◎Amy Twain

What is a man’s first duty? The answer is brief: To be himself.

Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant.

～Robert Louis Stevenson

By the time you read this, you probably heard of the inspiring life story of Susan Boyle. A 47-year-old, unemployed, never been married （and never been kissed）woman from Scotland who elicited lots of praises and compliments not just from the three judges, but also from millions of people across the universe, thanks to Youtube.

Her inspiring story spread rapidly like wildfire and inspires others （especially underdogs and dark horses like her）to reach for your dreams no matter what. The Britain’s Got Talent contestant （by far the most popular these days）, delivered a strong performance backed up with an even appropriate and inspirational song, “ I Dreamed a Dream ” from Les Miserables . I like watching that show, in the sense that Britain’s Got Talent is indeed about talent. It’s about talent through and through, despite your looks, and your age. And what I even like most about the inspiring story of Ms. Susan Boyle is that it’s as if she’s the epitome of dreaming and believing in your dreams—and not putting an age limit to your dreams and goals.

美丽语录

一个人的首要职责是什么？答案很简单：做自己。

不要问自己收获了多少果实，而是要问自己今天播种了多少种子。

——罗伯特·路易斯·斯蒂文森

在你读这篇文章时，你也许已经听过苏珊大妈那鼓舞人心的故事了。她是一位来自苏格兰的47岁失业女性，她从未结过婚（也从没被亲吻过）。由于Youtube视频网站，她获得了来自三位评委和全球成千上万的人们的高度赞美和褒奖。

她那鼓舞人心的故事迅速地传播开来，并且激励着其他人（尤其是像她一样的弱者和黑马）努力追寻自己的梦想，不管这些梦想是什么样的。这位“英国达人秀”的参赛者（目前最受欢迎的选手）通过一首恰如其分且鼓舞人心的歌曲——选自《悲惨世界》中的《我有一个梦想》，为观众呈现了一场精彩的表演。我喜欢看“英国达人秀”，因为就某种意义而言，这实际上是个完完全全关于人才的节目。它无关乎你的相貌、你的年龄。对于苏珊大妈那激励人心的故事，我最喜欢的一点就是，她就像是你们梦想中追梦和信仰的缩影——不要给你们的梦想和目标设定年龄限制。

What makes this inspiring story so appealing to the masses, is the fact that we have a not-so-young dreamer dreaming to be a professional singer （wants to be as successful as Elaine Paige at that）, when generally, dreaming is associated for the young and their promising future. But here, we have Susan Boyle to change the face of dreaming big and giving us her inspiring story.

Truly, she’s not just a living example, but also a living inspiration as well! I know of other singing competitions that imposed age limits on their contestants. It’s good that Britain’s Got Talent never limits their contestants for a certain age bracket only. Why this allure about second chances and underdogs and dark horses? And why not—it just goes to show that all of us, at some moments in our lives, can relate to being underdogs, since we experienced what it feels like being an underdog ourselves.

We want to inspired and strengthened after failure, rejection, and frustration. An inspiring story like Susan Boyle’s is just one strong validation and we felt justified that we can be like her. She’s also a real person （and not just any fictitious character）and she’s like one of us, living an ordinary life but who wants to have a better life.

So, how who can resist this inspiring story? As we live our day to day struggle in our lives, we all need some bits of inspiration to make us smile, enlightened, hopeful and optimistic for our future. And we don’t need pretty faces, toned muscles, almost-perfect hair that light up our TV screens to make us inspired.

这个鼓舞人心的故事如此受到大众的关注，是因为我们知道了一个不那么年轻的梦想家梦想着成为专业歌者（她想像忆莲·佩姬一样成功），而通常来说，梦想是和年轻人以及他们光明的前途联系在一起的。但是现在，苏珊大妈为我们呈现了她那鼓舞人心的故事，改变了我们对追求远大梦想的看法。

事实上，她不仅仅是个活生生的例子，同样也是个鲜活的激励人心的人。我知道其他歌唱比赛对参赛选手有年龄限制。而值得高兴的是，“英国达人秀”从未对它的参赛者限制年龄。为什么它会带来新机会，吸引弱者和黑马呢？为什么不呢？它只是向所有人展示，在生命的某些时刻，我们都可能成为弱者，因为我们都体验过成为弱者是什么滋味。

我们希望在经历过失败、拒绝和沮丧之后，能够备受鼓舞，从而变得更加强大。像苏珊大妈这样的故事只是一个强有力的证明，让我们有理由相信我们也能像她一样。同样，她也是个真实的人（不是什么虚构人物），她和我们一样，过着普通人的生活，只不过，她想追求更好的生活。

因此，人们怎么能抵抗这个鼓舞人心的故事呢？当我们日复一日地为我们的生活拼搏时，我们都需要一些激励来启发自己，让我们微笑，让我们受益匪浅，使我们乐观地、充满希望地面对未来。我们并不需要漂亮的脸蛋、健美的肌肉和几近完美的秀发，不需要用这些来点亮我们的电视荧屏，进而激励我们自己。

On the contrary, it’s those flawed, ordinary-looking individuals which we can relate to that make us more humane and we can say, “If she can do it, I can too.” And I love that smiling aura of Ms. Boyle devoid of any arrogance or self-pity （unemployed, but still looking）when asked what she’s going to do onstage.

She said, “I’m gonna wow the audience.” And boy, she did more than just that—she even received a standing ovation not just from the crowd, but also from the two judges. Everybody’s got an inspiring story—what’s yours?

相反地，那些与我们差不多的、不完美的、相貌平平的普通人，才会使我们更受鼓舞。因此，我们可以说：“如果她能做得到，那我也能行。”我喜欢苏珊大妈淡然微笑的气质，当被问到她将在台上做什么表演时，她没有表现出任何的自大或自怜（虽说处于失业状态，但她依然在找工作）。

她说：“我将要震惊全场。”朋友，她不仅做到了这点，她甚至使全场观众和两位评委起立鼓掌。每个人都有个鼓舞人心的故事，你的故事又是什么？ Af2BaA0jwlVYnSYvufFxPBnBZKW4M2mEsC/lrECvjruxvytliDfZvll1xKs7LE5U