1. 童年 Childhood
It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: ""We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?"" They said: ""Of course."" My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.
——Stanford commencement speech, June 2005
故事从我出生的时候讲起。我的亲生母亲是一个年轻的，没有结婚的大学毕业生。她决定让别人收养我， 她十分想让我被大学毕业生收养。所以在我出生的时候，她已经做好了一切的准备工作，能使得我被一个律师和他的妻子所收养。但是她没有料到，当我出生之后，律师夫妇突然决定他们想要一个女孩。 所以我的养父母（他们还在我亲生父母的观察名单上）突然在半夜接到了一个电话：“我们现在这儿有一个不小心生出来的男婴，你们想要他吗？”他们回答道：“当然！”但是我亲生母亲随后发现，我的养母从来没有上过大学，我的父亲甚至从没有读过高中。她拒绝签这个收养合同。只是在几个月以后，我的父母答应她一定要让我上大学，那个时候她才同意。
——斯坦福毕业典礼演讲，2005年6月
“So does that mean your real parents didn’t want you?” the girl asked. Lightning bolts went off in my head, I remember running into the house, crying. And my parents said, “No, you have to understand.” They were very serious and looked me straight in the eye. They said, “We specifically picked you out.” Both of my parents said that and repeated it slowly for me. And they put an emphasis on every word in that sentence.
——Steve Jobs，by Walter Isaacson,2011
（当我告诉一个女孩我是被领养时）“这是不是说明你的亲生父母不要你了？”女孩问。天哪，我当时就像被闪电击中了一样，我跑回家，大声哭喊。我父母说：“不是这样的，你要理解这件事情。”他们当时很严肃，直直地看着我的眼睛。他们说：“我们是专门挑的你。”他们两人都这么说，并且放慢语速向我重复这句话。他们强调了这句话里的每一个字。
——《史蒂夫·乔布斯传》，沃尔特·艾萨克森著，2011年
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