Name: 從無家可歸到哈佛面試 – Liz Murray 的勵志故事！ (From Homeless to Harvard Interview - Liz Murray)
Uploaded: 2025-12-10T03:19:59.000Z
Duration: 11 min 57 s

Hi, I'm Ashley Ford with Texas Lutheran University.

嗨，我是 Ashley Ford，來自 Texas Lutheran University。

現在進行式

Today I'm talking with Liz Murray, author of Breaking A Memoir, Forgiveness, Survival and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard.

今天我將和 Liz Murray 對談，她是《Breaking A Memoir, Forgiveness, Survival and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard》這本書的作者。

動名詞

Liz, thank you so much for coming out to tlu.

Now, your story is extremely powerful and for anyone who's not familiar with it, you, in your memoir, you vividly detail a childhood of growing up with drug addicted parents in the Bronx in a very rough neighborhood.

你的故事非常感人，對於還不熟悉你故事的朋友，在你的回憶錄裡，你生動地描寫了在 Bronx 的貧困社區中，與吸毒的父母一起長大的童年。

And you and your sister never knew where your next meal was going to come from.

你和你的妹妹從來不知道下一餐在哪裡。

What was kind of that aha moment when you got to be a teenager where you knew that you weren't going to let your circumstances and, and

當你進入青少年時期，是什麼樣的頓悟的時刻，讓你決定不讓你的環境和

the adversity you faced kind of pin you down into who you were going to be as an adult?

你所面對的逆境來定義你未來的成人樣貌？

There was that transformative moment, but

in a way it was a culmination of already, I would say, sort of an unusual way to interpret my experience up until then.

在某種程度上，這可以說是我到目前為止，用一種不同尋常的方式來解讀我經歷的頂峰。

And that was that my parents were for sure addicted to drugs.

那就是我的父母肯定吸毒成癮。

And our entire lives together were shaped by that addiction, which is to say they pursued getting high every single day and it informed their decisions and it filled up the hours of our day and it affected the way we interacted moment to moment.

我們一家人在一起的生活全都受毒癮影響，也就是說，他們每天追求嗨藥，這影響了他們的決定，佔據了我們一天的時間，也影響了我們瞬間互動的方式。

And yet at the same time, I also had an experience where in every other way that they could be apart from their addiction.

然而，同時我也經歷了，在他們除了毒癮之外，他們能做到的其他所有方面。

And it was an interesting way, I think, to grow up because to have my mother sit at the foot of my bed and talk to me for hours and scream, squeeze me and tell me how much she loved me and share her stories with me and my father, take me to, you know, the library every Saturday and encourage me to read and be there for me in those ways, but

我認為這是一種有趣的成長方式，因為我母親會坐在我床邊，花好幾個小時跟我哈拉、尖叫、擁抱我，告訴我她有多愛我，跟我分享她的故事，而我父親則會帶我去圖書館，鼓勵我閱讀，並在這些方面支持我，但是

then not be able to feed us properly, not be able to get us, you know, organized to go to school or have really the life that we should have had, to not have that, but

卻無法好好地餵飽我們，無法讓我們順利地上學，也無法擁有我們應該擁有的生活，卻沒有這些，但是

I think already I had had an experience that people, people don't typically have because here I was interpreting, okay, things are difficult, but

我認為我已經有了一種人們通常不會有的經歷，因為我正在解讀，好的，事情很困難，但是

I'm not necessarily blaming anyone for this.

Like, this is a bad thing that's happening, but it's not being done.

這件事是壞事，但並非是針對我做的。

To me, it's a bad thing that's kind of happening to all of us.

對我來說，這是一件有點發生在我們大家身上的壞事。

So I think intuitively what set me up later on for that change was to grow up with this lesson that people can't give you what they don't have.

所以我覺得，從直覺上來說，讓我後來為那個轉變做好準備的是，我學到了一個功課：人們無法給你他們沒有的東西。

And when I understood that intuitively, it led to other things.

當我直覺上理解了這點，就引發了其他事情。

So it led to, okay, like, no one's going to show up and do things for me.

所以它引發了，好的，沒有人會出現來為我做這些事。

But maybe I'm going to have to figure out how do I take on responsibility for my life myself.

但也許我必須自己想辦法為自己的人生負責。

And I think in a way, I was primed by that collection of experiences.

我認為，在某種程度上，我被這些經歷的總和給準備好了。

And when their addiction truly caught up with them and they both contracted HIV and our family came apart, we all went our separate ways.

當他們的毒癮真的找上他們，他們倆都感染了愛滋，我們家也是以破碎，我們都分道揚鑣了。

然後我就在那裡，一個青少年。

You know, sometimes they say things have to get worse before they can get better.

你知道，有時候他們說事情必須先變糟，然後才能變好。

And that love and that bond we had, it wasn't strong enough.

