在思考中成長

我的信念是什麼，它在我的人生中起到了什麼作用------這些問題我覺得很難用言語解釋清楚。我認為自己很幸運，因為我出生在一個篤信宗教的家庭。家裡人對宗教談論得並不多。每個人心中或多或少都有某些信仰，都希望通過某種方式獲得力量，而這力量就來自信奉上帝並懂得如何祈禱。 It seems to me a very difficult thing to put into words the beliefs we hold and what they make you do in your life. I think I was fortunate because I grew up in a family where there was a very deep religious feeling. I don"t think it was spoken of a great deal. It was more or less taken for granted that everybody held certain beliefs and needed certain reinforcements of their own strength and that that came through your belief in God and your knowledge of prayer.

我是在祖母身邊長大的。隨著年齡的增長，我對許多祖母視作理所當然的事產生了懷疑。我甚至拒絕讓孩子們接觸這些東西，似乎成了一個不近情理的人。直到有一次我丈夫勸我，這些東西你年少時也接觸過，對你也並無壞處。既然如此，何不讓孩子們也有了解它們的機會呢？他們長大以後會獨立思考這些問題的。 But as I grew older I questioned a great many of the things that I knew very well my grandmother who had brought me up had taken for granted. And I think I might have been a quite difficult person to live with if it hadn"t been for the fact that my husband once said it didn"t do you any harm to learn those things, so why not let your children learn them? When they grow up they"ll think things out for themselves.

他的話使我感到或許我們每個人都應該這樣做------獨立思考自己應該信仰什麼以及如何在生活中堅守自己的的信仰。我認為人一生就應該盡全力做最好的自己------我想這就是我的信仰。 And that gave me a feeling that perhaps that"s what we all must do-think out for ourselves what we could believe and how we could live by it. And so I came to the conclusion that you had to use this life to develop the very best that you could develop.

我不知道自己是否相信未來。我相信的是我們現在經歷的一切一定有價值，因此必有某些道理，也必然預示著有些事情"將要發生"。但這些事情如何發生，我卻不能決定。一定有未來------對此我深信不疑。但它會怎樣降臨。我不知道，然而著一點，我漸漸感到並不重要。因為無論未來如何，我們到時候總得面對，正如無論生活中發生了什麼，我們都必須面對一樣。真正重要的是要傾盡自己的全力。也許你能力有限、貢獻不多，無法給予他人更多的幫助，或者無法活得那麼精彩，但只要你能傾盡自己的全力，你就能完成來到人世間的使命，能體現人生的價值。 I don"t know whether I believe in a future life. I believe that all that you go through here must have some value, therefore there must be some reason. And there must be some "going on." How exactly that happens I"ve never been able to decide. There is a future-that I"m sure of. But how, that I don"t know. And I came to feel that it didn"t really matter very much because whatever the future held you"d have to face it when you came to it, just as whatever life holds you have to face it exactly the same way. And the important thing was that you never let down doing the best that you were able to do-it might be poor because you might not have very much within you to give, or to help other people with, or to live your life with. But as long as you did the very best that you were able to do, then that was what you were put here to do and that was what you were accomplishing by being here.

這就是我一直奉行的生活原則------不擔心未來的事，也不為下一刻發生的事操心。我想我算是一個相信宿命的人吧。無論發生什麼，我們都得勇敢面對，關鍵是面對的時候我們要勇敢，要傾盡自己的全力。 And so I have tried to follow that out-and not to worry about the future or what was going to happen. I think I am pretty much of a fatalist.
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