I Don’t Know

By Sophie Zhang

As I look back on the articles I have written, I realize I have often written about realizations I have come to or small epiphanies I have had as a result of major events in my life:1. realization： 領悟；epiphany： 頓悟。high school graduation, starting college, breaking up with my first real boyfriend…

But now, as college graduation drew near, I have come to one more epiphany.Except this time, it’s different. I am not all-knowing. I may have learned a lot during my time, but there is one common theme that has constantly threaded itself through my life, that I have always ignored: I don’t know.2.一路走來，我也許學到了很多，但有一個想法一直貫穿于我的生活之中，我卻總是忽略，那就是：我不知道。thread through： 貫穿。I don’t know many things, and, at any moment in time, there will always be something that I don’t know. I don’t know where I’ll be one year from now. I don’t know what I’ll be doing with my life five years from now. I don’t know who I’ll marry, who my friends will be, or even what kind of person I’ll be.

We don’t like to admit that we don’t know things. We want to impress everyone with how much we do know. We want to show people that we have things planned out, that we know where we’re going in life, and that we are put together. Not being sure or not knowing something are signs of weakness.Especially growing up in a Chinese family and around my family’s friends,everyone was always so sure about their lives and what they wanted to do five,ten, twenty years from now.

At 17, I came into college with a half-shaped idea that I would one day go to law school and be a lawyer. At 17, I had no idea what it meant to be a lawyer or what studying law really entailed.3. 17歲的我，并不知道成為律師意味著什么，也不知道學習法律到底會帶來什么。entail： 導致。All I knew was that my parents thought I would be a good lawyer, and that meant I should be one. But at 21, you grow up and you learn some more things. I still don’t know what I’m meant to4. be meant to： 有意做……，應當做……。be. But one thing I have learned is that I don’t know if I’m cut out to be5. be cut out to be： 適合當……，是……的材料。a lawyer. I’ve learned that I am emotional6. emotional： 情緒化的。. That it’s difficult for me to be objective when it comes to people’s livelihoods.7. objective： 客觀的；livelihood： 生計。All qualities that are not compatible with8. be compatible with：與……相配。being a good lawyer.

隨著年齡的增長，你會越來越發(fā)現(xiàn)自己很渺小，仍有很多事情不清楚，比如自己以后想做什么，以后的生活會是什么樣子等等。這些不清楚不僅不會隨著歲月而變得清晰，相反會變得更加模糊。面對這些未知、未解，你也許會因此害怕、無助，甚至茫然。不過，換個角度想想，也許正是有了這些感受，我們才會對今后的生活充滿好奇，生活也才因此變得豐富多彩。

So, yes. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I know I’m not going to be a lawyer.

Learning one thing does not mean you know one more thing. It is not a balanced equation9. balanced equation： 平衡方程式。. If I learn something, does that mean I can cross one more thing off the “I Don’t Know” list?10. 如果我學習某件事，就意味著自己能在“我不知道”的清單上劃掉一項嗎？No. Sometimes, learning more means not knowing more. Writing papers and researching often result in even more unanswered questions. But those questions are meaningful.There is value in knowing what you don’t know. Science and math, what we think are the most concrete and quantifiable fields out there, are full of unanswerable questions.11. concrete： 具體的；quantifiable： 可量化的；unanswerable： 無法回答的。But from those unanswerable questions, we learn more about our world and our universe. How do we beat gravity12. gravity： 重力。?Is it even possible to beat gravity? If so, how? If not, why? These are all questions that have prompted years of research and have led to many other important scientific discoveries that would not have occurred had the unknowable not been identified.13. 所有這些問題促使人們花費數(shù)年時間去研究，由此得出很多其他重要的科學發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果那些未知沒有被弄清楚，也就不會有這些發(fā)現(xiàn)。prompt： 促使；identify： 確定。

Congratulations to the people who are born knowing that they are meant to be doctors, or investment bankers, or lawyers. I am not one of those people. I might end up being one of those things, but for now,I don’t know. In some ways, there is relief knowing that I don’t know everything. What a burden it must be to always have the answer to something, for all the mystery of our fantastic world to be erased.14. burden： 負擔； fantastic：奇幻的； erase： 消除。How wonderful it is for there always to be a surprise waiting for me at the end of a long day. How grateful I am for that romance.