it’s time to begin giving back.

I hope you will take a few moments today to reflect on how fortunate you are and how much support the University has given you. And I hope that in the distant future you will remember how you feel this day:

＊Proud that an important phase of your life’s journey is ending and anxious about the one that is just beginning.
＊Proud of the friendships you’ve made here and hopeful that some of them will endure far into the future.
＊Proud that you’ve earned a degree and cognizant of how much more you still have to learn.
＊Proud that you have achieved an important milestone but aware that you have much to do and miles to go before you rest.

Allow yourself to bask in the glory of what you've accomplished. And pledge to yourself that you will cherish what you have learned here — and use it as a foundation to build a wonderful life. Most of the chapters of your life are still to be written. Most of the pages are blank. In that sense, too, these are “the best of times.”

My congratulations to all of you. You’ve worked long and hard to arrive at this weekend. And my congratulations also to all the parents, grandparents, spouses, family members and faculty that helped push you across the finish line. All of you should feel very, very proud.

I wish you all the very best. May all your dreams come true.



延伸閱讀: 歐美亞三地MBA觀察筆記

註: 照片攝於2011年MIT畢業典禮當天，當我走進Killian Court的時候。