人生苦短

原文标题：Life is Short｜Paul Graham｜2016.01

很多人说，有了孩子，仿佛自己也重新再活了一遍。可人生究竟短不短？如果寿命增加十倍、一百倍，真的就足够了吗？Paul Graham 在陪伴孩子的时光中，发现了“人生苦短”的真正含义，也给出了让时间变得珍贵、充实的答案。读完这篇文章，你或许会重新思考，什么才算“不虚度此生”。

Life is Short

人生苦短

January 2016

2016 年 1 月

Life is short, as everyone knows.

人生苦短，这是众所周知的事。

When I was a kid I used to wonder about this.

小时候，我常常会琢磨这件事。

Is life actually short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness?

人生真的很短吗，还是说，我们只是在抱怨它终有尽头？

Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if we lived 10 times as long?

如果我们的寿命是现在的十倍，我们还会觉得人生短暂吗？

Since there didn’t seem any way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it.

这个问题似乎没有答案，我也就不再纠结了。

Then I had kids.

后来，我有了孩子。

That gave me a way to answer the question, and the answer is that life actually is short.

这反而给了我一个答案：人生确实很短。

Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities.

有了孩子之后，我才学会如何把“时间”这种连续的量，转化为一个个离散的单位。

You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old.

一个两岁的孩子，一年只有 52 个周末。

If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only get to watch your child experience it 8 times.

如果“圣诞节的魔法”只存在于 3 岁到 10 岁之间，那你也只不过能陪孩子经历 8 次。

And while it’s impossible to say what is a lot or a little of a continuous quantity like time, 8 is not a lot of something.

连续的时间很难说“多”还是“少”，但 8 这个数量，本身就绝对算不上多。

If you had a handful of 8 peanuts, or a shelf of 8 books to choose from, the quantity would definitely seem limited, no matter what your lifespan was.

不管你能活多久，手里只有 8 颗花生，或书架上只有 8 本书可选，都会让人觉得捉襟见肘。

Ok, so life actually is short. Does it make any difference to know that?

好吧，既然人生确实短暂，那明白这一点有什么用呢？

It has for me.

对我来说，有用。

It means arguments of the form “Life is too short for x” have great force.

这意味着，“人生苦短，不该浪费在 X 上”这种说法，分量十足。

It’s not just a figure of speech to say that life is too short for something.

这并不只是一个修辞手法。

It’s not just a synonym for annoying.

也不只是“很烦人”的另一种说法。

If you find yourself thinking that life is too short for something, you should try to eliminate it if you can.

如果你真心觉得人生不该浪费在某件事上，那就尽量把它从生活中清除掉。

When I ask myself what I’ve found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is “bullshit.”

当我问自己，人生最不该浪费在什么上时，脑海里蹦出来的词是：“扯淡”。

I realize that answer is somewhat tautological.

我知道这个答案多少有点同义反复。

It’s almost the definition of bullshit that it’s the stuff that life is too short for.

“扯淡”本来就几乎等同于“人生不该浪费时间的东西”。

And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character.

但“扯淡”确实有它独特的气质。

There’s something fake about it.

它总带着一种虚假的味道。

It’s the junk food of experience. [1]

它是体验层面的垃圾食品。[1]

If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that’s bullshit, you probably already know the answer.

如果你问问自己，时间都被哪些“扯淡”的事情占据了，你多半心里有数。

Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people’s mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes.

没必要的会议、无意义的争论、官僚流程、装腔作势、替别人擦屁股、堵车、让人上瘾却毫无回报的消遣。

There are two ways this kind of thing gets into your life: it’s either forced on you, or it tricks you.

这些东西进入你生活，只有两种方式：要么被强加给你，要么骗你上钩。

To some extent you have to put up with the bullshit forced on you by circumstances.

有些被环境强加的扯淡，你确实不得不忍。

You need to make money, and making money consists mostly of errands.

你得赚钱，而赚钱往往就是一连串跑腿杂事。

Indeed, the law of supply and demand ensures that: the more rewarding some kind of work is, the cheaper people will do it.

供需规律就是如此：越是有意义的工作，人们越愿意低价去做。

It may be that less bullshit is forced on you than you think, though.

不过，真正强加给你的扯淡，可能比你想象的要少。

There has always been a stream of people who opt out of the default grind and go live somewhere where opportunities are fewer in the conventional sense, but life feels more authentic.

一直有人选择退出默认的社会磨盘，去那些“机会更少”、但生活更真实的地方。

This could become more common.

这种选择或许会越来越常见。

You can do it on a smaller scale without moving.

不搬家，也可以在小尺度上做到。

The amount of time you have to spend on bullshit varies between employers.

