Halftime
《人生下半场》
节选自鲍勃·班福德
Recently, I have begun looking at my own life through themetaphor of a football game. Up until my thirty-fifth year, I was in the first half. Then circumstances intervened that sent me into halftime. Now I am playing the second half, and it's turning into a great game.
最近我从足球比赛视角审视自己的人生。35岁以前，我在上半场，一些经历把我推入中场休息。现在我正处于下半场，享受一场精彩的球赛。
Along the way, I have come to the conclusion that the second half of our lives should be the best half — that it can be, in fact, a personal renaissance.
一路下来，我得出一个结论：人生下半场应是我们一生的黄金时代，其实可以成为个人“文艺复兴时期”。
During the first half of your life, you probably did not have time to think about how you would spend the rest of your life. You probably rushed through college, fell in love, married, embarked on a career, climbed upward, and acquired a few things to help make the journey comfortable.
在上半场，你可能没时间思考一生要怎么过。匆匆忙忙念完大学，坠入情网，结婚，开始工作，尽力往上爬，积聚财富，过个舒适的人生。
You played a hard-fought first half. You even may have been winning. But sooner or later you begin to wonder if this really is as good as it gets. Somehow, keeping score does not offer the thrill it once did.
在上半场你疲于奔命，可能站在胜方。但迟早有一天你会扪心自问：“人生不过如此吗?”不知何故，得分不再带给你像过去那样的兴奋。
You may have taken some vicious hits. A good share of men and women never make it to halftime without pain. Serious pain. Divorce. Too much alcohol. Not enough time for your kids. Guilt. Loneliness. Like many good players, you started the half with good intentions but got blindsided along the way.
你可能经过了一些人生风暴。世上多半的人进入中场休息之前，或多或少都经历了些苦难：病痛、离婚、失意、酗酒、没时间陪孩子、内疚、孤单落寞……就像许多优秀球员，上半场开始时立下许多很好的心愿，但一路打下来，视线开始模糊，失去了方位。
Even if your pain was slight, you are smart enough to see that you cannot play the second half as you did the first. For one thing, you do not have the energy you once had. Fresh out of college, you had no problem with working fourteen-hour days and working extra hours on your days off.
如果你是幸运儿，没经过什么大风浪，但你也该够聪明，知道下半场不能再像上半场那样打拼了，至少你的体力已不如从前。大学毕业、初出茅庐时，一天能工作14小时，周末也兴冲冲地加班。
It was part of your first-half game plan, something almost inevitable if you hoped to succeed. But now you yearn for something more than success.
这是球赛上半场预料中之事，如果想要成功，这几乎是不可或缺的策略。可是现在你渴望得到一种超越成功的东西。
Then there is the reality of the game itself: The clock is running. What once looked like an eternity ahead of you is now within reach. And while you do not fear the end of the game, you do want to make sure that you finish well, that you leave something behind that no one can take away from you. If the first half was a quest for success, the second half is a journey to significance.
球赛呈现出一个事实：时间一分一秒地消逝。以前觉得前途无量，但现在觉得终场已近在眼前。虽然你不害怕终场的来临，但总想打一场漂亮的球，给观众留下不可磨灭的印象。如果上半场是追逐成功，下半场则是达成意义的旅程。
The game is won or lost in the second half, not the first. It's possible to make some mistakes in the first half and still have time to recover, but it's harder to do that in the second half. In the second half, you should, at long last, know what you have to work with. And you know the playing field — the world you live in.
球赛的胜负取决于下半场，而不是上半场。如果上半场出差错，下半场还有时间补救，但若下半场出差错，就很难再扳回局面了。在下半场，至少你该知道整个局势，因你已熟悉场地——你所居住的世界。
You have experienced enough victory to know how hard the game is most of the time yet how easy it seems when the conditions are just right. You have experienced enough pain and disappointment to know that while losing a few rounds is certainly no fun, loss is survivable and sometimes uncovers the best that is in you.
多次的胜利让你知道球赛大部分的时间是很艰难的，但若一切情况配合得好，得胜是轻而易举的。多次的伤痛及失望使你晓得，失败并不好玩，却不至于要人命，有时反而帮助你把最好的潜力发挥出来。
Some people never get to the second half; a good many don't even know it exists. The prevailing view in our culture is that as you close out your fortieth year or so, you enter a period of aging and decline. To pair age with growth seems to be a contradiction in terms. This is a myth I refuse to believe, and I want to help you shatter it as well.
有些人一生从未进入下半场，有很多人甚至不知道有下半场的存在。社会上一般人认为，进入不惑之年后，人生就开始老化、走下坡；“年长”与“成长”是不能并存的，甚至是互相抵触的名词。我拒绝接受这个想法，也希望帮助你超脱它。