We Are Just Beginning在起跑线上

By Charles F. Kettering

“We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite.”

“我们正在阅读一本不知道多少页数的书的第一章的第一节…”

I do not know who wrote those words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it. We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just like a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.

我不知道这段文字是谁写的，但我一直很喜欢用它来提醒自己：未来操之在我。我们可以掌握神秘而不可知的未来，从中创出我们所能想象的任何东西，一如雕刻家可以将一块没有形状的石头刻成雕像一样。

We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.

我们每个人都像是一个农夫。如果我们种下好种子，就会有丰收。如果种子不好而且田里杂草丛生，虽会有点儿收成但却派不上多大用场。而如果我们什么都不种，就根本不会有任何收获。

I want the future to be better than the past. I don’t want it contaminated by the mistakes and errors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the reminder of our lives. The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it.

不管怎样，我希望未来会比过去更好。我不希望在未来再犯下那些充斥在历史中的错误。关心未来吧，因为我们的余生都要在未来中度过。往昔已经一去不复返了，而且是静止的，任凭我们怎么努力都不能改变它了。而未来就在我们眼前，而且是动态的，我们的任何行为都会影响到它。

Each day will brings with it new frontiers, in our homes and in our businesses, if we will only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.

如果我们能够认识得到，我们会发现每天都会有一些新的情况发生，在家里，还有我们的事业里。人类在每个领域都努力向前，而我们就处在起跑线上。