哈佛毕业三十年后重逢：人生感悟三十条
作者 | Deborah Copaken
编译 | 刘以栋
考上哈佛大学不容易，但是哈佛毕业生也是人，他们也需要跟我们在这个社会上打拼。
2018年，哈佛大学598名毕业生30年后回母校重聚。其中的一位文科生后来在大西洋期刊发表了毕业感悟，我感觉不错，就编译在这里（What I Learned About Life at My 30th College Reunion By Deborah Copaken， 2018.10.24, The Atlantic）。
Deborah Copaken与父母在哈佛毕业时的合影
没有人的生活完全像以前预期的那样，即使对于最热心的计划者也是如此。
每个成为老师或医生的同学都对自己的职业选择感到满意。
许多律师似乎对生活的变化感到不满或烦恼，除了那些成为法学教授的人。（见上文第2条）。
几乎每个银行家或基金经理都希望找到一种方法来用累积的财富回馈社会（有些人有具体的计划，有些没有），而且很多人在这一点上似乎都想尽快离开华尔街。从事某种艺术。
说到艺术，那些以艺术作为职业生涯的人大多是快乐而且往往是成功的，但他们在某种程度上都曾经在经济上挣扎。
大家都说钱不能买到幸福，但是在团聚之前对我们班级进行的在线调查中，我们这些在自我报告中感觉财富多的人幸福感高于那些自我感觉财富少的人。
我们最强烈的愿望是，（根据以前的同一个团聚前的课堂调查）—— 比更多的性生活和更多的钱更重要——是为了获得更多的睡眠。
传声头像”乐队（Talking Heads）主唱的《烧掉房子》（Burning Down the House）曾经是我们班上最受欢迎的歌曲，到了2018年，它带给我们的震撼丝毫不减当年。
我们班上当年许多最腼腆的新生现在已成为我们的校友组织者，帮助组织这次团聚和其它活动。
离婚后，那些选择离婚的人似乎更快乐。
离婚后，那些被迫离婚的人似乎更不幸福。
许多婚姻持久的同学说，他们经历了一个转折点，就是当他们的早期婚姻突然变成了成熟的关系以后。“我尽我所能！”一位同学告诉我，她在一对特别紧张的情侣治疗过程中对丈夫说。从那一刻起，她说，他明白了：她的不完美并不是对他的侮辱，她的行为不是他的延伸。她是她自己的人，她的不完美之处就是她自己。在长久的婚姻中，有时人们会忘记这一点。
几乎所有的校友都表示他们对年轻时候的自己感到尴尬，尤其是他们过去的判断力。
我们都充满爱，我们都变得更加慷慨。我们在重聚时随意飞行。现在看来，我们并没有将它们仅限于我们的亲密关系；我们已经扩展了对爱的理解，为失散多年的朋友腾出爱的空间。
无论我的同学长大成为一名国会议员，如吉姆·希姆斯;获得托尼奖的导演，像Diane Paulus；像斯蒂芬妮威尔逊一样的宇航员——在一天结束时，我们在周末的各种聚会和小组讨论中的大多数谈话，集中在对爱，舒适，智力刺激，得体的领导者，可持续环境，友谊和稳定性等话题。
几乎所有带孩子的校友都对他们决定拥有孩子感到高兴。有些没有孩子的人乐于选择那条路线：还有一些人后悔没有孩子。
30年后与以前的同一个室友一起喝酒时，比你曾经和你的新生室友一起喝酒更有乐趣。
在可能的情况下，住在一位老朋友的家里比在酒店住一晚要好。除非你正在寻找一个新的配偶或一夜情，因为我的一些同学似乎一直在做，在这种情况下：酒店，酒店，酒店。
几乎所有有配偶的与会者在第30年团聚时都将自己的配偶留在了家中。
随着时间的推移，我们的大多数膝盖，臀部和肩膀都受到了损伤。
喝了太多酒的生活在30年后出现在脸上。
在大多数情况下，女性的表现比看起来同班的男性要好得多。
在大多数情况下，男性在收入潜力和领导力方面比女性表现要好得多 ——惊奇。
缺乏负担得起的儿童教育条件和带薪产假，对我们的许多同学产生了深远的影响，其中大多数是女性：职业脱轨，事业妥协，金钱损失。
当纪念教堂的钟声响起27次以纪念毕业后27名同学的逝世时，我们都在内心层面上了解到这些离去人数将在未来30年内呈指数级增长。
在临时组成的一个的为前校友的纪念服务合唱团，虽然大家都没有一起练习过，但是听起来好像他们已经在一起练习了好几个星期。即使在合唱指挥演奏新的原创乐曲时也是如此。
在我们这些50出头的人中，人们似乎迫切需要说出真相，并在为时已晚之前给予彼此感谢和善意。我的一个当年新生室友感谢我在1984年发生的事情。一位曾经是陌生人的同学，但是他在红皮书中看到我的参赛作品，这是我们五年一次的校友报告——我在其中讲述了我在一次紧急情况下，通过打优步去的医院。他表示他下次愿意为我打救护车买单，甚至还真的从口袋里掏出一大堆钞票。“那没关系，”我笑着告诉他。“我不打算很快又去急诊室。”
那些失去孩子的人已经学会了一种对我们所有人都具有指导意义的恢复能力和感激之情。“不要她失去的年华感到悲哀” 我们的一位同学说，她的女儿是哈佛2019届学生，于去年夏天去世了。“相反，感谢她21年来带来能够照亮我们的光芒。”
我们这些经历过生死考验或还面临着生死考验的人似乎最有兴趣参加团聚。“我们还活着！”我对我的朋友说，他曾经经营一家医疗公司，当癌症转移扩散后，他的脸部被移除了一部分。当回忆起这些险些令我们无法相见的可怕细节时，我们傻笑着，像小孩一样嬉闹蹦跳，情不自禁地互相拥抱。
爱并不是你总所需要的，但正如一位同学告诉我的那样，“爱对人生绝对有帮助。”
英文原文如下：
德博拉·科帕根（Deborah Copaken）
No one’s life turned out exactly as anticipated, not even for the most ardent planner.
