TED演讲｜是什么让你与众不同？TED爆燃励志短片

What makes you special?

非常感谢。我是一名记者。我的工作是与全世界各行各业的人交谈。今天，我想告诉你们为什么我决定用我的生命来做这件事，以及我学到了什么。

My story begins in Caracas, Venezuela in South America where I grew up, a place that to me was and always will be filled with magic and wonder. From a very young age, my parents wanted me to have a wider view of the world.

我的故事始于我成长的南美委内瑞拉加拉加斯，对我来说，这个地方过去是，将来也将永远充满魔力和奇迹。从很小的时候起，父母就希望我对世界有一个更广阔的视野。

I remember one time when I was around seven years old, my dad came up to me and said: “Mariana, I’m going to send you and your little sister, who was six at the time, to a place where nobody speaks Spanish. I want you to experience different cultures.”

我记得有一次，在我七岁左右的时候，我爸爸走过来对我说：“玛丽安娜，我要把你和你六岁的妹妹送到一个没有人会说西班牙语的地方。我想让你体验不同的文化。”

He went on and on about the benefits of spending an entire summer in ‘this summer camp’ in the United States. Stressing a little phrase that I didn’t pay too much attention to at the time, ‘you never know what the future holds’.

他不停地谈论在美国“这个夏令营”度过整个夏天的好处。强调了一句我当时没怎么注意的话，“你永远不知道未来会是什么样子”。

Meanwhile in my seven-year-old mind, I was thinking we were going to get to summer camp in Miami. Maybe it was going to be even better and we were going to go a little further north to Orlando where Mickey Mouse lived. I got really excited.

与此同时，在我七岁的脑海中，我在想我们要去迈阿密的夏令营。也许情况会更好，我们打算再往北走一点，去米老鼠居住的奥兰多。我真的很兴奋。

My dad, however, had a slightly different plan: from Caracas he sent us to Brainerd, Minnesota. Mickey Mouse was not up there and with no cell phone, no Snapchat or Instagram, I couldn’t look up any information. We get there and one of the first things I noticed was that the other kids’ hair was several shades of blonde and most of them had blue eyes.

然而，我父亲有一个稍微不同的计划：他从加拉加斯把我们送到明尼苏达州的布雷内德。米老鼠不在上面，没有手机，没有Snapchat或Instagram，我无法查找任何信息。我们到了那里，我首先注意到的一件事是其他孩子的头发都是金色的，大多数都是蓝眼睛。

Meanwhile this is what we looked like. The first night, the camp director gathered everyone around the campfire and said: “Kids, we have a very international camp this year. The Atencios are here from Venezuela.”

与此同时，这就是我们的样子。第一天晚上，营地主任把所有人聚集在篝火旁，说：“孩子们，我们今年有一个非常国际化的营地。阿滕西奥一家来自委内瑞拉。”

The other kids looked at us as if we are from another planet. They would ask us things like: “Do you know what a hamburger is, or do you go to school in a donkey or canoe?” I would try to answer in my broken English, and they would just laugh.

其他孩子看着我们，好像我们来自另一个星球。他们会问我们这样的问题：“你知道汉堡包是什么吗，或者你是坐驴子还是独木舟上学的？”我会试着用蹩脚的英语回答，他们只会笑。

And I know they were not trying to be mean; they were just trying to understand who we were and make a correlation with the world they knew. We could either be like them or like characters out of a book filled with adventures like Aladdin or The Jungle Book. We certainly didn’t look like them; we didn’t speak their language. We were different. And when you’re seven years old, that hurts.

我知道他们并不是想卑鄙；他们只是想了解我们是谁，并与他们所认识的世界建立联系。我们既可以像他们，也可以像《阿拉丁》或《丛林书》中充满冒险故事的书中的人物。我们当然不像他们；我们不会说他们的语言。我们是不同的。当你七岁的时候，这很痛。

But I had my little sister to take care of and she cried every day at summer camp. So I decided to put on a brave face and embrace everything I could about the American way of life. We later did what we called the summer camp experiment for eight years in different cities that many Americans haven’t even heard of. What I remember most about these moments was when I finally clicked with someone, making a friend was a special reward. Everybody wants to feel valued and accepted and we think it should happen spontaneously. But it doesn’t.

