TED演讲 | 母亲是妓女，父亲是罪犯！特殊的家庭，让她明白了最好的伴侣是...

The person you really need to marry

我小时候经常唱这么一首歌：翠西和某某，坐在树下，互相亲吻，先是爱情，再是婚姻，最后生了宝宝，推在婴儿车里，一家人其乐融融。

And I’m like, OK, that’s it! That’s how you do life. That’s how you do a relationship. Love, marriage, baby carriage. OK, got it.

感觉就像：喔！原来如此，这就是生活，这就是感情呀。”爱情、婚姻、婴儿车，这就是幻想的家庭的全部了。

And then I grew up, and this is what my life turned out to be. Slightly more complicated, right?Love, marriage, divorce, dry spells, love, marriage, co-parenting, another marriage, another divorce; you got the picture.

然而我长大后，这才是我的真实生活：稍微复杂了一点点，相爱、结婚、离婚，单身，再度坠入爱河，又结婚，共同抚养孩子，又离婚；又结婚，又离婚……你可以想象。

So if you’re good at math and/or a fast reader, what you’ve got there is that I’ve been married three times. Yep, three, and divorced. What that’s supposed to mean is that I’m a total failure at relationships. And that is one way to look at it, but not the only way.

所以，你数学或是阅读能力很好的话，你就会发现，我一共结了三次婚。对，三次，并且都离了。而这所应该代表的就是，我在感情上妥妥的是个失败者。从另一种角度看，确实如此，但也不是唯一的角度。

Because what I think really happened is that I kept marrying the wrong person. No, it’s not that I didn’t — it’s not that I chose bad guys. My first two husbands were amazing men who are now married to wonderful women who aren’t me. And my third husband, well, we’re friends on Facebook now. So, all is well that ends well, right?

因为在我眼中，真正发生的事情就是我一直在和错误的人结婚。和错误的人结婚，并不代表我选择了很差劲的对象，我的前两任丈夫都是很棒的人。现在也都娶了很棒的姑娘，虽然并不是我。现在我的第三任丈夫是我的Facebook好友。结果一切都还好，是吧？

After the collapse of my third marriage in 2005, I realized that I’ve been marrying everyone in sight, except the one person that I really needed to marry in order to have a great relationship and that once I married that person, all of my relationships would be successes, even the failures. The so-called failures, actually.

在2005年，我第三次婚姻崩溃了以后，我意识到我为了有一段美好的感情，我几乎和眼前所有的人都结过婚，却唯独没有嫁给那个我应该嫁的人。而且，我一旦嫁给了那个人，我所有的感情都将是成功的,包括那些中途夭折的感情，也就是失败。

Since we’re talking today about women inventing, I’m going to talk about inventing relationships. What I’ve found through a lot of trial and obviously, many, many, many errors, to be the thing that has transformed my life and love, and that is this idea of marrying yourself.

既然我们今天谈论的是女人的创造，我就来说说创造感情吧。我从很多次经历中，很多很多的错误中，所发现的道理，改变了我的人生观和爱情观，即嫁给自己。

So what does it mean to marry yourself? It’s a big idea. It is as big as marriage itself except, if I could just summarize it, it would be that you enter into a relationship with yourself and then you put a ring on it.

所以，嫁给自己是什么意思呢？这是一个大的观念，几乎和婚姻观念等同，如果让我总结一下的话，就是要和你自己处对象，然后嫁给你自己。

In other words, you commit to yourself fully.And then you build a relationship with yourself to the point where you realize that you’re whole right now, that there is no man, woman, job, circumstance that can happen to you that’s going to make you more whole because you already are. And this changes your life.

换句话说，就是向自己坦白一切，然后和自己建立关系，到了那一步，你就会意识到，你现在是完整的了。男人，女人，工作，环境，都将不会对你有任何影响。这些都不会使你更加完整，因为你已经是完整的了。这将改变你的人生。

By now, I’m sure at least some of you are wondering why you should be listening to a three-time divorcee talk about marriage? Even to herself. And I understand that.Here’s what I have to say about that:

到现在为止，我知道你们中间肯定有人在想，你们为什么要听一个离过三次婚的女人讲婚姻观。甚至她自己也是这么想的。我理解这样的想法。我对此想说的是：

what I’ve learned and my experience is that the places where you have the biggest challenges in your life become the places where you have the most to give if you do your inner work. I kind of want to say that again: the places where you have the biggest challenges are the places where you have the most to give.

