We were just about getting ready to warm up for the practice game over the weekend when I had an interesting conversation with one of the team mates I actually didn’t know quite well。
周末的时候，当我们正要为即将到来的游戏热身，团队成员中有一个我其实不太了解的成员和我进行了一场有趣的对话。
"So what do you do?" he asked. "Well, we work for ourselves, we run a software company", I replied. "Oh really! that’s awesome! I work for xyz company, but you know I always wanted to get into animation design and work for myself. It was my dream. I got stuck in the wrong industry."
“你是做什么工作的?”他问道。“嗯，我们为自己打工，我们开了一个软件公司”我回答。“真的?那真是太棒了!我为XX公司工作，但你知道我一直想做动画设计，想做自由职业。那是我的梦想。我现在被困在一个错误的行业里。”
"You ain’t dead yet, are you?" I thought trying hard not say that aloud. He continued "You know, I’ve been wanting to do this for 10 years now, but once you have a family, it’s very tough to do anything else."
“你不还没死呢吗……” 我挣扎着没把这句吼出来。他继续说：“你知道吗?我想做这行都有十年了，但是一旦你有了家庭，那想要再做点儿别的事就难了。”
I couldn’t resist anymore, so I said "That’s great, if you really want to do that, may be you should take up some animation classes, or do some self learning at your own pace. That would be a good start". Pat came the reply "Nahh it’s very difficult, with family, full time job, no time. I would love to, but I can’t."
我再也受不了了，于是我说：“如果你真想做那行那很好啊!也许你应该上一些动画设计的课程，或者是用你自己的节奏自学。那会是个好开始!” 那哥们儿给我回了一句：“啊!?那得多难啊。有家庭、有全职工作，我根本没时间!我是很喜欢，但是我做不了啊!”
Reluctantly, I suggested "Then may be you should consider training full time for a few weeks/months and perhaps dive in full-time?" He looked at me like I had just asked him to cut off his right hand. "Are you crazy? Where will the paycheck come from?"
我老大不乐意地建议他说：“那也许，你应该试试花几周、或是几个月的时间集中培训，要不就辞职去学习?” 他看着我那小样儿就跟我在教他剁掉自己右手似的：“你疯了吗?那我要怎么生活!?”
Realizing this conversation was heading towards an argument with someone I didn’t know very well at the first place, I chose to just smile and leave it at that. But it made me think. What is it with people refusing to take some risks to follow their dreams. Are their dreams not worth it? If not, why do we sulk about them later? Don’t we owe it to ourselves to at least give our dreams a fair shot?
想到这场对话跟着就会向吵架发展了，而对方我一开始就不太熟，于是我选择放弃，只是笑笑。但这确实让我想到：这些人都怎么了?不就要你们冒点儿险、追随自己的梦想吗?是你们的梦想不值得你们这么做吗?如果真不是，那到头来你们又在烦什么呢?我们是不是应该给我们自己的梦想至少一个机会呢?
(本文是一个国外作者的博文，我们可以看到英文的用词都很口语化，难度不大。大家不妨试试自己的翻译水平接着翻译接下去的段落吧。)
Now, I understand, diving in full time isn’t always an option for everybody, but that shouldn’t deter us from at least starting to move in the right direction. Take baby steps I say, if you can’t afford drastic measures, but for God’s sake don’t kill your dreams。
We all had some crazy ideas and dreams when we were kids. When people asked - "What do you want to do when you grow up?" you didn’t say "I want to play safe and be an executive for a fortune 100 company" or "I want to work for the government for the job security"? You wanted to do something that excited you, that you were passionate about - "Armed forces, scientist, sports, music, dance, miss world" etc. You didn’t even think if that would get you enough money. You just wanted to do it。
So why is it that as we grow up we lose all the passion, the energy, the will and the strength to keep our dreams alive. Why does money dictate our passion or in most cases, kill it? Why do we let "safety of a paycheck" screw our dreams? Why do we stop thinking about what we love?
We are so seduced by the thought of a guaranteed paycheck every month that we completely ignore the fact that it’s actually never too late to pursue our dreams. The reason as I can understand is probably "fear of failure". We fear we might fail and that fear leads us to cook up stories about why you can’t have what you want. Alibis like "I don’t have time, I have family, I’ll do it when I have more money etc". Stories that convince us that it’s ok not to follow up on our dreams, that it’s ok not to do what you love, that it’s ok to just keep doing the everyday drill。
Like Tony Robbins put it - "The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have it"
What are we waiting for? A perfect day when all stars would line up in just the right direction and you would be guaranteed success? It never works that way. That moment of glory never arrives. All circumstances will almost never be in your favor. There will always be something that would be challenging. You just have to bite the bullet and take the plunge. When we set out to create Rootein, we didn’t wait for everything to be just perfect, much as we would have liked. We just dived in. We started developing rootein while we were working full-time. We loved what we were doing and we did it while keeping our day time jobs. It wasn’t easy, but it was fun because we were chasing our dream of working for ourselves, building software that we were passionate about。
May be it’s just us. May be we are weird. May be we are foolish, but we would rather be foolish and strive to live our dream than come up with some alibis. True success is not money driven, it’s driven by love and passion. You’ve got to love what you are doing and you’ve got to be passionate about it。
Failing is not scary. What’s scary is that you are 60 and reflecting back on your life "May be I should’ve given my dreams a chance, may be I would’ve succeeded, may be I would’ve lived my dream" But now it’s too late. You might have missed the boat。
Don’t be scared to follow your dreams. That’s the worst thing you can do to yourself。
Rocky sing!
"So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive"
