On returning a carton to the fridge, we trip and spill orange juice down our whole front. It goes into our shoes, too.

把盒裝飲料放回冰箱時，不小心絆了腳並把橘子汁灑得滿地都是。鞋子也濕了。

Even the inside lining of the soles are soaked in orange pulp.

果肉甚至滲入鞋底的內襯。

It's a good ten minutes and a few towels before we've changed out of all our clothes, even our underwear, and cleaned ourselves up.

我們清理了整整10分種，還用掉好幾張紙巾，才去換上乾淨的衣服和內衣褲。

We feel three and a half years old.

我們覺得自己好像才 3 歲半。

When are we gonna grow up into the adults we supposedly are?

我們什麼時候才能變成心中理想的大人？

If only this were the only such incident, but clumsiness may stalk us everywhere.

如果這只是意外還好，但笨拙可能會如影隨形。

A month ago, we badly bruised our knee against a door, then we spilled blueberries over the kitchen floor, and recently we went around for a whole day not noticing there was a piece of lettuce coating one of our teeth.

一個月前，我們的膝蓋因為撞上門而瘀青，後來又將藍莓灑到廚房滿地都是，還有之前在外面奔波一整天卻沒注意有一片生菜卡在牙縫中。

Furious with, and ashamed of ourselves, our clumsiness violates our self-image as competent grownups.

我們很氣自己，並覺得丟臉，笨拙讓我們與理想中的「能幹大人」形象背道而馳。

There's a Yiddish word that artfully evokes the extent of our stupidity.

有個意第緒語的單字巧妙地呼應我們的愚蠢程度。

The clumsy person is, in Yiddish, a klutz, a dunderhead, a blockhead, a fool.

笨拙的人，在意第緒語是用笨手笨腳的人、笨蛋、傻瓜、愚人形容。

It's the inner klutz who makes us drop plates, who walks into doors and who didn't remember to do up its flies.

身體裡笨手笨腳的自己，讓我們摔破盤子、撞門、忘記拉拉鍊。

It's normal to hate our klutz, and, with a grim face, to try to deny it's even really there inside us.

討厭我們笨拙的那一面，甚至試圖冷酷地否認這一面是正常的。

Instead, we strive to hold on to our dignity, and when we can, presume that the klutz has gone away for good.

我們努力保持尊嚴，盡可能地假裝笨拙的那一面已離我們遠去。

When we do meet with it, it's always with some horror, agitation and humiliation - we thought we'd left the klutz behind, somewhere in childhood.

我們發現它還存在時，總是會覺得恐懼、焦慮和丟臉 — 我們以為長大後它就消失了。

But no, it's still here, getting us to drop our phone in the toilet bowl and forget an important person's name at a party.

但沒有，它還在，害我們把手機掉進馬桶裡，還有忘記派對中某個重要的人的名字。

But there would be another less explored option: to make friends with our inner klutz.

但還有另一種較少被採納的選擇：跟自己的笨拙和解。

Not to keep denying that it really exists, but to face up to it head-on, in good time.

不要一直否認它的存在，而是要適時地直接面對它。

We should accept without rancor or fury that we simply are, at one level,

我們應該拋下敵意與憤怒，接受我們某種程度上

klutzes who knock things over, spill drinks and make fools of ourselves in small and large ways.

就是會把東西撞翻、把飲料灑出來、或大或小地讓自己出糗。

This is only a humiliation if we insist that the only way to be acceptable is to exhibit constant competence.

如果我們堅持自己必須永遠都很能幹，那笨拙就會讓你感到羞恥。

Once we accept that we are klutzes through and through, one more spilled drink won't need to discomfort us much further.

一旦我們接受自己笨拙的那一面，再次意外打翻飲料也不會那麼大驚小怪。

What particularly humiliates us at moments of clumsiness is the impression that we're all alone with our ineptness.

笨拙令我們覺得丟臉的原因是，我們總以為只有自己那麼笨。

We wouldn't mind being clumsy if everyone was clumsy, too.

如果每個人都很笨拙，我們也根本就不會介意。

But they don't seem to be. We appear to have been singled out as the greatest klutzes we've ever met!

但別人看起來一點也不笨拙。我們似乎才是世界上最笨手笨腳的人。

Far from it.

大錯特錯。

We simply don't see the clumsiness of other people as we do our own, because it happens in private and is carefully edited out of public life.

我們只是沒看到別人做傻事的時候，因為通常是在私下發生，避免在公眾場合曝光。

It's not surprising that in comedy shows, there is such a widespread appetite for watching people fall off their bikes or walk into lampposts.

因此可想而知，在喜劇節目中，大家普遍喜歡看演員從自行車上摔下來或撞到路燈的橋段。

We feel so relieved by evidence that clumsiness is not ours alone.

不是只有我們笨手笨腳的證據讓我們如釋重負。

It may look as if we're mocking, but really, we're delighted to have found people as absurd as we are.

可能看起來我們像在嘲笑他人，但找到跟我們一樣荒謬的人令我們感到欣慰。

The comedy show invites us to see our own clumsiness as part of a collective foolishness, not a private tragedy.

喜劇表演讓我們能視自己的笨拙為常見的蠢事，而非個人的悲劇。

We can also see that our own clumsiness is not what set us apart from others, but actually what we share in secret with everyone.

我們不再覺得笨拙讓我們與眾不同，而是大家共享的秘密。

We can accommodate our idiocy more sweetly inside ourselves by trusting at last that it is entirely normal and universal to be clumsy, that it's a factor to be understood and forgiven in ourselves because it should be understood and forgiven in everyone.

若我們可以相信笨手笨腳這件事情普遍且正常，便能更加包容自己的愚蠢行為，它能被理解並原諒，因為所有人都應該了解並原諒這一點。

The next time we spill something down our front, we shouldn't feel a hot prickly rage.

下次打翻東西的時候，我們不會再覺得怒髮衝冠。

We should greet our inner klutz like an old, familiar friend with a warm, tolerant smile of recognition.

我們應該把內心笨拙的那一面當做老朋友，用溫暖、寬容的微笑認可它。

The School of Life isn't just a Youtube channel. It's an actual school where you can go and take classes.

The School of Life 不只是 YouTube 頻道，而是一所擁有各種課程的真正學校。

We have branches in ten locations around the world. To find out more, click on the link on the screen now.

我們在全世界有十個據點，想了解更多相關資訊，請點擊畫面上的連結。