我从我的经验所学到的，如果你做你内心的工作，你生活中最大挑战的地方会成为你最需要给予的地方。我想再说一次：你面临最大挑战的地方是你能给予最多的地方。

So let me tell you a little bit about the person I truly needed to marry: myself.I am from Minneapolis. Wooh! My mom was a prostitute and an alcoholic. She put me in foster care when I was three months old.

那么让我来讲讲那个我应该嫁的人，也就是我自己。我来自明尼阿波利斯，我妈妈是一个妓女，而且有酒瘾，在我三个月大的时候她就把我送到了寄养家庭。

My dad was a criminal; he was a drug dealer and a pimp with a heart of gold — actually, they both had hearts of gold — and he spent more or less my whole life in prison.

我的爸爸是一个罪犯，他是一个一心想赚钱的毒品走私犯和皮条客。其实他们俩都是一心想要钱的人。几乎在我一生中的所有时间里，他们都在蹲监狱。

And he just got out of prison after his most recent sentence which was 20 years.Until the age of nine, I was probably in two dozen foster homes. The thing you need to know about this story — there are a lot of details, obviously — but the thing you need to know is that I came out of that childhood with one goal: to never be left. And the way I was going to do that is that I was going to get married. That was the way I was going to accomplish that goal.

他最近才服完20年监禁从监狱中出来，而我...在九岁以前，我在20多个寄养家庭中生活过。毕竟这里面有很多细节，你们只需要知道，从那样的童年中走过来，我只有一个目标，就是永远不被抛弃。而我达成这个目标的途径，将是结婚。这就是我为了达成这个目标将会做的事情。

So I got married the first time to a guy I met when I was 17. We got married a couple of years later, when I was 19. He was a really good guy from a great family, he had an MBA. I mean, it was like, you know, marriage material. You know, I was thrilled. I was like, “I have a family. I belong somewhere. This is wonderful.”

所以，我和一个我17岁时候认识的男人结了第一次婚，那时我19岁。他是一个很棒的男人，有着和睦的家庭，以及MBA的文凭。就像...你知道的，很适合的结婚对象。我当时很惊喜，当时就想着，我有家庭了，有归属了，真是太赞了。

And then after five years I left him. And then 10 years later, I got married again to another wonderful guy, who is the father of my now 16-years-old son. We still have a wonderful relationship. He is a really good guy.But after four years I left him, too.

但是，五年以后我就离开了他。接着，十年之后，我又结婚了。对象是另一个很棒的男人，也就是我现在16岁儿子的父亲。我们现在关系也很好，因为他真的是一个很好的人。但是结婚四年以后，我还是离开了他。

And I am not proud to say that I did that, but in order to really marry yourself, you have to get sometimes very painfully honest with yourself about what it is that you’ve done. So I’m not proud of that.

我对此并不真正感到骄傲，但是为了真正的嫁给自己，你就要对自己诚实，有时候甚至痛苦至极地面对自己已经做过的事情。所以，我对此并不感到骄傲。

And then eight years later, I got married again, when I was 40, and I was like, “OK, this feels right!” Let me tell you what felt right to a girl who was in 24 foster homes: a guy who started to date after nine months of marriage; essentially, he started dating a 21-year-old girl.

八年之后，在我40岁的时候，我又结婚了。我当时想着，这感觉真不错。让我来说说什么会让一个在24个寄养家庭中生活过的女孩儿感觉不错。一个在结婚后九周就开始约会的男人，重要的是，他开始和一个21岁的女孩儿约会。

OK, I mean, it would be funny, if it weren’t so tragic. You have to have a sense of — that is why we’re Facebook friends. So, here I am looking at this person that I just described with a terrible track record of relationships, and I’m like, “I’m supposed to marry her? This is the woman you want me to marry?”

我的意思是，如果不是这么悲惨的的话，还蛮有意思的。你会有种感觉，这也是我们俩现在还是Facebook好友的原因。所以，当我从现在的角度再去看我刚刚说的这个有着劣迹斑斑的感情经历的女人，我的想法就像是，我真的要嫁给她吗？这就是你想让我嫁的人。

And the answer is yes. Because here is the deal: the thing about marrying yourself is not just like cohabitating. You’re not just going to date for a while and see how it turns out. You are going to do this till death do you part. You are going to take vows. So here are the vows.