不同雇主，浪费你时间的程度差异很大。

Most large organizations (and many small ones) are steeped in it.

大多数大机构（以及不少小机构）都浸泡在扯淡里。

But if you consciously prioritize bullshit avoidance over other factors like money and prestige, you can probably find employers that will waste less of your time.

如果你有意识地把“避开扯淡”放在金钱和名声之前，往往能找到更尊重你时间的地方。

If you’re a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers.

如果你是自由职业者或小公司，也可以在客户层面做到。

If you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you decrease your income.

甩掉有毒的客户，减少的扯淡，往往比损失的收入还多。

But while some amount of bullshit is inevitably forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by tricking you is no one’s fault but your own.

尽管有些扯淡不可避免，但那些靠欺骗混进你生活的扯淡，只能怪你自己。

And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that’s forced on you.

而你“自愿选择”的扯淡，往往比被迫接受的更难清除。

Things that lure you into wasting your time have to be really good at tricking you.

能骗走你时间的东西，必然极其擅长伪装。

An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online.

网上争论就是个大家都熟悉的例子。

When someone contradicts you, they’re in a sense attacking you.

别人反驳你时，本质上是在攻击你。

Sometimes pretty overtly.

有时甚至毫不掩饰。

Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself.

被攻击时，人的本能是自我辩护。

But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn’t designed for the world we now live in.

但这个本能，并不是为当下的世界而设计的。

Counterintuitive as it feels, it’s better most of the time not to defend yourself.

尽管违背直觉，大多数时候，不回应反而更好。

Otherwise these people are literally taking your life. [2]

否则，他们真的就是在消耗你的人生。[2]

Arguing online is only incidentally addictive.

网络争论只是“顺带成瘾”。

There are more dangerous things than that.

还有更危险的东西。

As I’ve written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive.

正如我以前写过的，技术进步的副产品之一，是我们喜欢的东西越来越容易上瘾。

Which means we will increasingly have to make a conscious effort to avoid addictions — to stand outside ourselves and ask “is this how I want to be spending my time?”

这意味着，我们必须越来越有意识地对抗成瘾，跳出自己问一句：“我真的想把时间花在这上面吗？”

As well as avoiding bullshit, one should actively seek out things that matter.

除了清除扯淡，我们还应主动寻找真正重要的事。

But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them.

重要的事因人而异，而且大多数人都要慢慢摸索。

A few are lucky and realize early on that they love math or taking care of animals or writing, and then figure out a way to spend a lot of time doing it.

少数幸运的人很早就知道自己热爱数学、照顾动物或写作，并设法长期投入其中。

But most people start out with a life that’s a mix of things that matter and things that don’t, and only gradually learn to distinguish between them.

但更多的人，一开始都生活在“重要与不重要混杂”的状态中，靠时间一点点分辨。

For the young especially, much of this confusion is induced by the artificial situations they find themselves in.

对年轻人而言，这种混乱很大程度源自人为构造的环境。

In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most important thing in the world.

在中学阶段，别人怎么看你，仿佛是天大的事。

But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they cared too much what other kids thought of them.

可你去问成年人，他们几乎都会说，当年最大的错误，就是太在意别人的看法。

One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you’ll care about it in the future.

区分重要与否的一个经验法则，是问自己：将来我还会在乎这件事吗？

Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter.

虚假的“重要”，往往在某个时刻显得异常重要。

That’s how it tricks you.

它正是靠这一点欺骗你。

The area under the curve is small, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

曲线下面积很小，但尖峰却像一根针，狠狠扎进你的注意力。

The things that matter aren’t necessarily the ones people would call “important.”

真正重要的事，不一定是别人眼中的“大事”。

Having coffee with a friend matters.

和朋友喝杯咖啡，就很重要。

You won’t feel later like that was a waste of time.

事后你不会觉得那是浪费时间。

One great thing about having small children is that they make you spend time on things that matter: them.

有小孩的一大好处，是他们会逼你把时间花在重要的事情上——他们身上。

They grab your sleeve as you’re staring at your phone and say “will you play with me?”

当你盯着手机，他们会拉住你说：“陪我玩。”

And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option.

而这，往往才是最不扯淡的选择。

If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise.

如果人生短暂，那它的短暂本身，理应让我们措手不及。

And that is just what tends to happen.

事实也正是如此。

You take things for granted, and then they’re gone.

你把很多事当作理所当然，直到它们消失。

You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed.

你以为书随时能写、山随时能爬，直到发现窗口已经关上。

The saddest windows close when other people die.

最令人心碎的窗口，是他人的离世。

Their lives are short too.

他们的人生，同样短暂。

After my mother died, I wished I’d spent more time with her.

母亲去世后，我希望自己曾多陪陪她。

I lived as if she’d always be there.

