Keep Your Dreams 执着于你的梦想

Keep Your Dreams 执着于你的梦想——明星州长阿诺德·施瓦辛格清华大学演讲

Some of your families maybe don’t believe in your dreams. But let me tell you something, my young friends. Keep your dreams. No matter what, keep your dreams. Don’t give up on them, even when you are temporarily defeated or denied. Keep your dreams. 你们的家人也许不相信你们的梦想，但是，朋友们，让我告诉你们，执着于你的梦想！无论如何，坚持你们的梦想。即使你们遭遇暂时的失败或被否定，也不要放弃你们的梦想。执着于你的梦想。

Well, thank you very much, President. First of all, I want to thank President Gu for having me here, and I want to thank Mr. Qizhi for your kind introduction. Thank you very much.

It is wonderful to be here at this university. What a special place. I just looked around a little bit here, it’s a gorgeous, gorgeous place. I want to congratulate you for going to this magnificent university here.

Now, the last time I was here in China was five years ago, and then I was promoting my movies. They had a movie festival here, the Arnold Schwarzenegger Movie Festival. I remember they showed all my movies for a week—which was a rarity, may I remind you—and they also showed the movies on television. But we also were here to promote Special Olympics, which is an organization that helps people with mental disabilities, so I was here for both reasons.

But this time I’m here as the governor of the great state of California. I’m here

repre senting the people of California, and we’re here on a trade mission to see how we can do more business with China and to help each other, because both California is a very fast growing state, and China is a very fast growing country, and there are a lot of things that we can do for one another.

But I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to come here today and to talk with the young people; as a matter of fact, to the brightest young people of China. And this is why it is so great to be here at the Tsinghua University, and I’m honored that I was invited here.

Now, I read a little bit about the history of Tsinghua, and I learned that actually this school originally prepared students to attend universities in America. Now, I also know that since the attack on our World Trade Centers it has become more and more difficult to go to the universities in America because you need to fill out all kinds of paperwork now and you

have to get visas, and it’s very complicated, and you have to wait a much longer period of time to go over there. But let me tell you, things are improving already. I’ve heard that it’s easing up, the restrictions, and it’s easier to get a visa. My young Chinese friends, I want to tell you that in case no one from America has ever invited you, let me do this right now personally. I want to warmly invite all of you here to come to the United States, and especially to come to California, because that’s the happening place. California is the best place.

Please come and visit us, we will welcome you. I invite you all to come there and to travel, to meet the American people, and to come there and study in our universities, and some day hopefully you will come and do business over there, or maybe you’ll want to move over there. Whatever your goal is, you’re always welcome. America, after all, let’s not forget, is the land of opportunity. And it’s not only the land of opportunity for Austrians like me, but for Chinese people as well. Remember that.

I know that beginning with this century, China is als o becoming a land of opportunity. It’s a fast growing place, and as the students of this great university and the citizens of a rising China, I think that you have a great future also here in this country. And today I want to talk to you a little bit about the dreams, about the dreams of your future, and dreams for this country. I want to talk to you a little bit about dreams, because it seems to me that I’m somewhat of an expert in dreams, because I had a lot of my dreams become a reality. So let me just briefly tell you my story, and tell you a little bit about how I started with my career. I think that this story kind of relates a little bit also to you, and also to China.

I started way back as a weightlifter. I always liked the idea of lifting weights and being a bodybuilder. From the first moment when I gripped a barbell and held it around the bar and lifted the steel up over my head, I felt this exhilaration, and I knew then that this is something that I’m going to do; that I was in love with that, an d this is going to be something that I’m going to do. I’m going to pursue the sport of weightlifting and bodybuilding.

Now, I remember the first real workout that I had. Eight miles away from my home village in Austria there was a gymnasium, and I rode to that gymnasium with a bicycle. And there I trained for half an hour, because they said that after half an hour you should stop because otherwise your body will get really sore. But after half an hour I looked at my body, and nothing had happened. So I sa id, "I’d better work out for another half hour." So I lifted some more. My strength didn’t improve, I didn’t see the muscles pop out or anything

like that, so I trained for another half an hour. And then after another half hour I trained another half hour, and all together I trained two and a half hours.

Well, let me tell you something. After two and a half hours—even though they told me that I shouldn’t train that much or I would get really sore—I left the gymnasium, I rode my bicycle home. And after the first mile I got numb, and I couldn’t feel anymore the handle of the bicycle, and I fell off the bike and I fell into the ditch on the side of the road. So I got up again and I tried it again. Another few yards, I fell off the bicycle again. And I tried it three, four more times, and I just couldn’t ride my bicycle because my body was so numb and my legs felt like noodles.

