只做我自己
●Tom Krause
○王文明 译注
From the time I was little, I knew I was GREat
’cause the people would tell me, “You’ll make it—just wait.”
But they never did tell me how great I would be
if I ever played someone who was greater than me.
When I’m in the back yard, I’m king with the ball.
To swish all those baskets is no sweat at all.
But all of a sudden there’s a man in my face
who doesn’t seem to realize that I’m king of this place.
So the pressure gets to me; I rush with the ball.
My passes to teammates could go through the wall.
My jumpers not falling, my dribbles not sure.
My hand is not steady, my eye is not pure.
The fault is my teammates—they don’t understand.
The fault is my coaches—what a terrible plan.
The fault is the call by that blind referee .
But the fault is not mine; I’m the greatest, you see.
Then finally it hit me when I started to see
That the face in the mirror looked exactly like me.
It wasn’t my teammates who were dropping the ball,
and it wasn’t my coach shooting bricks at the wall.
That face in the mirror that was always so great
had some room for improvement instead of just hate.
So I stopped blaming others and I started to grow.
My play got much better and it started to show.
And all of my teammates didn’t seem quite so bad.
I learned to depend on the good friends I had.
Now I like myself better since I started to see
that I was lousy being great—I’m much better being me.
很小我就知道，我挺伟大
人们常对我说：“你能成的——等着瞧吧。”
但能有多伟大，他们从没告诉过我，
如果我只去扮演比我伟大一些的人。
在后院玩起球来，我就是个大王
把球灌进篮里，那还不是小事一桩。
可突然一个人站到我的面前，
他好像没意识到这里是我的地盘。
我感到了压力，我撵着球狂奔，
我传给队友的球能把墙射穿。
跳投不利落，运球没把握，
手也不太稳，眼神不单纯。
错在队友——他们没领会我的意图，
错在教练——他是哪门子的攻略！
错在那个睁眼瞎的裁判胡判一气，
反正错不在我；你晓得，我是最棒的。
后来仿佛当头一棍，我开始看清，
镜中的面孔看上去和我俨然一人；
开始看清，不是队友丢了球，
也不是教练朝墙扔砖头。
镜中的那张脸，一向志得意满，
它不该愤愤不平，倒有相当余地改进。
因此我停止指摘别人，我自己开始成长，
球技大有长进，这也表现在场上。
原来我的队友，并不是都很糟，
我有了一些好友，我学着对他们依靠。
现在我更喜欢自己，自从我开始看清：
做我自己好得多，卖帅其实才逊。