我活得仿佛她会永远在。

And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion.

而她也以一贯的温和方式，纵容了这个幻觉。

But an illusion it was.

可那终究只是幻觉。

I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did.

我想，很多人都会犯同样的错误。

The usual way to avoid being taken by surprise by something is to be consciously aware of it.

避免被突如其来的变故击中的常见方法，是保持清醒的意识。

Back when life was more precarious, people used to be aware of death to a degree that would now seem a bit morbid.

在生活更脆弱的年代，人们对死亡的意识，甚至会让今天的人觉得阴郁。

I’m not sure why, but it doesn’t seem the right answer to be constantly reminding oneself of the grim reaper hovering at everyone’s shoulder.

我也说不清原因，但不断提醒自己死神就在身后，似乎并非良策。

Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from the other end.

或许，更好的办法是从另一端入手。

Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do.

对你最想做的事，培养一种“不耐烦”。

Don’t wait before climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother.

别等着再去爬山、写书、看望母亲。

You don’t need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn’t wait.

你不必反复提醒自己为何不能等。

Just don’t wait.

别等就好。

I can think of two more things one does when one doesn’t have much of something: try to get more of it, and savor what one has.

当某样东西稀缺时，人通常会做两件事：争取更多，或细细品味已有。

Both make sense here.

在这里，两者都成立。

How you live affects how long you live.

你如何生活，会影响你能活多久。

Most people could do better.

大多数人都可以做得更好。

Me among them.

我也不例外。

But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the time you have.

但更有效的，也许是更认真地对待你拥有的时间。

It’s easy to let the days rush by.

日子很容易一晃而过。

The “flow” that imaginative people love so much has a darker cousin that prevents you from pausing to savor life amid the daily slurry of errands and alarms.

富有创造力的人热爱的“心流”，有个阴暗的表亲，让你在杂事和闹钟中无暇品味生活。

One of the most striking things I’ve read was not in a book, but the title of one: James Salter’s Burning the Days.

我读过最震撼的一句话，不在书里，而是书名本身：詹姆斯·索尔特的《燃烧的岁月》。

It is possible to slow time somewhat.

时间是可以被稍微放慢的。

I’ve gotten better at it.

我在这方面有所进步。

Kids help.

孩子很有帮助。

When you have small children, there are a lot of moments so perfect that you can’t help noticing.

有了小孩，完美到让人无法忽视的瞬间，会频繁出现。

It does help too to feel that you’ve squeezed everything out of some experience.

如果你能确信，某段经历已被充分榨取，那也会减少遗憾。

The reason I’m sad about my mother is not just that I miss her but that I think of all the things we could have done that we didn’t.

我为母亲难过，不只是思念，还有那些本可以做却没做的事。

My oldest son will be 7 soon.

我的大儿子很快就 7 岁了。

And while I miss the 3 year old version of him, I at least don’t have any regrets over what might have been.

尽管我怀念他 3 岁的样子，但至少没有“本可以”的遗憾。

We had the best time a daddy and a 3 year old ever had.

那是世上最棒的一段父子时光。

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have.

无情地修剪扯淡，不要拖延重要的事，珍惜手中的时间。

That’s what you do when life is short.

这，就是面对短暂人生的活法。

Notes｜注释

[1] At first I didn’t like it that the word that came to mind was one that had other meanings. But then I realized the other meanings are fairly closely related. Bullshit in the sense of things you waste your time on is a lot like intellectual bullshit.

[1] 起初我并不喜欢脑中浮现的这个词，因为它还有其他含义。但后来我意识到，这些含义彼此相通。浪费时间意义上的“扯淡”，和思想层面的“胡扯”非常相似。

[2] I chose this example deliberately as a note to self. I get attacked a lot online. People tell the craziest lies about me. And I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say “Hey, that’s not true!”

[2] 我特意选这个例子，是写给自己的提醒。我在网上经常被攻击，有人编造各种离谱的谣言，而我一直没能很好地克制那种本能的冲动——跳出来说一句：“嘿，那不是事实！”

作者简介： Paul Graham 是一个创业者、程序员、作家、投资人。Y Combinator 创始合伙人，被誉为“硅谷创业教父”。他曾在哈佛取得计算机科学博士学位，是最早的互联网创业者之一，也是 Lisp 编程语言的专家。Paul Graham 的随笔以犀利、深刻、直白著称，长期影响着硅谷和技术创业者群体。其著作《黑客与画家》已成为创新者必读书目。

本文收录于我每周五更新的《灵感电波》第 76 期。 每期我会精选 5 篇值得一读的深度好文，用中文精编呈现。 如果你喜欢这样的内容，欢迎订阅。