Well, let me tell you something. The next morning when I got up, my body was so sore that I couldn’t even lift my arms to comb my hai r. I had to have my mother comb my hair, and you know how embarrassing that is. But you know something? I learned a very important lesson, that pain means progress. Pain is progress. Each time my muscles were sore from a workout I knew that they were growing and they were getting stronger.

I think there is a real life lesson in that. After two or three years of discipline and determination and working out hard, I actually changed my body, and I changed my strength. And that told me something; that if I could change my body that much, and if I could change the strength of my body that much, then I could also change anything else. I could change my habits, I could change my intelligence, I could change my attitude, my mind, my future, my life. And this is exactly what I have done. I think that that lesson applies to people, and it also applies to countries. You can change, China can change, everyone in the world can change.

My parents, of course, I have to tell you, didn’t understand my dreams at all. They were always wondering, they said, "What is he doing? When are you going to get a job, a real job? When are you going to make money?" And all of those questions I got. And they said, "I hope we didn’t raise a bum, someone that doesn’t make money and just wa nts to live in a gymnasium and think about their bodies." Well, I endured all of this negative thinking, and the more negative the thinking got, and the more negative the questions got, the stronger and the more positive I became, the stronger I became inside.

So of course some of your families maybe think the same way, and this is why I’m mentioning that. Some of your families maybe don’t believe in your dreams. But let me tell you something, my young friends. Keep your dreams. No matter what, keep your dreams.

Don’t give up on them, even when you are temporarily defeated or denied. Keep your dreams.

I remember the first time I went to the United States and I was competing in a competition, the World Championships in Bodybuilding. I lost. I came in second, and I was devastated.

I was crushed. I felt like a loser, a major loser, let me tell you. I cried, as a matter of fact, because I felt like I disappointed my friends and I disappointed myself. But the next day I got my act together, I shifted gears, an d I said, "I’m going to learn from that lesson. I’m going to stay here in America. I’m not going to go back to Europe. I’m going to stay in America and I’m going to train with the American champions, I’m going to train the American way. I’m going to eat the American food, I’m going to train with the American machines and the principles. And a year later, in America, I became the World Champion in Bodybuilding. So I think this is a very, very important lesson.

And from then on, I continued. My career took off, and everything that I wanted to do I accomplished. First it was to become a champion in bodybuilding. Later on I became a movie star, to do all the great movies, the Conan movies and the Terminator movies and all this. Then I became the governor of the great state of California, of the sixth largest economy in the world. All of this happened because of my dreams, even though other people told me that those dreams were bogus and they were crazy, but I held onto my dreams.

And people would always say, no matter what, even in bodybuilding they said I would never make it. And later on in the movies, in Hollywood they said I would not make it. They said, "You will never make it. You have a German accent. No one in Hollywood has ever made it with a German accent. Yeah, maybe you can play some Nazi roles or something like that, but you cannot become a leading star with an accent. Plus your body, you’re overdeveloped, you have all these muscles. They did Hercules movies 20 years ago, that’s outdated. Now it’s W oody Allen. Woody Allen is in, his body is in." And those were the messages. "And Al Pacino, the skinny guy, he is in. But not your body, it’s too big. And your name, Schwarzenegger, it will never fit on a movie poster. Forget it. Forget it, you will never make it. Go back to bodybuilding."

Well, the rest is history. After Terminator 3, I became the highest paid movie star in Hollywood. And let me tell you something, it continued on. Even when I ran for governor people said, "Arnold, you will never make it. You will never become governor of California. What do you know about government?" Well, the fact is, I knew exactly as much about

government as the rest of the people knew in California, which is that government is out of touch, and it’s out of sync wit h the people, and it needed a shakeup. So I didn’t listen to all those people that said I would never make it. I continued campaigning, I listened to my dreams, and the rest also is history. I became governor.

So always it just carried me on, those dreams. So bodybuilding gave me the confidence, movies gave me the money, and pubic service and being a governor gave me a purpose larger than myself. And that is the brief story of my dreams and a brief story of my early life, and how my dreams made me successful.

A person, of course, should not be stingy with their dreams. So I, of course, don’t just think and dream about myself, but I also have dreams for you, and dreams for China. So let me just talk a little bit about that. China’s economy has become an engine of human progress, lifting millions of people out of poverty. This is a moral and economic good for China and for the rest of the world. I often read that China’s economy is likely to become the largest in the world over the next 50 years, and I think this is terrific. This does not mean, of course, that America will get poorer; it just means that China will get richer, and the United States will benefit from China’s progress as much as the U.S. benefited from the rise of Western Europe after World War II.