答案是，是的。因为嫁给自己并不是像同居那样，你不能约会一段时间再看情况做决定。你必须坚持到最后直到死亡把你们分开。你将宣誓，宣誓如下：

Number 1: you are going to marry yourself for richer or for poorer. This means you are going to love yourself right where you are. You don’t say to yourself,“When you get to the corner of Hollywood and Vine, then I will marry you.”You don’t say, “When you lose ten pounds, then I will love you.”And you don’t say, “If you hadn’t married that loser, I would love you, but since you did, I’m sorry, I think it’s over.”

第一，你将嫁给你自己，无论贫穷与富贵。意思是你将无条件地爱自己。你不能说「等你去了好莱坞和藤街，我才嫁给你」，你也不能说「等你瘦了十磅以后我才会爱你」，你更不能说「如果你没有嫁给那个失败者，我才会爱你。

When you marry yourself, you walk yourself down that aisle exactly where you are. And paradoxically, I found that loving myself exactly where I am is the only way to get where I am going.

既然已经嫁了，那么我觉得我们之间结束了」。当你嫁给你自己的时候，你走过长廊，走到你所在的位置。略微矛盾的地方在于，我发现爱那个就在原地的我是我走向目的地的唯一途径。

Number 2: you are going to marry yourself for better or for worse. What this means is that most of us are willing to love ourselves for better, I mean, sure, I am having a great hair day today. I love me. That’s not what I am talking about.I’m talking about for worse, you know, the big life disappointments.

第二，你将嫁给你自己，无论环境好与坏。这句话意思是，大部分人都会在更好的情况下爱自己，比如，我今天发型很赞，我爱我自己。这不是我要说的部分，我要说的是，在更坏的情况下，那种当人生辜负了你的时候，

Maybe you don’t own a home, you didn’t get the career you wanted, maybe you didn’t graduate from college, maybe you didn’t get the relationship you wanted. Maybe it hasn’t turned out — maybe you fight with your mum, maybe you watch too much reality TV, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because when you marry yourself, you agree to stay with you no matter what.

可能你无家可归，可能你没有从事喜欢的事业，可能你没有顺利地大学毕业，可能你没有找到想要的感情，可能事情没法向你想的方向发展，可能你和妈妈吵架了，可能你看了太多太现实的电视剧。无论发生了什么，都不重要。因为，当你嫁给了自己以后，你都将永远陪在自己身边，不管发生什么。

Third, you marry yourself in sickness and in health. So what this means is that you forgive yourself for your mistakes. A mistake isn’t actually a failure unless you don’t learn from it and unless you don’t grow.There is a saying, “You ask for patience, and what you get is a line at the bank.”

第三，你将嫁给自己，无论生病与健康。这句话的意思是，你要原谅自己所犯过的错误。错误，并不代表失败，除非你不懂得吸取教训，除非你不成长。有句话是这样说的，你想要耐心，得到的却是在银行排长队。

What that means is that life does not give you what you’ve asked for, it gives you the people, places, and situations that allow you to develop what you ask for.And the thing is if you don’t get it right the first time, life will give it to you again. Because life is very generous that way. It’s like I didn’t get it the first time, in the first marriage, and I didn’t get it the second time, maybe the third time I’ll get it.

也就是，生活不会给你你所想要的东西，它只会给你那些能让你建立你所想要的东西的人物，地方，和状况。并且，你知道，如果你第一次无法达成你想要的，生活会再给你一次机会。因为生活在那方面还是很慷慨的。

So inside that terrible experience of that third marriage, I learned something about “in sickness and in health”. What I learned is how to sit by my own bedside, and how to hold my own hand, and how to nurse myself, and how to comfort myself. And what I learned is that I am a person that I can count on.

就像，我在第一次婚姻中没有得到想要的，在第二次婚姻中也没有，但是，就像...也许我在第三次婚姻中可以得到我想要的呢。所以，在我糟心的第三次婚姻中，我从「无论生病还是健康」中学到很多。我学会了在自己的床边，握着自己的手，照顾自己，安慰自己。我知道，我知道我是那个自己是那个可以依赖的人。

Last but not least, you marry yourself — when you marry yourself, it’s to have and to hold yourself. What does it mean to have and to hold? Well, I think it means that you love yourself the way you want someone else to love you.

最后，也同样重要的是，你嫁给你自己。当你嫁给自己的时候，就要拥有并掌握自己。那么，什么叫做「拥有并掌握自己」呢？我认为它的意思是,你希望别人怎样爱你，你就要像那样爱你自己。

I had always been going through life with this sense of lack. I felt like I was kind of half a person, and that I was missing something. I went into my relationships hoping to solve this feeling that I had my entire life: that I wasn’t whole unless someone loved me.And the truth was that I wasn’t ever going to feel whole until I learned to love myself.

