“我祝你不幸并痛苦”，美国最高法大法官在儿子毕业典礼上如此发言

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“我祝你不幸并痛苦”，美国最高法大法官在儿子毕业典礼上如此发言

每逢学校毕业季，相信同学们都会被各种名人的毕业演讲激励到热血沸腾。今天特别推荐美国首席大法官的毕业演讲，和别的演讲嘉宾不同，他直面人性的弱点发表了一次最佳毕业演讲：「I Wish You Bad Luck.」

连《华盛顿邮报》评论都说：「罗伯茨大法官本年度最好的作品，不是某个案子的判决书，而是在儿子毕业典礼上的致辞。」

2005年，罗伯茨被小布什提名为首席大法官。提名决定被安排在美国各大电视网“黄金时间”直播。总统宣布提名时，罗伯茨时年4岁的小儿子杰克突然出来“砸场子”，在镜头前手舞足蹈，嗨到忘形。小布什和罗伯茨强作镇定，装作什么也没发生。还是简妮冲上去把儿子揽到身后。

12年过去，少年“蜘蛛侠”即将从位于新罕布什尔州的卡迪根山中学（Cardigan Mountain School）毕业。约翰·罗伯茨在儿子的中学毕业典礼上进行了致辞。不同于普通致辞者，罗伯茨对孩子们的未来，却发出让人大跌眼镜的祝福和建议。他没有祝福毕业生们有个光明美好的未来，却祝愿他们遭遇各种不幸……但是网友却难得的给了这碗“毒鸡汤”一致好评。

美国当地时间7月3日，《华盛顿邮报》放出了一个约翰·罗伯茨在卡迪根山中学（Cardigan Mountain School）的毕业演讲视频，迅速引发关注，《泰晤士报》等随后也进行了报道。

目前在YouTube上，这个视频的播放次数已达到143，137。

打开视频，小编发现John对毕业生的祝福似乎充满了“负能量”，几乎满屏都是“坏运气、孤独、被忽视、背叛”等字眼…… 演讲过程中也是绷着一张脸，极其严肃，这也许是他的工作性质使然。

国内的大家也许不熟悉，作为美国联邦最高法院第17任首席大法官，同时也是美国两个世纪以来最年轻的首席大法官，约翰·罗伯茨（John G. Roberts Jr）在美国自上任以来便一直享有很高的社会地位。

但是，Joon此次出席卡迪根山中学的毕业演讲，却不仅是作为成就斐然的首席大法官，而是作为一个普通的父亲，参加自己16岁儿子杰克的毕业典礼。

在演讲一开始，他便要求在座的学生站起来，为自己的父母——那些辛勤付出的幕后支持者，鼓掌致谢。

“正是因为他们所做出的牺牲，才能将你们成功送到毕业这一个点上。因此，这场毕业典礼的主角不仅仅是你们，还有你们的父母。”

然后是常规的祝贺：2017级的学生们，你们已经度过了人生里程碑式的一站，祝贺你们！

就在气氛变得逐渐热烈时，他突然话锋一转，开启毒舌模式：然而我很遗憾的告诉你们，这算是你们人生最容易的时光了，虽然连这也已经成为了过去式。

台下一片寂然。 他觉得，历来的嘉宾们在毕业典礼上说都是大煲鸡汤，连说得话都一样：It is a  beginning, not an end. You should look  forward. （这是新的开始，不是终结，勇敢地大步朝前吧！） 但John要求毕业生在向前进的时候，先往回看看。

看什么呢？看看在宿舍、课堂、运动场上支持和帮助过自己的同学、朋友们。

“没有他们的支持，你不会走到这一步。你可能还是初来学校时那个怯生生的孩子，而不是今天这副自信满满、坚定沉着的模样。”

他告诉毕业生，不要害怕回头看，因为回首时，你会发现有如此多的人在帮助你，你会发现这一路自己的成长惊人，这会给你更多自信，让你在面对未来时，有更强大的信念去战胜困难。

“因此，跌倒也没什么，爬起来；再跌倒，再爬起来就是。”