但我有我的小妹妹要照顾，她在夏令营里每天都哭。所以我决定装出一副勇敢的面孔，尽我所能拥抱美国的生活方式。后来，我们在不同的城市进行了为期八年的夏令营实验，许多美国人甚至没有听说过。关于这些时刻，我记得最清楚的是当我最终与某人点击时，结交朋友是一种特殊的奖励。每个人都想感受到自己的价值和被接受，我们认为这应该自然而然地发生。但事实并非如此。

When you’re different you have to work at belonging. You have to be either really helpful, smart, funny, anything to be cool for the crowd you want to hang out with. Later on when I was in high school, my dad expanded on his summer plan and from Caracas he sent me to Wallingford, Connecticut for senior year of high school. This time I remember daydreaming on the plane about the American high school experience with a locker. It was going to be perfect just like in my favorite TV show: Saved by the Bell.

当你与众不同时，你必须努力做到归属感。你必须非常乐于助人、聪明、有趣，或者任何对你想一起玩的人来说很酷的东西。后来，当我上高中的时候，我父亲扩大了他的暑期计划，从加拉加斯把我送到康涅狄格州的沃林福德上高中。这一次，我记得我在飞机上做了一个白日梦，梦见美国高中时带着储物柜的经历。这将是完美的，就像我最喜欢的电视节目《被铃声拯救》。

I get there and they tell me that my assigned roommate is eagerly waiting. I opened the door and there she was sitting on the bed with a headscarf. Her name was Fatima and she was Muslim from Bahrain and she was not what I expected. She probably sensed my disappointment when I looked at her because I didn’t do too much to hide it.

我到了那里，他们告诉我，我指定的室友正在急切地等待。我打开门，看到她戴着头巾坐在床上。她的名字叫法蒂玛，是巴林的穆斯林，她不是我想象中的那样。当我看着她时，她可能感觉到了我的失望，因为我没有做太多掩饰。

See, as a teenager I wanted to fit in even more, I wanted to be popular, maybe have a boyfriend for prom. And I felt that Fatima just got in the way with her shyness and her strict dress code.

你看，作为一个十几岁的孩子，我更想融入社会，我想受欢迎，也许在舞会上有个男朋友。我觉得法蒂玛的羞怯和严格的着装规范妨碍了我。

I didn’t realize that I was making her feel like the kids at summer camp made me feel. This was the high school equivalent of asking her: do you know what a hamburger is?

我没意识到我让她觉得夏令营的孩子让我觉得。这在高中就相当于问她：你知道汉堡包是什么吗？

I was consumed by my own selfishness and unable to put myself in her shoes. I have to be honest with you, we only lasted a couple of months together, because she was later sent to live with a counselor instead of other students.

我被自己的自私所吞噬，无法设身处地为她着想。老实说，我们只在一起呆了几个月，因为她后来被派去和辅导员而不是其他学生住在一起。

And I remember thinking: ah, she’ll be okay, she’s just different. You see, when we label someone as different it dehumanizes them in a way. They become the other. They’re not worthy of our time, not our problem and in fact, they, the other, are probably the cause of our problems.

我记得当时在想：啊，她会没事的，她只是与众不同。你看，当我们给某人贴上不同的标签时，在某种程度上会使他们失去人性。他们变成了另一个。他们不值得我们花时间，不是我们的问题，事实上，他们，另一个，可能是我们问题的原因。

So how do we recognize our blind spots? It begins by understanding what makes you different, by embracing those traits. Only then can you begin to appreciate what makes other special.

那么，我们如何识别我们的盲点呢？首先要理解是什么让你与众不同，接受这些特质。只有这样，你才能开始欣赏是什么让其他人与众不同。

And I remember when this hit me, it was a couple months after that I had found out boyfriend for prom and made a group of friends and practically forgotten about Fatima, until everybody signed on to participate in this talent show for charity. You needed to offer a talent for auction and it seemed like everybody had something special to offer.

我记得当这件事发生时，几个月后我找到了舞会的男朋友，结交了一群朋友，几乎忘记了法蒂玛，直到每个人都签约参加这场慈善才艺表演。你需要为拍卖会提供一位天才，似乎每个人都有特别的东西可以提供。

Some kids were going to play the violin, others were going to recite a theater monologue. And I remember thinking we don’t practice talents like these back home. But I was determined to find something value.

一些孩子要拉小提琴，其他人要背诵戏剧独白。我记得我在想，我们在家里不练这种人才。但我决心找到有价值的东西。

So the day the talent show comes and I get up onstage with my little boom box and put it on the side and I press play and a song by my favorite emerging artist Shakira comes up and I go: ‘whenever, wherever, we’re meant to be together’. And I said my name is Mariana and I’m going to auction a dance class and it seems like the whole school raised their hand to bid. My dance class really stood out from like the tenth violin class offer that day.

