❖文/毕淑敏
这是我以前写的和心理有关的散文，朱虹老师希望自己的孙女们能读到它的英文版本，就亲自动手翻译出来。
朱虹老师自5岁开始在教会学校学习英文，到现在整整学了80年。她是中国社会科学院英美文学的研究员，在美国有多部著作出版。用她自己的话说，运用英文比用中文熟练。
我说：您既然翻译出来了，别只给自己的孙女们读啊，让别的年轻人也沾沾光，一块看看可好？
她答应了，于是就有了这本刚刚印出来的中英文对照的小书《温暖的荆棘》。
我从里面选了5篇，从今天开始，连续5天，每天在公号中发1篇。恳请批评指正。
毕淑敏敬上
卑微也是我们的朋友
We are Small Fry, and so What!
如果你自卑，不要把这视为奇耻大辱。人人都自卑，只是我们战胜自卑的方式不一样。承认自卑是正常的，这就是胜利的第一步。If you have a sense of inferiority, don’t let it bother you! It is not a disgrace. Actually, everybody has a sense of inferiority. People try to overcome it in different ways. To begin with, let us acknowledge that it is normal to carry within ourselves a sense of inferiority. A good start!
我常常听到很多人述说自己因为种种理由而自卑，比如个子矮小、家庭贫困、父母双亡或是单亲、受教育的程度太低、不知道某个常识被人耻笑、开运动会买不起新的运动鞋、嗓子太粗不能像夜莺般美妙、头太大了、说话带有明显的乡下口音，等等。
I regularly get tons of letters from people whining about their own sense of inferiority for one reason or another. For instance, they are too short in stature, or short of money; or they are orphaned and live with broken families; or they are under-educated and make themselves alaughing-stock when they betray their ignorance over some commonplacetopic, or they cannot afford a new pair of shoes for a sports event; or their voices are too hoarse, obviously unlike the voice of the nightingale; or their bumpy heads are too big; or when they open their mouths to speak,they cannot hide their rustic accents, and so on and so forth.
如果说这些在一般人的印象中是弱项，从而成为自卑的理由，那么，我们还比较容易理解。我还听到过有人因为自己太美丽而自卑。那姑娘讲，她付出努力所取得的一切成就，都被人归结为美貌带来的幸运，甚至还有人在话里话外地敲打她是不是运用了某种潜规则。
The items listed above could be generally accepted as personaldisadvantages and constitute some basis for a sense of inferiority, all of which are understandable.
However, I heard of someone who has an inferiority complex due to her good looks. The girl complained that everything which she had accomplished through her own hard work had been imputed by backbiters to her good looks—some even hinting at shady deals.
这个清俊的女生满怀幽怨地说：“我为我的相貌而深深自卑。我很想去整容，把自己整得丑陋一些，这样就可以抬起头来做人，人们就会认识到我是一个有内在价值的人。”
With sad resignation, this delicate beauty told me: “I suffer from a deep sense of inferiority due to my looks. I had wanted to get a facelift, to get a plain face, so that I could hold up my head and let people see that I am a person with innate values, not just a pretty face…”
“不骗你，我真的到整形医院去了，可整形师说从来没有接收过这样的病例，他想不出如何操作……”
“To tell you the truth,” she continued, “I did go to a beauty salon with my request, but the beautician said he had never heard of such a request, and had no idea how to go about it…”
对于人人都自卑这件事，我是百分百相信。你若是不信，可以抽空看看名人的传记。几乎没有一个名人不谈到自己是自卑的。而且按照咱们上面列举的自卑理由，他们也都是“师出有名”的。“我不如别人。我自卑，所以，我不停地努力。当年从郑州打到国家队的时候，没有一个人肯定我，他们全说一米五的我打球不会打得如何。为了证明给他们看，我快发了疯，每天都比别人刻苦，我知道我的个子不如别人，别人允许有失败的机会，我没有。我只能赢，所以我打球凶狠，那是逼出来的。后来我成功了，别人又说我没有大脑，只会打球。于是我发疯地学习，英语从不认识字母到熟练地和外国人对话。我不比别人聪明，我还自卑，但一旦设定了目标，就绝不轻言放弃，什么都不用解释，用胜利说明一切！”
I absolutely believe that everyone has a sense of inferiority.If you have doubts, just check the autobiographies of famous people—they invariably suffer from inferiority complex, and can give you a list of their deficiencies.“I am not as good as the others; I must never stop trying.When I left the Zhengzhou team to join the national team in Beijing, nobody thought much of me. Being only 1.5 meters in height, I would ‘never go far’ was the general verdict. I knew that I was at a disadvantage in height. To prove myself, I practiced non-stop. Other players could afford to make a mistake and still keep going. Not me. I must keep winning. That is why I play so desperately. I had no second chance.“ I achieved success. Then people started saying thatI was a brainless bat-swinger, that playing ball was all I knew. So I took up English, studying like mad. Starting from scratch, I ended up chatting easily with native speakers. I am not smarter than the rest, plus I have a sense of inferiority. But once my goal is set, nothing will stop me. There is no need for words. Victory speaks for itself!”
