The Fringe Benefits of Failure

（excerpt）

J.K. Rowling

他们年轻时是普通人，既没有表现出出众的才华，家庭条件也一般。岁月流逝，后来他们克服种种磨难，在各自的领域都取得了卓越的成就。他们是怎样取得成功的？内心最珍视的又是什么？请听JK・罗琳娓娓道来。

或许，此刻贴上的标签是“励志，收获的是满满的人生财富，启人心智，发人深省。

这是J.K.罗琳在哈佛大学2008年毕业典礼上的演讲。她带着作家平实、儒雅，讲述其亲身经历，几经磨难，走过黑暗日子后发出无限感慨。原来，失败并不可怕，或许能带来意想不到的好处。

Half my lifetime ago， I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself， and what those closest to me expected of me. I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do， ever， was to write novels. However， my parent both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college， took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that could never pay amortgage， or secure a pension. I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics； they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day.

I would like to make it clear， inparenthesis， that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction； the moment you are old enough to take the wheel， responsibility lies with you. What is more， I cannot criticize my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves and I have since been poor， and I quite agree with them that it is not aennobling experience. Climbing out of poverty by your own effort that is something on which to pride yourself， but poverty itself is romanticized only by fools.

Now， I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one， and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure？ Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else， I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged. I was set free， because my greatest fear had been realized， and I was still alive， and I still had a daughter whom I adored， and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.