所以在才艺秀开始的那天，我拿着我的小吊杆站在舞台上，把它放在一边，按下play键，我最喜欢的新兴艺术家夏奇拉的一首歌出现了，我说：“无论何时何地，我们注定要在一起。”。我说我叫玛丽安娜，我要拍卖一个舞蹈班，似乎整个学校都举手竞拍。我的舞蹈课在那天的第十堂小提琴课中脱颖而出。

And going back to my dorm room, I didn’t feel different, I felt really special. And that’s when I started thinking about Fatima, a person that I had failed to see as special when I first met her. She was from the Middle East, just like Shakira’s family was from the Middle East, she could have probably taught me a thing or two about belly dancing had I been opened to it.

回到我的宿舍，我没有什么不同，我感觉很特别。就在那时，我开始思考法蒂玛，一个在我第一次见到她时没有被我视为特别的人。她来自中东，就像夏奇拉的家人来自中东一样，如果我对肚皮舞敞开心扉，她可能会教我一两件肚皮舞。

Now I want you all to take that sticker that was given to you at the beginning of our session today where you wrote down what makes you special. And I want you to look at it. If you’re watching at home, take a piece of paper and write down what makes you different. You may feel guarded when you look at it, maybe even a little ashamed, maybe even proud. But you need to begin to embrace it. Remember it is the first step in appreciating what makes other special.

现在，我想让你们都拿着在我们今天会议开始时给你们的贴纸，你们写下了什么让你们与众不同。我想让你看看。如果你在家看电视，拿一张纸写下你与众不同的地方。当你看着它的时候，你可能会感到谨慎，甚至有点羞愧，甚至骄傲。但你需要开始接受它。请记住，这是欣赏其他人与众不同之处的第一步。

When I went back home to Venezuela, I began to understand how these experiences were changing me, being able to speak different languages, to navigate all these different people and places. It gave me a unique sensibility. I was finally beginning to understand the importance of putting myself in other people’s shoes. And that is a big part of the reason why I decided to become a journalist, especially being from part of the world that is often labeled the backyard, the illegal aliens, third-world, the others, I wanted to do something to change that.

当我回到委内瑞拉的家时，我开始明白这些经历是如何改变我的，能够说不同的语言，能够驾驭所有这些不同的人和地方。它给了我一种独特的感觉。我终于开始明白设身处地为别人着想的重要性。这也是我决定成为一名记者的一个重要原因，特别是来自世界上经常被称为“后院”、“非法外星人”、“第三世界”等的地区，我想做点什么来改变这一点。

It was right around the time, however, when the Venezuelan government shut down the biggest television station in our country. Censorship was growing and my dad came up to me once again and said: “How are you going to be a journalist here? You have to leave.” And that’s when it hit me. That’s what he had been preparing me for. That is what the future held for me.

然而，当时委内瑞拉政府关闭了我国最大的电视台。审查制度越来越严格，我父亲再次走到我面前，对我说：“你打算怎么在这里当记者？你必须离开。”这时我突然想到了这一点。这就是他一直在为我做的准备。这就是我的未来。

So in 2008, I packed my bags and I came to the United States without a return ticket this time. I was painfully aware that a 24 years old I was becoming a refugee of sorts, an immigrant, the other, once again and now for good. I was able to come on a scholarship to study journalism and I remember when they gave me my first assignment to cover the historic election of President Barack Obama, and I felt so lucky, so hopeful. I was like yes this is it. I’ve come to post-racial America where the notion of us and them is being eroded and will probably be eradicated in my lifetime. Boy, was I wrong, right?

所以在2008年，我收拾行李，这次来美国没有回程票。我痛苦地意识到，作为一个24岁的人，我正在成为一个难民，一个移民，另一个，再一次，现在永远。我获得了研究新闻的奖学金，我还记得他们给我的第一份任务是报道巴拉克·奥巴马总统的历史性选举，我感到很幸运，很有希望。我想是的，就是这样。我来到了后种族主义的美国，在那里，我们和他们的观念正在被侵蚀，在我有生之年可能会被根除。孩子，我错了吗？

Why didn’t Barack Obama’s presidency alleviate racial tensions in our country? Why do some people still feel threatened by immigrants, LGBTQ and minority groups who are just trying to find a space in this United States that should be for all of us? I didn’t have the answers back then.

为什么巴拉克·奥巴马的总统任期没有缓解我们国家的种族紧张局势？为什么有些人仍然感到受到移民、LGBTQ和少数群体的威胁，他们只是想在美国找到一个适合我们所有人的空间？那时我没有答案。

But on November 8, 2016 when Donald Trump became our president, it became clear that a large part of the electorate sees them as the others, some see people coming to take their jobs or potential terrorists who speak a different language. Meanwhile minority groups often times just see hatred, intolerance and narrow-mindedness on the other side.

