I Don’t Know

By Sophie Zhang

As I look back on the articles I have written, I realize I have often written about realizations I have come to or small epiphanies I have had as a result of major events in my life:1. realization： 领悟；epiphany： 顿悟。high school graduation, starting college, breaking up with my first real boyfriend…

But now, as college graduation drew near, I have come to one more epiphany.Except this time, it’s different. I am not all-knowing. I may have learned a lot during my time, but there is one common theme that has constantly threaded itself through my life, that I have always ignored: I don’t know.2.一路走来，我也许学到了很多，但有一个想法一直贯穿于我的生活之中，我却总是忽略，那就是：我不知道。thread through： 贯穿。I don’t know many things, and, at any moment in time, there will always be something that I don’t know. I don’t know where I’ll be one year from now. I don’t know what I’ll be doing with my life five years from now. I don’t know who I’ll marry, who my friends will be, or even what kind of person I’ll be.

We don’t like to admit that we don’t know things. We want to impress everyone with how much we do know. We want to show people that we have things planned out, that we know where we’re going in life, and that we are put together. Not being sure or not knowing something are signs of weakness.Especially growing up in a Chinese family and around my family’s friends,everyone was always so sure about their lives and what they wanted to do five,ten, twenty years from now.

At 17, I came into college with a half-shaped idea that I would one day go to law school and be a lawyer. At 17, I had no idea what it meant to be a lawyer or what studying law really entailed.3. 17岁的我，并不知道成为律师意味着什么，也不知道学习法律到底会带来什么。entail： 导致。All I knew was that my parents thought I would be a good lawyer, and that meant I should be one. But at 21, you grow up and you learn some more things. I still don’t know what I’m meant to4. be meant to： 有意做……，应当做……。be. But one thing I have learned is that I don’t know if I’m cut out to be5. be cut out to be： 适合当……，是……的材料。a lawyer. I’ve learned that I am emotional6. emotional： 情绪化的。. That it’s difficult for me to be objective when it comes to people’s livelihoods.7. objective： 客观的；livelihood： 生计。All qualities that are not compatible with8. be compatible with：与……相配。being a good lawyer.

随着年龄的增长，你会越来越发现自己很渺小，仍有很多事情不清楚，比如自己以后想做什么，以后的生活会是什么样子等等。这些不清楚不仅不会随着岁月而变得清晰，相反会变得更加模糊。面对这些未知、未解，你也许会因此害怕、无助，甚至茫然。不过，换个角度想想，也许正是有了这些感受，我们才会对今后的生活充满好奇，生活也才因此变得丰富多彩。

So, yes. I don’t know what I’m going to do. But I know I’m not going to be a lawyer.

Learning one thing does not mean you know one more thing. It is not a balanced equation9. balanced equation： 平衡方程式。. If I learn something, does that mean I can cross one more thing off the “I Don’t Know” list?10. 如果我学习某件事，就意味着自己能在“我不知道”的清单上划掉一项吗？No. Sometimes, learning more means not knowing more. Writing papers and researching often result in even more unanswered questions. But those questions are meaningful.There is value in knowing what you don’t know. Science and math, what we think are the most concrete and quantifiable fields out there, are full of unanswerable questions.11. concrete： 具体的；quantifiable： 可量化的；unanswerable： 无法回答的。But from those unanswerable questions, we learn more about our world and our universe. How do we beat gravity12. gravity： 重力。?Is it even possible to beat gravity? If so, how? If not, why? These are all questions that have prompted years of research and have led to many other important scientific discoveries that would not have occurred had the unknowable not been identified.13. 所有这些问题促使人们花费数年时间去研究，由此得出很多其他重要的科学发现，如果那些未知没有被弄清楚，也就不会有这些发现。prompt： 促使；identify： 确定。

Congratulations to the people who are born knowing that they are meant to be doctors, or investment bankers, or lawyers. I am not one of those people. I might end up being one of those things, but for now,I don’t know. In some ways, there is relief knowing that I don’t know everything. What a burden it must be to always have the answer to something, for all the mystery of our fantastic world to be erased.14. burden： 负担； fantastic：奇幻的； erase： 消除。How wonderful it is for there always to be a surprise waiting for me at the end of a long day. How grateful I am for that romance.