I lost my sight when I was four years oldby falling off a box car in a freight yard in Atlantic City and landing on myhead. Now I am thirty-two. I can vaguely remember the brightness of sunshineand what color red is. It would be wonderful to see again, but a calamity cando strange things to people.

4岁那年在大西洋城，我从货场一辆火车上摔下来，头先着地，于是双目失明。现在我已经32岁了。我还模糊地记得阳光是多么灿烂，红色是多么鲜艳。能恢复视觉固然好，但灾难也能对人产生奇妙的作用。

It occurred to me the other day that Imight not have come to love life as I do if I hadn’t been blind. I believe inlife now. I am not so sure that I would have believed in it so deeply, otherwise.I don’t mean that I would prefer to go without my eyes. I simply mean that theloss of them made me appreciate the more what I had left.

有一天我突然想到，倘若我不是盲人，我或许不会变得像现在这样热爱生活。现在我相信生活，但我不能肯定如果自己是明眼人，会不会像现在这样深深地相信生活。这并不意味着我宁愿成为盲人，而只是意味着失去视力使我更加珍惜自己其他的能力。

Life, I believe, asks a continuous seriesof adjustments to reality. The more readily a person is able to make theseadjustments, the more meaningful his own private world becomes. The adjustmentis never easy. I was bewildered and afraid. But I was lucky. My parents and myteachers saw something in me ——a potential to live, you might call it ——which Ididn’t see, and they made me want to fight it out with blindness.

我认为，生活要求人不断地自我调整以适应现实。人愈能及时地进行调整，他的个人世界便愈有意义。调整决非易事。我曾感到茫然害怕，但我很幸运，父母和老师在我身上发现了某种东西——可以称之为活下去的潜力吧——而我自己却没有发现。他们激励我誓与失明拼搏到底。

The hardest lesson I had to learn was tobelieve in myself. That was basic. If I hadn't been able to do that, I wouldhave collapsed and become a chair rocker on the front porch for the rest of my life.When I say belief in myself I am not talking about simply the kind ofself-confidence that helps me down an unfamiliar staircase alone. That is partof it. But I mean something bigger than that: an assurance that I am, despiteimperfections, a real, positive person that somewhere in the sweeping,intricate pattern of people there is a special place where I can make myselffit.

我必须学会的最艰难的一课就是相信自己，这是基本条件。如做不到这一点，我的精神就会崩溃，只能坐在前门廊的摇椅中度过余生。相信自己并不仅仅指支持我独自走下陌生的楼梯的那种自信，那是一部分。我指的是大事：是坚信自己虽然有缺陷，却是一个真正的有进取心的人；坚信在芸芸众生错综复杂的格局当中，自有我可以安身立命的一席之地。

It took me years to discover and strengthenthis assurance. It had to start with the most elementary things. Once a mangave me an indoor baseball. I thought he was mocking me and I was hurt. 'Ican’t use this,' I said. 'Take it with you,' he urged me,'and roll it around. 'The words stuck in my head.' Roll itaround!' By rolling the ball I could hear where it went. This gave me anidea how to achieve a goal I had thought impossible: playing baseball. AtPhiladelphia’sOverbrookSchoolfor the Blind Iinvented a successful variation of baseball. We called it ground ball.

我花了很长时间才树立并不断加强这一信念。这要从最简单的事做起。有一次一个人给我一个室内玩的棒球，我以为他在嘲笑我，心里很难受。“我不能使这个。”我说。“你拿去，”他竭力劝我，“在地上滚。”他的话在我脑子里生了根。“在地上滚！”滚球使我听见它朝哪儿滚动。我马上想到一个我曾认为不可能达到的目标：打棒球。在费城的奥弗布鲁克盲人学校，我发明了一种很受人欢迎的棒球游戏，我们称它为地面球。

All my life I have set ahead of me a seriesof goals and then tried to reach them, one at a time. I had to learn mylimitations. It was no good to try for something I knew at the start was wildlyout of reach because that only invited the bitterness of failure. I would failsometimes anyway but on the average I made progress.

我这一辈子给自己树立了一系列目标，然后努力去达到，一次一个。我必须了解自己能力有限，若开始就知道某个目标根本达不到却硬要去实现，那不会有任何好处，因为那只会带来失败的苦果。我有时也失败过，但一般来说总有进步。