在接下来的演讲中，大法官变得更加严肃、话语也越来越“毒舌”。 他说：通常演讲进行到这里，嘉宾们都会说一句“祝你们好运”，然后送上祝福。

“但我不会这样做，理由如下：

我希望你不时地被人不公正对待，因而你会知道公正的价值。

我希望你会遭受背叛，让你感受到忠诚的重要性。

我希望你时常有孤独感，让你不会把朋友看作理所当然的存在。

我希望你有时会倒霉，让你意识到运气的重要性，并且发现：你今日的成功并不完全实至名归，而他人的失败也并不完全是活该。

我希望你的对手对你冷嘲热讽，让你意识到有风度的竞争多么重要。

我希望你时不时被忽视，让你意识到倾听他人的重要性。

我希望你遭受刚刚好的痛苦，让你学会同理心。”

此言一出，惊呆了在座的各位学生家长，没人想到大法官的“祝福”如此特别，却又如此现实。

John更犀利指出：自己这些祝福无论送不送，在今后的生活中都会发生，因为这就是生活。

毕业生能否在遭遇苦难时从中获益，就看能否参透这些祝福的后半句了。

在演讲末尾，John还谈到了毕业生该如何“做自己”。

人们给毕业生最常见的建议就是做自己，但是，做什么样的自己？怎么做？ 他认为，如果此时的自己并不完美，那就不是该做自己，而是做改善。

他还引用了苏格拉底的名言：未经自省的人生无意义。来指出：毕业生应该时时思考想要成为什么样的人，过什么样的生活。

“对某些事情来说，‘just do it’（只管去做）是个不错的建议，但直到你确定自己想过什么样的生活之前，这个建议要慎用。”

最后，他为毕业生深情朗读了美国艺术家鲍勃·迪伦的《永远年轻》，以表达自己对毕业生，也是作为他家长本身，对自己孩子的深切期望：

“愿上帝庇佑，护你前路；愿你美梦均可成真；愿你与人为善，相互扶持；愿你建成通往群星的天梯，稳妥沿它而上；愿你永远年轻；愿你成为正直之人；愿你成就真实自我；愿你永远感知真理，看向身边无尽光明；愿你勇敢无惧，坚强可靠；愿你永远年轻,拥有纯洁之心；愿你双手永远忙碌，愿你脚步永远轻盈；在变故横生之时，愿你根基牢靠；愿你心中永远充满快乐，愿你的歌声永远嘹亮；愿你永远年轻。”

Rain,  somebody said, is like confetti from heaven. So even the heavens are  celebrating this morning, joining the rest of us at this wonderful  commencement ceremony.

Before we go any further, graduates, you have an  important task to perform because behind you are your parents and  guardians. Two or three or four years ago, they drove into Cardigan,  dropped you off, helped you get settled and then turned around and drove  back out the gates. It was an extraordinary sacrifice for them. They  drove down the trail of tears back to an emptier and lonelier house.  They did that because the decision about your education, they knew, was  about you. It was not about them. That sacrifice and others they made  have brought you to this point. But this morning is not just about you.  It is also about them, so I hope you will stand up and turn around and  give them a great round of applause. Please.

Now  when somebody asks me how the remarks at Cardigan went, I will be able  to say they were interrupted by applause. Congratulations, class of  2017. You’ve reached an important milestone. An important stage of your  life is behind you. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you it is the  easiest stage of your life, but it is in the books. While you’ve been at  Cardigan, you have all been a part of an important international  community as well. And I think that needs to be particularly recognized.

[Roberts gave brief remarks in other languages.]

Now  around the country today at colleges, high schools, middle schools,  commencement speakers are standing before impatient graduates. And they  are almost always saying the same things. They will say that today is a  commencement exercise. ‘It is a beginning, not an end. You should look  forward.’ And I think that is true enough, however, I think if you’re  going to look forward to figure out where you’re going, it’s good to  know where you’ve been and to look back as well. And I think if you look  back to your first afternoon here at Cardigan, perhaps you will recall  that you were lonely. Perhaps you will recall that you were a little  scared, a little anxious. And now look at you. You are surrounded by  friends that you call brothers, and you are confident in facing the next  step in your education.

It is worth trying to  think why that is so. And when you do, I think you may appreciate that  it was because of the support of your classmates in the classroom, on  the athletic field and in the dorms. And as far as the confidence goes, I  think you will appreciate that it is not because you succeeded at  everything you did, but because with the help of your friends, you were  not afraid to fail. And if you did fail, you got up and tried again. And  if you failed again, you got up and tried again. And if you failed  again, it might be time to think about doing something else. But it was  not just success, but not being afraid to fail that brought you to this  point.

