第1688期：比尔·盖茨寄语大学毕业生 – The Future Belongs To You
上周盖茨受邀在北亚利桑那大学（NAU）林业工程系毕业典礼上给大学毕业生致辞，题目是：The future belongs to you
毕业典礼致辞在英文里有个专用的词 commencement speech 或 commencement address，这个说法中的commencement有两个意思，除了“开始、开端”之外，另一个意思就是毕业典礼、学位授予仪式，the ceremony at which students receive academic degrees.
盖茨在他的个人博客上专门写了篇文章，题目叫 5 things I wish I heard at the graduation I never had.
这篇演讲词写得非常好，通篇没有生僻词汇，用词非常简单，也没有复杂的语法和句子，平和朴实，读来就像一个父母单位的叔叔来家串门时的絮叨，但充满了人生智慧和长辈对晚生的关切，听者无不为之鼓舞。
盖茨提出了五个忠告：
1. Your life isn’t a one-act play. 人生不是独幕剧。路长着呢，勇敢试错，不要停止学习。
2. You’re never too smart to be confused. 不要自以为是，要善于求教。
3. Gravitate toward work that solves an important problem. 打开眼界，关注天下，投身于解决人类世界的大问题。
4. Don’t underestimate the power of friendship. 不要低估友情的力量，结交良友。
5. You’re not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack. 善待自己和他人，不要把弦崩断。
上面的汉语不是对照翻译，只是我随手写的对应的小结，仅供你参考。
盖茨演讲全文如下：
May 13, 2023 Northern Arizona University Commencement Ceremony for the College of Engineering, Informatics, and Applied Sciences and the College of the Environment, Forestry, and Natural Sciences
*盖茨演讲完整视频（1小时44分钟）：https://youtu.be/px3ZoErIAk4
*毕业典礼从11:35正式开始。
* * *
Good afternoon! Thank you, President Cruz Rivera and the Arizona Board of Regents, for this tremendous honor. I am thrilled to be here with NAU’s esteemed faculty and staff.
Friends and family, the time has finally come to exhale. Today is your accomplishment, too—and I think that deserves a round of applause.
Graduates, you made it. You finished your capstones and your internships. You survived junior-level writing class and multiple Tequila Sunrises. You had your last Dimes Night at Museum Club, and you earned your rubber duck from Collins.
You might be happy to know that I have joined your ranks. I am now the proud recipient of an honorary doctorate and an honorary ducky.
I am honored to have the opportunity to address you today, because I believe more people should know about the tremendous value of an NAU education. You are graduating from an institution that creates opportunity, fosters innovation, and builds community, and it has prepared you to find solutions to some of the biggest problems facing us today.
NAU is also giving you something I never received: A real college degree.
Some of you might know that I never made it to my own graduation. I left after three semesters to start Microsoft. So, what does a college dropout know about graduation? Not much personally, to be honest.
As I prepared for today, I thought about how you, as new graduates, can have the biggest impact on the world with the education you received here. That led me to thinking about the graduation I never had, the commencement speech I never heard, and the advice I wasn’t given on a day just like this one.
That is what I want to share with you this afternoon: The five things I wish I was told at the graduation I never attended.
The first thing is, your life isn’t a one-act play.
You probably feel a lot of pressure right now to make the right decisions about your career. It might feel like those decisions are permanent. They’re not. What you do tomorrow—or for the next ten years—does not have to be what you do forever.
When I left school, I thought I would work at Microsoft for the rest of my life.
Today, I still love my work on software, but philanthropy is my full-time job. I spend my days working to create innovations that fight climate change and reduce inequalities around the world—including in health and education.
I feel lucky that our foundation gets to support amazing institutions like NAU—even if it’s not what I imagined I’d be doing when I was 22. Not only is it okay to change your mind or have a second career… it can be a very good thing.
The second piece of advice I wish I heard at my graduation is that you are never too smart to be confused.
I thought I knew everything I needed to know when I left college. But the first step to learning something new is embracing what you don’t know, instead of focusing on what you do know.
At some point in your career, you will find yourself facing a problem you cannot solve on your own. When that happens, don’t panic. Take a breath. Force yourself to think things through. And then find smart people to learn from.
It could be a colleague with more experience. It could be one of your fellow graduates, who has a good perspective and will push you to think differently. It could be an expert in the field who is willing to reply to your questions over DM.
Just about everything I have accomplished came because I sought out others who knew more. People want to help you. The key is to not be afraid to ask.
You may be done with school. But you can—and should—see the rest of your life as an education.
My third piece of advice is to gravitate toward work that solves an important problem.
The good news is, you are graduating at a time when there are many important problems to solve. New industries and companies are emerging every day that will allow you to make a living and make a difference, and advances in science and technology have made it easier than ever to make a big impact.
For example, many of you are becoming foresters. Your professors taught you about cutting-edge tools, like drones that use LIDAR to produce accurate maps of the forest floor. You could find new ways to use that technology to help fight climate change.
Some of you are heading off to start careers as programmers. You could use your talents to make sure all people can benefit from artificial intelligence—or to help eliminate biases in AI.
When you spend your days doing something that solves a big problem, it energizes you to do your best work. It forces you to be more creative, and it gives your life a strong sense of purpose.
My fourth piece of advice is simple: Don’t underestimate the power of friendship.
When I was in school, I became friends with another student who shared a lot of my interests, like science fiction novels and computer magazines.
Little did I know how important that friendship would be. My friend’s name was Paul Allen—and we started Microsoft together.
Remember that people you’ve sat next to in lectures, skied Snowbowl with, and competed against on Wingo night are not just your classmates. They are your network. Your future co-founders and colleagues. A great future source of support, information, and advice.
The only thing more valuable than what you walk offstage with today is who you walk onstage with.
My last piece of advice is the one I could have used the most. It took me a long time to learn. And it is this: You are not a slacker if you cut yourself some slack.
When I was your age, I didn’t believe in vacations. I didn’t believe in weekends. I pushed everyone around me to work very long hours. In the early days of Microsoft, my office overlooked the parking lot—and I would keep track of who was leaving early and staying late.
But as I got older—and especially once I became a father—I realized there is more to life than work.
Don’t wait as long as I did to learn this lesson. Take time to nurture your relationships, to celebrate your successes, and to recover from your losses.
Take a break when you need to. Take it easy on the people around you when they need it, too.
And before you begin the next stage of your lives, take a moment and have some fun. Tonight, this weekend, this summer, whenever. You deserve it.
Class of 2023, the future belongs to you. I believe you will be the ones to solve the climate crisis and reduce the gap between the rich and poor.
You have already made history by attending college during some truly unprecedented times. I have no doubt that you will continue to make history throughout the rest of your lives. I cannot wait to see how you will drive progress around the world.
Congratulations on reaching this momentous milestone. Go Lumberjacks!
怎么样？有没有也受到了一些鼓舞？我大学毕业时怎么没有人跟我们说这些话？
最后，问你一个小问题：如果你的大学母校邀请你回去给即将毕业的大学生做致辞，你会跟他们说些什么？
欢迎留言分享。
如果你有兴趣把你的这篇虚拟致辞写成一篇文章，中英文均可，欢迎投稿：fuolao@gmail.com
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