I have a slightly different career in the sciences in that I am a professionally trained scientist—

我的科学事业有点不大一样 因为我是一名受过专业训练的科学家——

I have a doctorate in astrophysics and I’ve done my own astrophysical research—

我有天体物理学博士学位 还做着自己的天体物理学研究——

but I decided to emphasize science communication and actually go more into education and policy

但我想重点强调科学传播 深入研究一下教育和政策

and trying to communicate science to the public.

并试着将科学传播给大众

And the interesting thing to me is that means that there are a lot of people that don’t know me very well

我觉得很有趣的一点是 这意味着有很多不了解我的人

that have seen me on television that assume that I’m a brilliant scientist.

他们在电视上见过我 觉得我是一名很了不起的科学家

You know: “the reason this person is on television, she must be the best astronomer of the day,” and that’s certainly not true at all.

人们觉得：“这个人之所以能上电视 她一定就是现在最优秀的天文学家了” 但事实并非如此

And then I have a lot of professional colleagues, you know, who are not necessarily cruel but they really view me as a bit of a failure:

我有很多专业的同事 他们并不残忍 但他们觉得我挺失败的：

I didn’t become a publishing scientific professor, a research professor—which is what I was really trained to be.

我没有成为一名出版科学教授 研究教授——这是我受训的初衷

And especially in these days of social media, a television show will come out and all of a sudden I’ll get messages from strangers

尤其是在这个社交媒体时代 上一场电视节目后 我突然间就会收到陌生人的信息

who say that they love me and strangers that say that they hate me.

他们有人说爱我 有人说恨我

I often get questions from young students and they say, “Well, how did you become a success?”

经常有年幼的学生会问我“你是如何成功的？”

Or another great question these days is, “How did you overcome failure?”

或者近来另一个很棒的问题是“你是如何克服失败的？”

And the funny thing is I found myself really kind of at a loss

比较搞笑的是 我发现这些问题连我自己都搞不清

because the very concepts of success and failure I think are words that never really meant anything.

因为我觉得人们关于成功和失败的言语其实没有任何意义

And actually, I strongly suspect they have a lot to do with privilege:

其实 我还严重怀疑它们与特权有很大关系：

that if you can make yourself in the model of a research professor of 100 years ago, that’s defined as a success,

如果你能让自己成为100多年前那种研究教授的典范 那你就属于成功人士

and if you do something different, it’s defined as a failure.

如果你做的是与众不同的事 那你就是失败者

There’s never been any time in my life where, even after having received an award or having been on a television show,

我一生中从来没有 即便是获奖或上过电视节目后

I sat back and said, “Boy, I really feel like a success.”

我也没有放松下来 觉得“天哪 我感觉自己功成名就了呀”

It was always wrapped up in feelings of, “I should have done something differently, I should have had a different career path.”

经常萦绕在我心头的是“我应该做些不一样的事 我应该选择不一样的职业生涯”

There’s never been a time where I felt like a success.

我从来没有感觉自己是个成功的人

And at the same time the idea that you ever really fail at something.

同时也没有觉得自己在哪件事上真正失败过

There are plenty of times that I very nearly failed differential equations and calculus, you know.

有很多次 我几乎就要向微分方程和微积分学投降了

There were things that I was not very good at, but I eventually got them on, say, the third or fourth try.

有些东西我确实不太擅长 但我会继续努力 进行第三次第四次尝试

And the problem was just, you know, staying around and telling yourself that,

问题就在于 要坚持下去 告诉自己

“I really want to learn this and I’m just not going to leave until I do.”

“我真的想学这个 我非得学会才能离开”

There wasn’t any really true failure either.

也没有真正的失败

It was always kind of twisted up with things I was proud of that I was actually working through and trying to learn.

让我引以为傲的事情经常会遇到些小麻烦 我会想办法解决 试着学习

So this idea that at some point in your life you’re going to stop and feel like a success.

所以在生命中的某些时候 你会停下来 觉得自己很成功

“Yes, I am successful now.”

“嗯 我现在成功了”

I get very, very nervous when people ask me about that, about, “How did you become a success?”

人们问我“你如何成为一名成功人士的？”的时候我会非常非常紧张

I want to sit them down and tell them all the things I screwed up and all the things I did wrong and all the reasons I’m not a success.

我想坐下来跟他们好好谈一谈我搞砸的那些事 我做错的那些事 告诉他们我并没有成功的原因

Now at the same time when anybody calls me a failure, it’s like,

同样 当别人称我为失败者的时候 我会觉得

I want to sit you down and explain why what I’m doing is actually getting your money and your funding for the rest of science, you know.

我想坐下来跟你解释为什么我所做的一切其实都是为了让你为其他科学筹集资金

I’m not a failure either.

我也不是个失败者

Everything in life is going to be a flow between those two things.

生活中的所有事情都在这两者之间移动

Everything is going to be a jumble of success and failure.

一切都是成功和失败的合体

Your personal life, your professional life, the way you feel about yourself.

你的个人生活 你的职业生涯 你的自我感觉

And it’s a strange model we give young people.

我们强加给年轻人的模式真的很奇怪

“Try to be a success. Try to overcome failure.”

“你要成为一名成功的人 你要努力克服失败”

All I can do is just kind of breathe and just realize that at no point in my life am I going to separate those two.

我能做的就是吸一口气 意识到在任何时候 我都不会把这两者分开