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I was having coffee this morning with a dear friend who's going through a difficult time at work.
今天早上我和一個在工作中遇到困難的好朋友一起喝咖啡。
In one of those moments that make you wonder who's winding the clock of life, my phone buzzed while we were sitting there.
在你想知道是誰在給生命的時鐘上弦的一個時刻，我們坐在那里時，我的電話響了。
It was an e-mail from my old friend Ryan, and all I saw was the subject line: "Success."
那是來自我的老朋友瑞恩的一封郵件，我只看到一個主題：“成功”。
Some 17 years ago, Ryan and I were sportswriters at "competing" small newspapers in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley.
大約17年前，瑞恩和我是雪蘭多的山谷里相競爭的小報的體育專欄作家。
We had about a half dozen high schools, a Division III university, and a summer baseball league in our coverage area.
在我們的報道范圍內，我們有大約六所高中，一所三級大學和一個夏季棒球聯賽。
In that lava-hot turf war, we somehow became friends. We've kept in touch, but it'd been a few months since we'd talked when this curiously timed e-mail arrived.
在那場激烈的地盤爭奪戰中，我們不知怎么成了朋友。我們一直保持聯系，但這封時間奇怪的電子郵件收到時，我們已經幾個月沒有聯系了。
He said he was preparing a speech for the next week.
他說他正在為下周的演講做準備。
He's now a project manager for a research firm near Washington, and the speech he was going to give was titled "How Do You Define Success?"
他現在是靠近華盛頓的一家調研公司的一個項目經理，他要發表的演講名為“你如何定義成功？”
I've contributed to a publication called Success, so he turned the question to me: "How do you define success?" I thought of my coffee conversation and typed this:
我為一本名為《成功》的刊物撰稿，所以他問了我這個問題：“你如何定義成功？”我想起我在喝咖啡時的談話，寫了這樣一封信：
Hey, man,Good to hear from you again. And good timing. Your e-mail came in just as I was chatting with another friend, who's going through one of those rough spells at work.
嘿，伙計，很高興又聽到你的消息。時機也很好。你的電子郵件來的時候，我正在和另一個朋友聊天，他正在經歷一段艱難的工作時期。
I wish I had better advice. What a broad question! You know, after I left the Shenan-doah Valley, my next job was in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.
我希望我有更好的建議。這是個多么寬泛的問題啊！你知道，在我離開謝南多厄山谷之后，我的下一份工作是在北卡羅來納州的落基山。
I made $22,500 a year—and this was 2005, not a generation ago. The two other sportswriters on staff, Travis and Jeff, were in their mid-20s too.
我一年掙22,500美元，那是在2005年，而不是一代人以前。另外兩位體育記者特拉維斯和杰夫也都在25歲左右。
Honestly, we'd come to Rocky Mount to leave Rocky Mount. We spent our time talking about what life must be like at a "real" newspaper.
說實話，我們來洛基山是為了離開洛基山。我們把時間花在談論“真正的”報紙上的生活應該是什么樣的。
We griped about our shop and drooled over the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News&Observer.
我們抱怨著我們的工作，對《夏洛特觀察家報》和《羅利新聞與觀察家報》垂涎三尺。
What resources they had! Writers who covered only one team and didn't have to lay out pages or proofread box scores.
他們有多么豐富的資源啊！只報道一個球隊的作家，不需要布置頁面或校對框分數。
Talk about living the dream. If we could just get to one of those places!
談論生活的夢想。如果我們能去其中一個地方就好了！
Then we could go somewhere else! Travis, Jeff, and I bonded over our desire to part ways.
然后我們可以去別的地方！特拉維斯、杰夫和我因為想要分手而走得很近。
We ate dinner together, went out to cover our games, and came back to help send the final pages to the printer by our 1:30 a.m. deadline.
我們一塊吃晚飯，一塊去播報我們的比賽，然后回來，在我們凌晨1點半的截止日期前幫忙把終稿送到印刷工那里。
On the best nights, we'd grab the news editors and copy editors and play Wiffle ball in the parking lot until 4 a.m. laughing and joking until almost sunrise.
在最好的夜晚，我們會叫上新聞編輯和文案編輯，在停車場玩威浮球，一直玩到凌晨4點。