我的生活中，一直有这样一种缺失感。我觉得我像是个半边人，缺失了什么东西一样。我开始了一段感情，希望能缓解我这一生都有的这种情绪，即：如果没有人爱我，我就是不完整的。而事实却是，如果我不学会爱我自己，我将永远无法感觉到自己是完整的。

So this business of marrying yourself transforms every area of your life: your business, family relationships, kids, social relationships, friends. Because when you marry yourself, this huge thing happens: you become able to love in this whole new way. You become able to love other people right where they are, for who they are, the same way you’re already loving yourself.

所以，嫁给自己这件事将改变你人生中的每个部分，你的生意，家庭关系，孩子，社交关系，朋友。因为在你嫁给自己的时候，会发生很大的转变，你将会以全新的方式去爱。你将会无条件地去爱别人，就像你爱自己的那样。

And of course, this is what the world needs more of.So when I married myself, and I realized that I already had everything I needed, I started seeing it as my job to basically just light up my little corner of the world. That’s my new job. Because I don’t need anything, I already have it.

没错，这世界就是需要更多这样的爱。当我嫁给自己的时候我就意识到，我已经拥有了我所需要的一切。我开始把点亮我的小角落这件事情看做自己的工作，那就是我的新工作。因为我现在并不需要什么，我已经拥有了。

So when I take meetings, it’s all about how can I help this person achieve her goal? When I’m in my social communities, it is like what can I bring to this that only I can bring?And when I go on dates, it is like how can I just discover another person maybe for just one hour which, of course, brings me a full circle.

所以，当我开会的时候，我所想的就只有怎样帮助她来完成她的目标。在我的社交圈内，我就会想，我能带给这个人只有我能带给他的东西吗？而我在约会的时候，我就会想我能在一个小时内了解对方多少呢？这样就带给我了一个良性循环。

Because people always asked me about my love life; they want to know.And you know, the answer is, I am still working on it. Aren’t we all? So this is where I am right now. About three months ago, I went on a first date.

因为大家总是问我的感情生活，很八卦。答案是，我还在努力中。难道我们不都是吗？所以，我现在的处境是这样的，约三个月前，我和他第一次约会。

And about 30 minutes into the date, I found myself paying attention not to whether he liked me, but how I felt in his presence. I noticed that I was light, happy, and joking. And as I reflected on the date afterwards, I was like, “Wow, I got really excited! Look, this is how committed I am to myself.”

这次约会中有30分钟，我都在关注我在他的陪伴下的感受，而不是他是否喜欢我。我发现我当时很放松，很开心。我在约会之后的反应就像「我真是天兴奋了，看，这就是向自己坦白真实的自己」。

I am not even on this date trying to get someone to like me. I am more interested in how I feel about me than how he feels about me, not because I am selfish, but because the only relationship I am ever going to have with another person is the one that I am already having with myself —

我在这次约会上完全没有努力去让别人喜欢我，比起他怎么看我，我更关心的是我自己怎么看我。并不是因为我自私，而是因为唯一一段我将会和别人拥有的感情就是我现在已经和自己拥有的这种感情。

just going to have it with them now.So it turned out he liked me, and we are still together. It’s cool and amazing, but I’ve been married three times, so slow down.

从现在到今后都是如此。后来发现，他很喜欢我，我们也还在约会。这非常酷也非常激动人心，不过鉴于我已经结了三次婚，所以还是慢点。

The thing is that I am not trying to get security from him through marriage, and, God forbid, a baby carriage. I am only here to just be in a relationship. I am not dying to hear the words, “Will you marry me?”

重点在于，我没有想从他或者从婚姻中得到安全感，以及一个婴儿车。我只是为了一段感情而来，我并不会迫不及待想听到“你愿意嫁给我吗？”。

Because even though those words are very powerful — and very powerful to a person like me — I don’t need them to hear it from him because I have already heard them from myself.

因为尽管这样的语言很有煽动性，尤其是对于像我这样的人。我也并不需要从他那里听到这样的话，因为我已经听到自己这样说过了。

The way I see it is like I took myself to the top of a mountain, or maybe to the bottom of the ocean, and I got down on one knee, and I said, “I’ll never leave you.”And know I am married to the one person I really wanted to be with all along: myself.Thank you.

在我的眼中，就像是我带我自己去了高山之巅或者深海之底，我单膝跪下说“我永远都不会离开你”。现在，我终于嫁给了那个我一直想共度一生的人，我自己。谢谢。