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0相约星期二
Tuesdays with Morrie
今天，多吉要讲的是美国体育记者米奇·阿尔博姆写的《相约星期二》。
Today, Duoji is going to tell you the story of Tuesdays with Morrie, by the American sportswriter Mitch Albom.
十六年前，米奇曾答应自己的大学教授，毕业以后会常回来看他。后来，这个承诺被他忘了整整十六年，直到某个深夜，他又在电视上看见了那张熟悉的脸。
Sixteen years earlier, Mitch had made his college professor a promise - that after graduation, he would come back to visit. Then he forgot about it for sixteen years, until one night he saw that same face again, on television.
故事，就从一台电视机说起。
The story starts with a television set.
米奇本来是真心想做到的。可赶稿、赶航班、赶合同，一件接一件，渐渐把这件事挤没了地方。直到某个深夜，一档电视节目把镜头对准一位坐在轮椅上的老人。主持人问他，知道自己快要死了，是什么感觉。老人没有回避，说自己正在练习怎么告别——跟喜欢的事物告别，跟还能走路的日子告别。
Mitch had meant to keep his word. But deadlines, flights, and contracts kept piling up, until there was no room left for anything else. Then, late one night, a television program put the camera on an old man in a wheelchair. The host asked him what it felt like to know he was dying. The old man didn't look away. He said he was practicing how to say goodbye - to the things he loved, to the days when he could still walk.
米奇认出了他，那正是他大学时最喜欢的教授，莫里。
Mitch recognized him. It was his favorite professor from college - Morrie.
第二天，米奇就订了机票，飞去老师家里。此后的每个星期二，他都准时出现：带着录音机、带着饭盒，也带着一身放不下的工作焦虑。莫里的身体正以一种残忍又清楚的速度垮掉——先是拄拐杖，接着坐轮椅，再后来，连自己翻身、擦嘴都做不到，必须靠人帮忙。
The next day, Mitch booked a flight to his old teacher's house. After that, he showed up every single Tuesday, carrying a tape recorder, a container of food, and all the work anxiety he couldn't quite shake. Morrie's body was failing at a pace that was both cruel and unmistakable - first a cane, then a wheelchair, and later he couldn't even turn himself over in bed, or wipe his own mouth, without help.
可莫里没有把这段时间用来哀悼自己。他甚至提前替自己办了一场"生前葬礼"——把还在世的老朋友、老学生都请到家里，一个一个把悼词念给他听。按常理，这些话要等人死了才会被说出来，而死者自己根本听不到；莫里觉得这不公平，索性提前把葬礼办了。听着朋友们讲起他年轻时的样子，他一边笑一边掉眼泪，像是在参加别人的告别式，又像是在参加自己的。
But Morrie didn't spend that time mourning himself. He even held his own funeral while he was still alive - he invited old friends and former students to his house, and had them read their eulogies to him, one by one. Normally those words only get spoken after someone has died, when the person they're about can no longer hear them. Morrie thought that was unfair, so he simply held the funeral early. As his friends talked about who he'd been when he was young, he laughed and cried at the same time - as if he were attending someone else's farewell, and his own, all at once.
每个星期二，莫里都会提前想好一个要聊的话题：这个世界、自怜、家庭、金钱、文化。有一次，米奇从报纸上剪下一句话给他看，是一位传媒大亨说的："我不想将来墓碑上刻着，他这辈子没拥有过一家电视网。"莫里看完没有笑，只是说，这就是很多人活着的样子：被一套不断告诉你"还不够"的文化推着走。买了大房子还想要更大的，赚了第一笔钱还想赚更多，总觉得下一样东西到手，才会真的安心。
Every Tuesday, Morrie would have a topic ready to discuss - the world, self-pity, family, money, culture. One day, Mitch brought him a line clipped from a newspaper, something said by a media billionaire: "I don't want my tombstone to say I never owned a network." Morrie read it and didn't laugh. He just said that's how a lot of people live - pushed along by a culture that keeps telling them it isn't enough. You buy a big house and want a bigger one; you make your first million and want more; you keep thinking the next thing you get is finally going to make you feel settled.
他说，如果这套文化不适合你，你完全有权利不买账，自己去建一套——小事上不必样样和人对着干，红灯照样停。但什么才是真正重要的，这个答案不必照抄别人的。
He said if that culture doesn't fit you, you're allowed not to buy into it - build your own instead. You don't have to fight every small rule; stop at red lights like everyone else. But deciding what actually matters - that answer doesn't have to be borrowed from anyone.
米奇一开始是带着记者的习惯在听，想从里面摘出一两句能用的金句。可听得越多，他越发现，真正需要调整的不是笔记本上的句子，而是自己那套被工作填满、却说不清到底在忙什么的生活。
At first, Mitch listened the way a reporter would - trying to catch one or two quotable lines. But the more he listened, the more he realized what actually needed adjusting wasn't anything in his notebook. It was the entire life he'd built, filled wall to wall with work he couldn't quite explain the point of.
有一次他忍不住问老师，一点一点失去对身体的控制，到底是什么感觉。莫里说，等真的失去说话、吞咽、呼吸的能力那天，大概才是最难的；但在那之前，他拒绝提前替自己哀悼。
Once he couldn't help asking his teacher what it actually felt like, losing control of his body bit by bit. Morrie said the hardest part would probably come the day he lost the ability to speak, to swallow, to breathe - but until then, he refused to mourn himself in advance.
他也不否认痛苦。身体彻底不听使唤的那些夜里，他会一个人哭。可第二天，他照常醒来，继续说话，继续生活——哪怕只剩手指和脸还能动，他说，也宁愿把这点力气，用来笑、用来听一首歌，而不是用来可怜自己。
He didn't pretend it didn't hurt. On the nights his body wouldn't obey him at all, he cried alone. But the next morning, he got up as usual, kept talking, kept living - even with just his fingers and his face still able to move, he said he'd rather spend that strength laughing, listening to a song, than feeling sorry for himself.
谈到婚姻，莫里常提起一句诗——"相爱，或者死亡"，这是他年轻时读到、后来当成一生信条的一句话。他和妻子夏绿蒂一起生活了几十年。他说，两个人能不能走下去，关键不在于吵不吵架，而在于有没有一套彼此都认的规矩：什么最重要，什么能让，什么不能让。
On the subject of marriage, Morrie often quoted a line of poetry - "Love each other, or perish" - something he'd read when he was young and had carried as a kind of personal creed ever since. He'd spent decades with his wife, Charlotte. He said whether two people could stay together had little to do with whether they fought, and everything to do with whether they agreed on one shared set of rules - what mattered most, what could be let go, and what couldn't.
谈到宽恕，他指了指书架上一座铜像，说那是老朋友诺曼三十年前替他做的。后来诺曼搬去了芝加哥，正赶上夏绿蒂动一次大手术，诺曼却没打过一个电话。莫里为此很受伤，两人渐渐就断了来往。