Every classmate who became a teacher or doctor seemed happy with the choice of career.
Many lawyers seemed either unhappy or itching for a change, with the exception of those who became law professors. (See No. 2 above.)
Nearly every single banker or fund manager wanted to find a way to use accrued wealth to give back (some had concrete plans, some didn’t), and many, at this point, seemed to want to leave Wall Street as soon as possible to take up some sort of art.
Speaking of art, those who went into it as a career were mostly happy and often successful, but they had all, in some way, struggled financially.
They say money can’t buy happiness, but in an online survey of our class just prior to the reunion, those of us with more of it self-reported a higher level of happiness than those with less.
Our strongest desire, in that same pre-reunion class survey—over more sex and more money—was to get more sleep.
“Burning Down the House,” our class’s favorite song, by the Talking Heads, is still as good and as relevant in 2018 as it was blasting out of our freshman dorms.
Many of our class’s shyest freshmen have now become our alumni class leaders, helping to organize this reunion and others.
Those who chose to get divorced seemed happier, post-divorce.
Those who got an unwanted divorce seemed unhappier, post-divorce.
Many classmates who are in long-lasting marriages said they experienced a turning point, when their early marriage suddenly transformed into a mature relationship. “I’m doing the best I can!” one classmate told me she said to her husband in the middle of a particularly stressful couples’-therapy session. From that moment on, she said, he understood: Her imperfections were not an insult to him, and her actions were not an extension of him. She was her own person, and her imperfections were what made her her. Sometimes people forget this, in the thick of marriage.
Nearly all the alumni said they were embarrassed by their younger selves, particularly by how judgmental they used to be.
We have all become far more generous with our I love you’s. They flew freely at the reunion. We don’t ration them out to only our intimates now, it seems; we have expanded our understanding of what love is, making room for long-lost friends.
No matter what my classmates grew up to be—a congressman, like Jim Himes; a Tony Award–winning director, like Diane Paulus; an astronaut, like Stephanie Wilson—at the end of the day, most of our conversations at the various parties and panel discussions throughout the weekend centered on a desire for love, comfort, intellectual stimulation, decent leaders, a sustainable environment, friendship, and stability.
Nearly all the alumni with kids seemed pleased with their decision to have had them. Some without kids had happily chosen that route; others mourned not having them.
Drinks at a bar you used to go to with your freshman roommate are more fun 30 years later with that same freshman roommate.
Staying at the house of an old friend, whenever possible, is preferable to spending a night in a hotel. Unless you’re trolling for a new spouse or a one-night stand, as some of my classmates seemed to have been doing, in which case: hotel, hotel, hotel.
Nearly all the attendees who had spouses had, by the 30th reunion, left theirs at home.
Most of our knees, hips, and shoulders have taken a beating over time.
A life spent drinking too much alcohol shows up, 30 years later, on the face.
For the most part, the women fared much better than the men in the looks department.
For the most part, the men fared much better than the women—surprise, surprise—in the earning-potential-and-leadership department.
A lack of affordable child care and paid maternity leave had far-reaching implications for many of our classmates, most of them female: careers derailed, compromises made, money lost.
When the bell atop Memorial Church tolled 27 times to mark the passing of 27 classmates since graduation, we all understood, on a visceral level, that these tolls will increase exponentially over the next 30 years.
It is possible to put together a memorial-service chorus of former alumni, none of whom have ever practiced with one another, and make it sound as if they’d been practicing together for weeks. Even while performing a new and original piece by the choral conductor.
In our early 50s, people seem to feel a pressing need to speak truths and give thanks and kindness to one another before it’s too late to do so. One of my freshman roommates thanked me for something that happened in 1984. A classmate who was heretofore a stranger, but who had read myentry in thered book, our quinquennial alumni report—in which I recounted having taken an Uber Pool to the emergency room—offered to pay for my ambulance next time, even going so far as to yank a large pile of bills out of his pocket. “That’s okay,” I told him, laughing. “I don’t plan to return to the emergency room anytime soon. ”
Those who’d lost a child had learned a kind of resilience and gratitude that was instructive to all of us. “Don’t grieve over the years she didn’t get to live,” said one of our classmates, at a memorial service for her daughter, Harvard class of 2019, who died last summer. “Rather, feel grateful for the 21 years she was able to shine her light.”
Those of us who’d experienced the trauma of near death—or who are still facing it—seemed the most elated to be at reunion. “We’re still here!” I said to my friend, who used to run a health company and had a part of the side of his face removed when his cancer, out of nowhere, went haywire. We were giggling, giddy as toddlers, practically bouncing on our toes, unable to stop hugging each other and smiling as we recounted the gruesome particulars of our near misses.
Love is not all you need, but as one classmate told me, “it definitely helps.”
相关阅读：
德博拉·科帕根（Deborah Copaken），美国作家和摄影记者，《大西洋月刊》特约作者，著有“The Red Book ”和“Shutterbabe”两本书，译者：刘以栋，系美国资深金融分析师。笔耕不辍的他，业余爱好阅读，写作。金融类点评，教育类资讯和感悟，常在国内外各类报刊媒体刊发表，让多人收益。本文经译者授权发表，版权归属作者/译者/原载媒体所有。
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