Some in my country fear that China’s research and development will overtake America’s, but I believe that America and the world will benefit from China’s scientific and technological advances. I think we will benefit from that. If China makes advances in stem cell research, the rest of the world will benefit from that. If China discovers an energy breakthrough, this is good for the rest of the world, such as the benefit of a free market.

Some fear that China will buy up American companies, but that fear also existed in the

‘80s, when America feared that Japan was going to buy up American companies. So what? It was just good, and to the benefit of America. We should welcome China’s investment in American companies, just as we welcome the billions of dollars that China has invested in U.S. treasury bonds. This shows that China has faith in America, and American investment in China shows that we have faith in you. So I believe that China and U.S. economic relations will become even closer in the years ahead. Certainly I realize that we do not agree on everything, but who does? Certainly I realize that China has major hurdles to overcome, but it is not for me to say how China should overcome those hurdles and achieve its dreams.

But I can tell you, however, what has given America such energy and strength over the last 200 years, and perhaps there are some insights in this for China. America is a nation that believes in the power of the individual, and what the individual can accomplish, no matter the color, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background of the individual.

Recently, as you probably have read, Rosa Parks, a former seamstress married to a barber, married to a hairdresser, died, and she lay in honor in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. People from around America came to say farewell to her and to thank her for changing our history and for changing our society. Now, what did this 92 year-old black woman do that deserved such great honor? What did she do? Well, in 1955, the days of racial segregation, she had refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. She had refused. Her simple refusal to move to the back of the bus put into motion events that led to my country’s great civil rights movement. The small protes t of a woman that maybe weighed less than 100 lbs. brought down a racist system. As you can see, the individual can make a difference.

Let me tell you about another individual, Ken Behring, a millionaire California businessman who found his passion in giving wheelchairs to poor and physically disabled people all around the globe, including China. He says that he has met people who have spent years in rooms with no window, just lying there and staring up at the ceiling, never seeing the outside world unless someone was willing to pick up that person and take them outside to show them the world. He says that it’s no wonder so many of those physically disabled people dream about being a bird. Mr. Behring says that most of us think that a wheelchair would be a confinement, but to millions of people it is not a confinement, it is freedom, freedom to move and to go to school, freedom to vote, freedom to get a job, and freedom for hope for the future. He has given freedom and wheelchairs to 400,000 people around the world. The individual can make a difference.

My mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver—I always like to mention her, because it gets me on the good side of her—she, for instance, started an organization called Special Olympics. She stared Special Olympics which is for people with mental disabilities. And of course when she started that organization she was told by the experts, "Don’t do it. You cannot take people with mental disabilities out of mental institutions and have them participate in sports events. They will drown in the swimming pools. They will kill each other out there, they will hurt each other. Don’t do it." But Eunice Kennedy Shriver had a dream and a passion, and today millions of people compete in Special Olympics around the world, including right here in China. This is why I was here five years ago. Five years

ago you had 50,000 participants in the Special Olympics. Today, five years later, you have 500,000 participants in Special Olympics. 500,000 people are getting a chance to participate in sports programs, getting a chance to have health care, have a chance to be treated equally, with respect and with tolerance. So Eunice Kennedy Shriver exemplifies that the individual can make a difference.

And I think what I’m trying to say to you is that each and every one of you can make a difference. So as you study and as you become smarter, and as you become richer, think about that, that there are millions of people that need your help. Now, you maybe ask yourself the question, what can I do? Well, let me tell you. Even though you maybe have no money or anything, you can go out and help a child that has not yet learned yet how to read. You maybe can go out and help a person that is physically handicapped, to lift them up and to take them outside so they can see the world. There are so many different things that you can do. You maybe can take a person that is mentally disabled, to take them to a soccer game. There are all kinds of things that the individual can do to reach out and to help.

Ima gine what could be accomplished if the dreams of China’s 1.3 billion individuals could be unleashed. Imagine what could happen. Each of you here has the power of the individual within you, you have the power of your dreams within you, and these are tremend ous powers. You’re young, you’re educated, and you are the very best China has to offer. My young Chinese friends, I believe in your dreams. I believe that you can achieve them, and I believe you can make a difference, a big difference. All you have to do is just make the commitment. All you have to do is create the action and commit, and say, "Let’s do it." Go out and do it. I’m asking you. Do it for yourself, do it for China, and do it for the good of the world. Thank you very much for listening. Thank you.