这段话是谁说的啊？相信你看完了，就会知道，这是获得过十八个世界冠军，得过四枚奥运金牌的邓亚萍。也许你要说，这么伟大的人，我们就不好比了。那容我再来录上一段普通人的自卑史。“我曾经是个非常自卑的人，即使是现在，自卑还常常在，我觉得自己很多地方不如人。我不如A聪明，不如B睿智，不如C有才，不如D貌美如花……我只是一个普通女子，不善言，不会搞各种关系，我只会写字，通过写字证明我自己。感谢我的自卑，它让我越挫越勇，它让我觉得不如别人，让我不敢停步，让我在人生的路上，一路坚强。”
ow who is this person speaking? By the time you finish reading the passage, you will realize that it is none other than Deng Yaping, the ping-pong athlete who had been world champion for eighteen times, and won four Olympic gold medals.Now you may complain that it is not fair to make us compare ourselves to such a celebrity. Then let us try the history of an ordinary person and check out her history of self-depreciation.
“I used to have an inferiority complex; even now I feel myself to be very inadequate compared to other people. For instance, I am not as smart as A, not as wise as B, not as talented as C, and not as good-looking as D. I am just an ordinary girl,slow of speech and not good at making connections. All I do is putting words together. Through words, I found my own identity.Thanks to my low self-esteem, I never stop trying to improve myself, and never stop working to keep up with the pace of life itself!”
这位女子的文章常常见诸报端，你打开《读者》《青年文摘》等刊物，经常会看到她的文章。
Despite her self-depreciation, this young woman’s articles often appear in the pages of popular periodicals such as “The Reader,” or “Youth Magazine.”
我手边看到的资料说到，刚刚因为出演了《色·戒》而再次获奖的梁朝伟，就说自己一直是个非常自卑的人。名人尚且如此，遑论我等俗众！不要把自卑看得那么可怕，这是人人都享有的一个特点。其实这话说得有语病，既然是人人都有，就不能说是特点了，只能说是常数，对于一个规律性的东西，实在没有害怕的必要，从容对待就是了。因为渺小的人类对于浩瀚的宇宙来说是自卑的。孱弱的婴孩对于伟壮的成年人来说是自卑的。
Glancing through the papers, I came across the news that Liang Chaowei, who had just won another prize for his role in the new film Lust and Abstinence, actually has very low self-esteem.
ow if even celebrities have low self-esteem, what can you say for the rest of us small fry? Well, I suggest that we should not be bothered by a sense of inferiority; it is more or less common to all of us. We should regard it not as an exception, but as a rule. For something that is a common to us all, it is futile to fear it or try to get rid of it. Let us just live with it. We are small fry, and so what!
短暂的生命对于无涯的时空来说是自卑的。我们的种种欠缺和无奈，对于光明的期望和理想来说是自卑的。
We should accept that our brief lives, seen against a background of boundless time and space, are insignificant, that our imperfections and helplessness, compared to the glorious prospects of the future, are also insignificant.Having said so much in defense of our sense ofinsignificance, it does not mean that we small fry should resign ourselves to live with it.
刚才说了那么多自卑的合理性，并非要大家就对自卑安之若素。其实，你接纳了自卑，你把自卑当成一个朋友，它就会以意想不到的方式来帮助你。为了战胜自卑，我们就会更加努力。因为自卑的持续存在，我们或许会比较少骄横。因为自卑，我们记得渺小和尊崇，这未尝不是因祸得福呢！It does not mean that we should live comfortably with our sense of inferiority. Actually once we have accepted it as a friend,it will help us in unexpected ways.
For instance, conscious of our inferiority, we work harder. Likewise,we remember the little things; we remember respect. This is not a bad thing for the small fry.
阿尔弗雷德·阿德勒认为，人从一出生就伴随着自卑感，之后需要用一生的时间，去提高自己的技能、优越感和对别人的重要性。
Alfred Adler had said that self-abasement a follows man the day he is born and he spends a lifetime trying to overcome it and enhance his sense of self-worth.
这样看来，卑微也是我们的朋友，卑微里也有不容小觑的力量。
From this angle, we might say that a sense of inferiority is a friend of us small fry, and that it has a power of its own.
【编者按】最近，毕淑敏的新书《温暖的荆棘》由天地出版社推出，该书以真实的心理咨询案例为素材，运用文学的表现形式呈现经典的心理学故事。书中，毕淑敏以细腻温柔而不失力度的笔触，讲述人生的孤独与困惑，迷惘与思考、痛楚与撕裂、沉沦与挣扎、无边的阴郁与微弱的光明……帮助读者将心理垃圾转化为积极的能量，温暖心底冰冷的地方。书中的文字，全部都是她秉持着当年执手术时的责任感，以治病救人为无上光荣的医生之德郑重写下的，并希望它们传达出深深爱意和浓浓暖意。
值得一提的是，《温暖的荆棘》全书以中英双语的形式呈献给读者，担纲翻译的是我国著名翻译家、英美文学研究专家朱虹，其翻译准确、简练又不乏幽默风趣，让读者领会更加原汁原味的英文，体会纯正的英语之美。
本文为毕淑敏原创作品，插画丨LM
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