成功秘诀:需要一点儿失败 The Secret to Success

I want this new school year to be a good one for my students as they learn about everything from calculus to Shakespeare to failure.
我希望这个新学年成为对学生有益的一个学年。他们将在新学年里学习很多东西，包括微积分、莎士比亚和失败。

That’s right. Failure.
没错，就是失败。

We all need to fail a little. In fact, the secret of success might just be that. Consider the path of Henry David Thoreau.
我们都需要有点儿失败的经历。事实上，成功的秘诀也许就在于此。以亨利·大卫·梭罗的人生道路为例吧。

By many accounts, Thoreau was a failure. Folks thought he should have been a civic leader. He could have been a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher. He might even have made congressman or governor.
许多人都曾表示，梭罗的一生是失败的。人们认为他本该成为一名官员，他本来还可以成为医生、律师或教师，他甚至还可能当选众议员或州长。

Instead, the Harvard man seemed to spend most of his time 1)loafing in the woods near his hometown over near Walden Pond. Everyone just scratched their heads and wondered why such a promising young fellow wasn’t a “success.”
然而，这位哈佛毕业生似乎把自己的大部分时间都用来在家乡附近瓦尔登湖畔的树林里闲逛。所有人都百思不得其解，为什么这样一个前途光明的年轻人却没能“成功。”

I’m not suggesting that my students drop classes for the woods, but it’s important to remember that ideas on success vary, even in these 2)enlightened times.
我并不是建议我的学生逃课去树林里，但重要的是要记住，即便是在现在这样开明的时代，对成功的定义也是不同的。

The lessons of failure are an important part of the 3)curriculum of success. We learn from them. They push us to do better; they teach us humility.
失败的教训是成功这门必修课的重要组成部分。我们从中学到了东西。它促使我们做得更好，让我们学会谦逊。

As a teacher, I expect students to revise their work, to build on the “failure” of the first draft to achieve clarity and insight in the final draft. That’s a good model for most things in life.
作为老师，我希望学生修改自己的作业，在初稿“失败”的基础上，让终稿做到清晰透彻。对人生中的大多数事情而言，这都是一种好模式。

Part of the problem, though, is that we live in a country obsessed by results. In school, it is the A student who gets all the perks even though getting an A doesn’t always measure how much a person really knows. A’s are icons of honor. F’s are badges of defeat.
然而一部分问题在于，我们生活在一个追求结果的国度里。在学校里，优等生能够得到一切特殊待遇，尽管学习成绩优异并不总能说明一个人真正的学识。现实是优异的学业成绩是荣誉的象征，而学业不及格则是失败的标志。