美国联邦储备局主席 / 本·伯南克（Ben Bernanke）
1. The poet Robert Burns once said something about the best-laid plans of mice and men ganging aft agley, whatever “agley” means. A more contemporary philosopher, Forrest Gump, said something similar about life and boxes of chocolates and not knowing what you are going to get.They were both right. Life is amazingly unpredictable; any 22-year-old who thinks they know where they will be in 10 years, much less in 30, is simply lacking imagination. Look what happened to me: A dozen years ago I was minding my own business teaching Economics 101 in Alexander Hall and thinking of good excuses for avoiding faculty meetings. Then I got a phone call … In case you are skeptical of Forrest Gump’s insight, here’s a concrete suggestion for each of the graduating seniors. Take a few minutes the first chance you get and talk to an alum participating in their 25th, or 30th, or 40th reunion—you know, somebody who was near the front of the P-rade. Ask them, back when they were graduating 25, 30, or 40 years ago, where they expected to be today. If you can get them to open up, they will tell you that today they are happy and satisfied in various measures, or not, and their personal stories will be filled with highs and lows and in-betweens. But, I am willing to bet, those life stories will in almost all cases be quite different, in large and small ways, from what they expected when they started out those many years ago. This is a good thing, not a bad thing; who wants to know the end of a story that’s only in its early chapters? Don’t be afraid to let the drama play out.
第一条。诗人罗伯特·伯恩斯曾经说过一些有关“鼠与人之最周密的计划也常有乖误”的话，不管“乖误”是什么意思。一位更加现代的哲学家福里斯特.冈普(阿甘)说过类似于关于生活、一盒盒巧克力和不知道你将得到什么的话。他们二位说得都对。人生令人惊奇地难以预料；任何一个22岁的人，如果他们觉得自己知道今后10年将在哪里，更别说今后30年，那他就缺乏想象力。不妨看看我的经历：十几年前，我只关心自己的事，在亚历山大教室讲授《经济学101》，琢磨着合理的借口不去参加教职工会议。后来我接到一个电话 …… 以防你们怀疑阿甘的洞察力，这里我给每位大四毕业生一个具体的建议。一旦有机会就花几分钟时间，与参加第25、30或40周年聚会的校友谈一谈——你们知道，就是靠近游行队伍前列的人。问问他们，在25、30或40年前他们即将毕业的时候，他们期待自己今天在哪里。如果你能让他们敞开心扉，他们就会告诉你，如今他们在不同程度上感到幸福和知足，或者不幸福不满足，他们的个人经历充满高潮、低谷和过渡状态。但是，我愿意打赌，这些人生经历不论从大或小的方面，几乎都与他们多年前毕业时所期待的颇为不同。这是好事，而不是坏事；谁想在小说的头几章就知道它的结局呢？不要害怕，让人生的大戏演下去。