但在2016年11月8日唐纳德·特朗普成为我们的总统时，很明显，大部分选民将他们视为其他人，一些人认为有人来抢他们的工作，或者说不同语言的潜在恐怖分子。与此同时，少数群体往往只看到另一边的仇恨、不容忍和狭隘。

It’s like we’re stuck in these bubbles that nobody wants to burst. And the only way to do it, the only way to get out of it is to realize that being different also means thinking differently. It takes courage to show respect. In the words of Voltaire: “I may not agree with what you have to say but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it.”

就像我们被困在这些没有人想破的泡沫里。要做到这一点，唯一的出路就是认识到与众不同也意味着思维方式不同。表示尊重需要勇气。用伏尔泰的话来说：“我可能不同意你说的话，但我会誓死捍卫你说话的权利。”

Failing to see anything good on the other side makes a dialogue impossible. Without a dialogue we will keep repeating the same mistakes because we will not learn anything note. I covered the 2016 election for NBC News. It was my first big assignment in this mainstream network where I had crossed over from Spanish television and I wanted to do something different. I watched election results with undocumented families, few thought of sharing that moment with people who weren’t citizens but actually stood the most to lose that night.

如果看不到对方的优点，对话就不可能进行。如果没有对话，我们将不断重复同样的错误，因为我们不会从笔记中学到任何东西。我为NBC新闻报道了2016年的选举。这是我在这家主流电视网的第一次重大任务，我从西班牙电视台转台过来，想做些不同的事情。我和无证家庭一起观看了选举结果，很少有人想过与那些不是公民但当晚最有可能输的人分享这一时刻。

When it became apparent that Donald Trump was winning, this eight-year-old girl named Angelina rushed up to me in tears. She saw sobbed and she asked me if her mom was going to be deported now. I hugged her back and I said it’s going to be OK. But I really didn’t know.

当唐纳德·特朗普显然获胜时，这个名叫安吉丽娜的八岁女孩泪流满面地向我冲过来。她看到我哭了，问我她妈妈现在是否会被驱逐出境。我抱着她说没事的，但我真的不知道。

This was the photo that we took that night forever ingrained in my heart. Here was this little girl who was around the same age I was when I went to camp in Brainerd. She already knows she is the other. She walks home from school in fear every day her mom can be taken away.

这是我们那天晚上拍的照片，永远铭刻在我心中。这是一个小女孩，她和我去布雷内德露营时的年龄差不多。她已经知道她是另一个了。她每天放学回家都担心妈妈会被带走。

So how do we put ourselves in Angelina shoes? How do we make her understand she is special and not simply unworthy of having her family together? By giving camera time to her and families like hers, I tried to make people see them as human beings and not simply illegal aliens. Yes, they broke a law and they should pay a penalty for it but they’ve also given everything for this country, like many other immigrants before them have.

那幺我们该如何穿上安吉丽娜的鞋呢？我们如何让她明白她很特别，不只是不值得一家人在一起？通过给她和她的家人拍照时间，我试图让人们把他们看作是人，而不仅仅是非法的外星人。是的，他们违反了法律，他们应该为此付出惩罚，但他们也为这个国家付出了一切，就像他们之前的许多移民一样。

I’ve already told you how my path to personal growth started. To end I want to tell you how I hit the worst bump in the road yet, one that shook me to my very core. The day, April 10, 2014, I was driving to the studio and I got a call from my parents: or you want the air, they asked. I immediately knew something was wrong.

我已经告诉过你我的个人成长之路是如何开始的。最后，我想告诉你，我是如何遇到了路上最严重的一次颠簸，一次让我全身发抖的颠簸。2014年4月10日那天，我开车去演播室，我接到父母的电话：或者你想要空气，他们问。我马上就知道出了问题。

“What happened?” I said.

“It’s your sister; she’s been in a car accident.”

“发生了什么事？”我说。

“是你姐姐，她出了车祸。”

It was as if my heart stopped. My hands gripped to the steering wheel and I remember hearing the words: ‘it is unlikely she will ever walk again’. They say your life can change in a split second; mine did at that moment. My sister went from being my successful other half, only a year apart in age to not being able to move her legs, sit up or get dressed by herself. And this wasn’t like summer camp where I could magically make it better. This was terrifying.

