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Despite a lot of encouragement, despite political freedoms and psychological exhortations, we suffer, still, most of us, in silence.
尽管有对发声的鼓励, 尽管发声在政治上自由,也是心理驱使,我们大多数人还是保持沉默。
We don’t say quite say – until it is way too late – what is wrong, what we want, how we are angry, what we’re ashamed of and the way we would like things to be.
我们总是不爱说话，直到为时已晚，哪里错了，我们想要什么，我们有多生气，我们对什么感到羞耻，我们希望事态怎么发展。
It shouldn’t perhaps really be a surprise how hard the speaking up continues to feel.
把话说出来让人觉得困难，这或许不足为奇。
For most of the history of humanity, speaking up was about the most dangerous thing an ordinary human could do.
在人类历史上的多数时期，发声几乎是普通人能做的最危险的事。
There were mighty superiors above us, who demanded complete obedience and were strictly uninterested in anything we might have to say.
强权要求我们绝对服从，他们没有任何兴趣听取我们的想法。
Speaking up would have got one flogged, excommunicated or killed.
如果敢说出来，就会挨鞭子，被逐出教会或被杀死。
Democracy is, at best, some two hundred and fifty years old and our psychological development has a habit of lagging far beyond our social realities.
民主少说也有近二百五十年的历史了，而我们心理上的成熟度却远滞后于社会现实。
Long after a war is over, we respond with the fears of the hunted and centuries after the last feudal lord moved into an apartment in town,
战争结束很久之后，我们仍会表现出逃亡者的恐惧，末代封建领主搬入城市公寓后的几个世纪，
we behave with some of the meek humility of the cowed serf.
我们表现得温顺谦恭，就像被吓住的农奴。
In personal life, similar principles of submission have applied.
在个人生活中，类似的委曲求全的原则依然适用。
Throughout history, a good child did not speak up in any way.
纵观历史，好孩子从未以任何方式开口发言。
If we were sad, we cried softly in our pillow at night.
如果我们伤心了，晚上只在枕头里轻声哭泣。
If we mistakenly spilt some ink, we’d try to hide the evidence.
如果不小心洒了墨水，我们会费尽心思掩盖痕迹。
The adult does not have to be an outright bully to disable a child from speaking.
家长并不需要为了让孩子闭嘴，而成为彻头彻尾的恶霸。
If they are often on edge (preoccupied by matters at work),
如果他们经常焦躁不安（或许为工作事务忙得不可开交）
or seem depressed and close to breakdown
或者感到沮丧，近乎崩溃，
or have elevated yet rigid ideals of who their children should be,
或者对孩子应成为哪种人有着崇高而又坚定的理想，
the child might as well have a belt around their mouth.
这时候孩子倒不如谨言慎行。
So most of the years human beings have been on this planet, it’s been a story of festering, of sulking, of bitterness, of suppressed rage, of bitten lips – and of saying, openly, nothing.
所以人类在这星球上生活的大部分时间里，是一段充斥着恶化、生闷气、痛苦、压抑的愤怒、双唇紧闭、并且一言不发 的故事。
Only very recently, in the last second from an evolutionary perspective, have we awoken to the possible benefits and sometime necessity of speaking up.
直到最近，从进化的角度来看，我们才开始意识到发声的潜在好处及必要性。
We know that it is good in offices if people lower down the organisation speak up to those towards the top.
我们知道工作上，下级勇于向上级提出建议是好现象。
We know that it is good, in love, if partners who feel aggrieved and sad about something (however small and petty it might sound) speak up, so as to be able to feel affection and desire once more.
在恋爱关系中，情侣间能说出生气和难过的原因，(不管是多么鸡毛蒜皮的事,讲出来就是很好的）这也有利于进一步增进情感 加深了解。
We know in families that it is good if children manage to tell their parents they’re not interested in certain sorts of jobs or complain if they are being mistreated.
在家庭中，如果孩子能够直接告诉父母，他们不喜欢某个任务，或抱怨自己受到虐待这也是好现象。
But the legacies of our unfreedom are everywhere to be seen.
但是桎梏束缚的痕迹仍然随处可见。
We smile a little too readily, we try a little too hard to appease; we are a little too slow to articulate a hurt.
我们笑得过于做作，我们太努力去息事宁人了，我们表述伤害的速度有点慢。
We aren’t, in this respect, just being nice; we’re scared and ashamed.
从某种意义上说，这不只说明我们宽容，也是我们恐惧和难为情的表现。
Our friendliness is born not out of choice, but out of an inability to dare to cause upset.
我们的友善并非主观的选择，而是因为不敢惹麻烦。
To learn to speak up requires two rather odd-sounding things.
要做到敢于发声需要做到两点，虽然听起来怪怪的。
Firstly, a recognition that, at some level, we are afraid, afraid that if we speak we will be killed.
首先一种认识是--在某种程度上，我们害怕发声招致杀身之祸。
It sounds odd, and humiliating, but that is how little children feel when dad has slammed the door or mum has said enough times ‘you’ll be the end of me’,
这听起来怪怪的，还很丢人，但这就是父亲甩门而出时，或母亲反复说“你就是我的末日”时小孩子的想法，
and it is in the childhood imagination that our picture of what will happen if we speak are first formed.
在童年的想象中，我们第一次对发声的后果产生了印象。
And secondly, we need to acknowledge, in our mature moments, the adult truth that we will not after all be killed if we sepak,
其次，我们需要接受的是--在成熟阶段，成年人的真理是我们终究不会因发声而死，
because enough people have already died on our behalf to guarantee us the freedom of speech and our right to cross town and start a new life somewhere else.
因为已经有太多的人，为保证我们言论的自由，以及穿越城镇，在其他地方开始新生活的权利而牺牲。
We need to turn what is already enshrined in law into what finally feels believable to us psychologically – that we do, bravely, have the right speak up.
我们要把法律规定的内容变成我们内心最终觉得可信的东西，那就是我们确实有权利大胆地发声。
At The School of Life we believe that confidence is a skill we can all learn.
在《生命学院》相信我们都能学到自信这一技能。
Our Confidence Prompt Cards are designed to help us master this essential skill. Click now to learn more.
信心提示卡旨在帮我们掌握这项必要技能。点击此处了解更多。
