I am honored(荣幸) to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never(从来没有) graduated(毕业) from college. Truth be told, this is the closest(亲密) I’ve ever(以往任何时候都) gotten to a college graduation(毕业). Today I want to tell(告诉) you three(三) stories from my life(生活). That’s it. No big(大) deal(交易). Just(只是) three(三) stories.
我很荣幸今天能与你们一起参加世界上最好的大学之一的毕业典礼。我大学从未毕业。说实话，这是我距离大学毕业最近的一次。今天我想给大家讲三个我生活中的故事。就是这样。没什么大不了。只是三个故事。

The first story(故事) is about connecting the dots.
第一个故事是关于连接点的。

I dropped out of Reed(芦苇) College after the first 6 months, but then(然后) stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so(大约) before I really quit(退出). So why did I drop out?
前 6 个月后，我从里德学院退学，但后来又留校留校了 18 个月左右，然后才真正退出。那我为什么退学呢？

It started before I was born. My biological(生物) mother(母亲) was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly(强烈) that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer(律师) and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle(中间) of the night asking: “We have an unexpected(意想不到) baby boy; do you want him?” They said: “Of course.” My biological(生物) mother(母亲) later found(发现) out that my mother(母亲) had never(从来没有) graduated(毕业) from college and that my father had never(从来没有) graduated(毕业) from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
这在我出生之前就开始了。我的亲生母亲是一位年轻的未婚大学毕业生，她决定将我送人收养。她非常强烈地认为我应该被大学毕业生收养，所以一切都准备好了，我一出生就被律师和他的妻子收养。只是当我突然出现时，他们在最后一刻决定他们真的想要一个女孩。因此，我的父母（他们在候补名单上）在半夜接到电话，询问：“我们有一个意想不到的男婴；我们需要什么？”你想要他吗？他们说：“当然。”我的亲生母亲后来发现我的母亲从未大学毕业，我的父亲也从未高中毕业。她拒绝签署最终的收养文件。几个月后，当我的父母答应我有一天会去大学时，她才态度软化。

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents’ savings(储蓄) were being spent on my college tuition(学费). After six months, I couldn’t see the value in it. I had no idea(毫无头绪) what I wanted to do with my life(生活) and no idea how college was going to help me figure(图) it out. And here I was spending(支出) all of the money my parents had saved their entire life(生活). So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out(锻炼) OK. It was pretty scary(吓人) at the time, but looking back(回顾) it was one of the best decisions I ever(以往任何时候都) made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn’t interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
17年后我上了大学。但我天真地选择了一所几乎和斯坦福大学一样昂贵的大学，而我的工薪阶层父母的所有积蓄都花在了我的大学学费上。六个月后，我看不到它的价值。我不知道自己想做什么，也不知道大学将如何帮助我找到答案。我在这里花掉了我父母一生积蓄的所有钱。所以我决定退学并相信一切都会好起来的。当时这非常可怕，但现在回想起来，这是我做过的最好的决定之一。从我退学的那一刻起，我就可以停止参加我不感兴趣的必修课程，并开始旁听那些看起来有趣的课程。

It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned Coke bottles(瓶) for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple(寺庙). I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity(好奇心) and intuition(直觉) turned out(结果是) to be priceless(无价之宝) later on(以后). Let(让) me give you one example:
这并不全是浪漫的。我没有宿舍，所以我睡在朋友房间的地板上，我用 5 美分的押金退还可乐瓶来买食物，每个周日晚上我都会步行 7 英里穿过城镇去买一瓶好东西。每周在哈瑞奎师那神庙用餐。我爱它。我跟随自己的好奇心和直觉而偶然发现的很多东西后来都被证明是无价的。让我举一个例子：

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and sans serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating...
当时的里德学院可能提供全国最好的书法教学。整个校园的每张海报、每个抽屉上的每个标签都是精美的手绘书法。因为我已经退学了，不需要参加正常的课程，所以我决定参加书法班来学习如何做到这一点。我了解了衬线和无衬线字体，了解了不同字母组合之间的间距大小，了解了如何使出色的排版变得出色。它美丽、历史悠久、艺术微妙，是科学无法捕捉到的，我发现它很迷人……