而那份愛和我們之間的連結，還不夠堅強。

你知道，你需要的東西不只愛。

And before I knew it, my mother's in hospice and she's fading away, and

在我意識到之前，我媽媽已經在安寧病房，她漸漸離去，

And I thought a good life plan was to sleep at my friends houses and drop out of school, because at the end of the day, I think I was pursuing family.

我以為一個不錯的人生計畫就是睡在我朋友家然後休學，因為說到底，我覺得我是在追求家庭。

And I wanted, you know, I just wanted to be around people who I loved and who loved me.

我想要，你知道的，我只是想待在那些我愛、也愛我的人身邊。

So I hung out with a bunch of great friends until, you know, you don't stop to think, well, gee, maybe I can't sleep over people's houses forever.

所以我就跟一群很棒的朋友混在一起，直到，你知道的，你不會停下來想，嗯，天啊，也許我不能永遠睡在別人家。

And then I started sleeping in the street and having that experience being 15 years old, I didn't put it together all at first.

然後我開始睡在街上，有那種 15 歲的經歷，一開始我並沒有全部連結起來。

像是，我不知道自己是無家可歸的。

I thought that because I had so many friends and my days consisted of sleeping at their houses and visiting my mother in the hospital, and

我以為因為我有很多朋友，而且我一天的行程就是睡在他們家，然後去醫院看我媽媽，而且

she was dying, sometimes having contact with my father and certainly being a very inconsistent, if not completely absent, presence at school.

她快死了，有時候會跟我爸爸聯繫，而且學校的課業也確實很不穩定，如果不是完全缺席的話。

Well, I didn't see what was about to happen.

嗯，我沒有看到即將發生的事。

And basically what was coming was I thought I could knock on people's doors and deal with my.

基本上即將到來的是，我以為我可以敲敲別人的門，然後處理我的。

Until one night, you know, my friends looked at me, hey, you can't sleep here tonight.

直到有一天晚上，你知道，我的朋友們看著我，說，你今晚不能睡在這裡。

So I slept on the subway, then I slept in the hallway, I slept in the park.

所以我睡在地鐵上，然後睡在走廊，睡在公園。

And then I, you know, it added up after a while.

然後我，你知道，過了一段時間累積起來了。

that term is, you know, if you stay up all night until the sun rises, we just call that breaking night.

這個詞是，你知道，如果你整晚不睡覺直到太陽升起，我們就稱之為「breaking night」。

So I told my friend, I'm just gonna break night, meaning I'll walk around all night.

所以我告訴我的朋友，我就是要「breaking night」，意思是整晚到處走。

Until I did realize I was, in fact, very much homeless, stealing food Sleeping in hallways.

直到我真的意識到，事實上，我非常無家可歸，偷食物，睡在走廊。

And I don't know how long I could have gone on like that if not for the wake up call.

我不知道如果沒有那個警醒的時刻，我還能這樣撐多久。

When my mother passed away, I had developed this.

當我母親過世時，我發展出了這個。

我知道，就像我們大多數人知道的那樣，對吧？

We all know when we're putting something off.

I like to tell people this is not just my weird, quirky story.

我喜歡告訴大家，這不只是我奇怪、古怪的故事。

Because we all can put our head on the pillow at night, and

因為我們都能在晚上把頭枕在枕頭上，

we all have the capacity to close our eyes and dream about a better life.

我們都有能力閉上眼睛，夢想著更美好的生活。

And for whatever reason, even if we all know that it's important, we tell ourselves, I'm gonna go write that book, you know, run that marathon, start that organization.

不管是為什麼，即使我們都知道這很重要，我們還是會告訴自己，我要去寫那本書，你知道的，跑那個馬拉松，創立那個組織。

You know, we kind of put it off till later, and it's not, you know, my best quality.

你知道，我們總是把它推遲到以後，這不是，你知道，我最好的品質。

I'll visit my mother in the hospital later.

And when she passed away, I got this powerful wake up call.

而在她過世後，我得到了一個強而有力的覺醒。

I got to look mortality right in the eyes and say, okay.

我必須直視死亡，然後說，好吧。

She had dreams that she wanted to accomplish, my mother.

And when she passed away, it was so clear to me that you could go your whole life saying, I'm gonna do it later.

而在她過世後，我才清楚地意識到，你可能會說一輩子「我以後再做」。

And for me, that was a wake up call to be passionate about my life now.

對我來說，那是一個警鐘，要我現在就熱情地投入生活。

And what was that like, getting back into school and prepping for college, especially Harvard.

那是什麼樣的感覺，回到學校準備上大學，尤其是哈佛。

Well, I mean, I knew it was after my mother passed away.

嗯，我的意思是，我知道那是在我母親過世之後。

所以有時候我們需要那個「為什麼」。

And if we have the why, I know why I should do this.

如果我們有了「為什麼」，我就知道我為什麼應該這麼做。