Unit 5 How to Be True to yourself 课文翻译 综合教程一

Unit 5 How to Be True to Yourself

My grandparents believed you were either honest or you weren't. There was no in-between. They had a simple motto hanging on their living-room wall: "Life is like a field of newly fallen snow; where I choose to walk every step will show." They didn't have to talk about it—they demonstrated the motto by the way they lived.

They understood instinctively that integrity means having a personal standard of morality and ethics that does not sell out to expediency and that is not relative to the situation at hand. Integrity is an inner standard for judging your behavior. Unfortunately, integrity is in short supply today—and getting scarcer. But it is the real bottom line in every area of society. And it is something we must demand of ourselves.

A good test for this value is to look at what I call the Integrity Triad, which consists of three key principles:

Stand firmly for your convictions in the face of personal pressure. There's a story told about a surgical nurse's first day on the medical team at a well-known hospital. She was responsible for ensuring that all instruments and materials were accounted for during an abdominal operation. The nurse said to the surgeon, "You've only removed 11 sponges, and we used 12. We need to find the last one."

"I removed them all," the doctor declared. "We'll close now."

"You can't do that, sir," objected the rookie nurse, "Think of the patient."

Smiling, the surgeon lifted his foot and showed the nurse the 12th sponge. "You'll do just fine in this or any other hospital," he told her.

When you know you are right, you can't back down.

Always give others credit that is rightfully theirs. Don't be afraid of those who might have a better idea or who might even be smarter than you are.

David Ogilvy, founder of the advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, made this point clear to his newly appointed office heads by sending each a Russian nesting doll with five progressively smaller figures inside.

His message was contained in the smallest doll: "If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, Ogilvy & Mather will become a company of giants." And that is precisely what the company became—one of the largest and most respected advertising organizations in the world.

Be honest and open about what you really are. People who lack genuine core values rely on external factors—their looks or status—in order to feel good about themselves. Inevitably they will do everything they can to preserve this facade, but they will do very little to develop their inner value and personal growth.

So be yourself. Don't engage in a personal cover-up of areas that are unpleasing in your life. When it's tough, do it tough. In other words, face reality and be adult in your responses to life's challenges.

Self-respect and a clear conscience are powerful components of integrity and are the basis for enriching your relationships with others.

Integrity means you do what you do because it's right and not just fashionable or politically correct. A life of principle, of not succumbing to the seductive sirens of an easy morality, will always win the day. It will take you forward into the 21st century without having to check your tracks in a rearview mirror. My grandparents taught me that.

如何成为真正的自我

我的祖父母认为你要么诚实，要么就不诚实。没有折中之选。在他们起居室的墙上挂了一句朴实的座右铭：“人生犹如初雪之野，我择路而行之处，步步清晰可见。”他们从不用解释这句话——他们用自己的生活方式证明了这句座右铭。

他们本能地理解了诚信意味着有一套自己的道德规范和准则，这套个人行为准则不能因私利而出卖．与个人当前所处的局势也毫无关联。诚信是判断你行为的一种内在标准。很不幸的是，在今天，诚信已不多见，且越来越少。但它却真的是社会各个活动领域中最重要的，也是我们每人的必备之物。

对这个价值观一个很好的测试，就是观察这个我称之为“诚信三角”的东西，它由三个关键原则构成：

在个人面临压力时牢牢坚守自己的信念。这里有一个故事，讲述了一位外科护士第一天在一家著名医院的医疗队工作时发生的事。她负责确保腹腔手术中用到的一切器材都要有据可查。护士对外科医生说：“您只取出了11块纱布，但是我们用了12块。我们必须找到最后一块。”

“我已全部取出，”医生宣称。“我们现在开始缝合。”

“您不能这样做，先生，”这名护士新手反对说，“请为病人着想。”

外科医生微笑着抬起脚，给护士看第12块纱布。“无论是在这家还是其他医院，你都会干得非常出色，”他告诉她。

当你知道自己是正确的时候，你就不能退缩。

总是给那些人应得的赞扬。不要害怕那些能想出更好点子或者可能比你聪明的人。

大卫·奥格威，奥美广告公司的创办人，曾通过这样的方式来向他新任命的办公室主任们清楚地表达这个观点：他给他们每人发了一个俄罗斯套娃，每个娃娃里面都还有五个娃娃，一个套一个且一个比一个小。

他的意图就在最小的那个娃娃里面：“如果我们每个人都任用一个比我们还小的人，我们将会成为一家侏儒公司。但是如果我们每个人都任用一个比我们大的人，奥美将成为一家巨人公司。”这恰恰就是现在的奥美公司——世界上最大最受尊敬的广告公司之一。

做一个坦诚的自我。缺乏真正核心价值的人们依赖于外界因素——他们的外表或地位—

—为了自我感觉良好。他们不可避免地竭尽所能来维护这个外表，却忽视了内在价值观的培养和个人成长。

所以要做自己。不要忙于去遮掩你生命中不光彩的部分。既来之，则安之。换句话说，面对现实，以成熟的心态迎接生命的挑战。

自尊和无愧的良心是诚信的重要组成部分，也是你与他人增进友谊的基础。

诚信意味着你做某件事是因为这样做是对的，而不是仅仅为了赶时髦或符合政治要求。一种生活有了这样的原则：不会屈从于任何受利益驱使的道德观的诱惑，那么它将永远使你立于不败之地。它将指引你在迈向2l世纪时，不必回首你的人生轨迹。这是祖父母教给我的。