Our lives are woven together. As much as I enjoy my own company, I no longer imagine I can get through a single day, much less all my life, completely on my own.
我们的生活交织在一起。尽管我爱独处，但是我不能想象我能单独靠自己过一天，更不用说我的全部生活。
Even if I am on vacation in the mountains, I am eating food someone else has grown, living in a house someone else has built, wearing clothes someone else has sewn from cloth woven by others, using electricity someone else is distributing to my house. Evidence of interdependence is everywhere. We are on this journey together.
即使我在山上度假，吃别人种的食物，住别人建的房子，穿别人缝制的衣服，用别人分配到我家的电。相互依存的证据随处可见，我们的生活注定交织在一起。
As I was growing up, I remember being carefully taught that independence not interdependence was everything.
我记得小时候经常被细心的教导，要独立不要依赖别人。
“Make your own way”, “Stand on your own two feet”, or my mother's favorite remark when I was face-to-face with consequences of some action: “Now that you've made your bed, lie on it!”
“走自己的路”、“靠自己”，或是在我犯错后我妈妈最喜欢说：“自作自受，自己要承担犯错的后果！”
Total independence is a dominant theme in our culture.
完全独立是我们文化中永恒的主题。
I imagine that what my parents were trying to teach me was to take responsibility for my actions and my choices.
我想我的父母试图教我为自己的行为和选择负责。
But the teaching was shaped by our cultural images, and instead I grew up believing that I was supposed to be totally “independent” and consequently became very reluctant to ask for help.
但这塑造了我们的文化意象，而我始终相信我应该完全独立也因此变得不愿意寻求帮助。
I would do almost anything not to be a burden, and not require any help from anybody.
只要不成为负担，我愿意做几乎任何事，并且不愿意向任何人求助。