我的心好像停止了跳动。我的手紧握着方向盘，我记得听到过这样的话：“她不可能再走路了。”。他们说你的生活可以在一瞬间改变；我的在那一刻做到了。我的妹妹从我成功的另一半，仅相隔一年的年龄，变成了无法移动腿、坐起来或自己穿衣服。这不像夏令营，我可以神奇地让它变得更好。这太可怕了。

Throughout the course of two years, my sister underwent 15 surgeries and she spent most of that time in a wheelchair. But that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst was something so painful it’s hard to put into words even now. It was the way people looked at her, looked at us changed. People were unable to see a successful lawyer or a millennial with a sharp wit and a kind heart, everywhere we went I realized that people just saw poor girl in a wheelchair. They were unable to see anything beyond that.

在两年的时间里，我姐姐做了15次手术，大部分时间都坐在轮椅上。但这还不是最糟糕的。最糟糕的事情是如此痛苦，即使现在也难以用语言表达。这是人们看待她的方式，看待我们的方式改变了。人们看不到一位成功的律师或一位才智敏锐、心地善良的千禧一代，无论我们走到哪里，我都意识到人们只看到坐在轮椅上的可怜女孩。除此之外，他们什么也看不见。

After fighting like a warrior, I can thankfully tell you that today my sister is walking and has recovered beyond anyone’s expectations. Thank you.

在像战士一样战斗之后，我可以感谢地告诉你，今天我的妹妹正在行走，恢复得出乎意料。非常感谢。

But during that traumatic ordeal, I learned there are differences that simply suck and it’s hard to find positive in them. My sister’s not better off because of what happened but she taught me you can’t let those differences define you, being able to reimagine yourself beyond what other people see, that is the toughest task of all, but it’s also the most beautiful.

但在那场痛苦的磨难中，我明白了有些差异简直是糟糕透顶，很难从中找到积极的一面。我姐姐的生活并没有因为发生的事情而变得更好，但她告诉我，你不能让这些差异来定义你，能够超越别人看到的，重新想象自己，这是最艰难的任务，但也是最美丽的任务。

You see, we all come to this world in a body, people with physical or neurological difficulties, environmentally impacted communities, immigrants, boys, girls, boys who want to dress as girls, girls with veils, women who have been sexually assaulted, athletes who bend their knee as a sign of protest, black, white, Asian, Native American, my sister, you or me — we all want what everyone wants: to dream and to achieve.

你看，我们都是以一个身体来到这个世界的，有生理或神经障碍的人，受环境影响的社区，移民，男孩，女孩，想打扮成女孩的男孩，戴着面纱的女孩，遭到性侵犯的妇女，屈膝以示抗议的运动员，黑人，白人，亚洲人，美洲原住民，我的妹妹，你或我-我们都想要每个人都想要的：梦想和成就。

But sometimes society tells us and we tell ourselves we don’t fit the mold. Well if you look at my story from being born somewhere different to belly dancing in high school to telling stories, you wouldn’t normally see on TV. What makes me different is what has made me stand out and be successful. I have traveled the world and talked to people from all walks of life and you know what I’ve learned: the single thing every one of us has in common is being human. So take a stand to defend your race, the human race. Let’s appeal to it, let’s be humanists before and after everything else.

但有时社会告诉我们，我们告诉自己，我们不适合这种模式。如果你看看我的故事，从出生在不同的地方到高中的肚皮舞到讲故事，你通常不会在电视上看到。让我与众不同的是让我脱颖而出并获得成功的原因。我周游世界，与各行各业的人交谈，你知道我学到了什么：我们每个人的共同点就是做人。所以站出来捍卫你的种族，人类。让我们呼吁它，让我们在其他一切之前和之后都成为人道主义者。

To end, I want you to take that sticker, that piece of paper where you wrote down what makes you different and I want you to celebrate it today and everyday, shout it from the rooftops. I also encourage you to be curious and ask what is on other people’s pieces of paper? What makes them different? Let’s celebrate those imperfections that make us special.

最后，我想让你拿着那张贴纸，那张你写下你与众不同之处的纸，我想你今天和每天都庆祝它，在屋顶上大声呼喊。我也鼓励你好奇，问问别人的纸上写着什么？是什么让他们与众不同？让我们庆祝那些让我们与众不同的不完美。

I hope that it teaches you that nobody has a claim on the word normal. We are all different, we are all quirky and unique and that is what makes us wonderfully human.Thank you so much.

我希望它告诉你，没有人对“正常”这个词有权利。我们都是不同的，我们都是古怪和独特的，这就是为什么我们是人类。非常感谢。