Now the commencement speakers will  typically also wish you good luck and extend good wishes to you. I will  not do that, and I’ll tell you why. From time to time in the years to  come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know  the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that  will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you  will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for  granted.I wish you bad luck, again, from time to time so that you will  be conscious of the role of chance in life and understand that your  success is not completely deserved and that the failure of others is not  completely deserved either. And when you lose, as you will from time to  time, I hope every now and then, your opponent will gloat over your  failure. It is a way for you to understand the importance of  sportsmanship. I hope you’ll be ignored so you know the importance of  listening to others, and I hope you will have just enough pain to learn  compassion.

Whether I wish these things or not, they’re going to happen.  And whether you benefit from them or not will depend upon your ability  to see the message in your misfortunes.

Now  commencement speakers are also expected to give some advice. They give  grand advice, and they give some useful tips. The most common grand  advice they give is for you to be yourself. It is an odd piece of advice  to give people dressed identically, but you should — you should be  yourself. But you should understand what that means. Unless you are  perfect, it does not mean don’t make any changes. In a certain sense,  you should not be yourself. You should try to become something better.  People say ‘be yourself’ because they want you to resist the impulse to  conform to what others want you to be. But you can’t be yourself if you  don’t learn who are, and you can’t learn who you are unless you think  about it. The Greek philosopher Socrates said,  ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ And while ‘just do it’ might  be a good motto for some things, it’s not a good motto when it’s trying  to figure out how to live your life that is before you. And one  important clue to living a good life is to not to try to live the good life. The best way to lose the values that are central to who you are is frankly not to think about them at all. So  that’s the deep advice.

Now some tips as you get ready to go to your  new school. Other the last couple of years, I have gotten to know many  of you young men pretty well, and I know you are good guys. But you are  also privileged young men. And if you weren’t privileged when you came  here, you are privileged now because you have been here. My advice is:  Don’t act like it. When you get to your new  school, walk up and introduce yourself to the person who is raking the  leaves, shoveling the snow or emptying the trash. Learn their name and  call them by their name during your time at the school.

Another piece of  advice: When you pass by people you don’t recognize on the walks,  smile, look them in the eye and say hello. The worst thing that will  happen is that you will become known as the young man who smiles and  says hello, and that is not a bad thing to start with.You’ve been at a school with just boys. Most of you will be going to a school with girls. I have no advice for you. The  last bit of advice I’ll give you is very simple, but I think it could  make a big difference in your life. Once a week, you should write a note  to someone. Not an email. A note on a piece of paper. It will take you  exactly 10 minutes. Talk to an adult, let them tell you what a stamp is.  You can put the stamp on the envelope. Again, 10 minutes, once a week. I  will help you, right now. I will dictate to you the first note you  should write. It will say, ‘Dear [fill in the name of a teacher at  Cardigan Mountain School].’ Say: ‘I have started at this new school. We  are reading [blank] in English. Football or soccer practice is hard, but  I’m enjoying it. Thank you for teaching me.’ Put it in an envelope, put  a stamp on it and send it. It will mean a great deal to people who —  for reasons most of us cannot contemplate — have dedicated themselves to  teaching middle school boys. As I said, that will take you exactly 10  minutes a week. By the end of the school year, you will have sent notes  to 40 people. Forty people will feel a little more special because you  did, and they will think you are very special because of what you did.  No one else is going to carry that dividend during your time at school.

Enough  advice. I would like to end by reading some important lyrics. I cited  the Greek philosopher Socrates earlier. These lyrics are from the great  American philosopher, Bob Dylan. They’re almost 50 years old. He wrote  them for his son, Jesse, who he was missing while he was on tour. It  lists the hopes that a parent might have for a son and for a daughter.  They’re also good goals for a son and a daughter. The wishes are  beautiful, they’re timeless. They’re universal. They’re good and true,  except for one: It is the wish that gives the song its title and its  refrain. That wish is a parent’s lament. It’s not a good wish. So these  are the lyrics from Forever Young by Bob Dylan:

May God bless you and keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung And may you stay forever young May you grow up to be righteous May you grow up to be true May you always know the truth And see the lights surrounding you May you always be courageous Stand upright and be strong And may you stay forever young May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful May your song always be sung And may you stay forever young.

Thank you.