Life is Short

生命短暂

January 2016, Paul graham

Life is short, as everyone knows. When I was a kid I used to wonder about this. Is life actually short, or are we really complaining about its finiteness? Would we be just as likely to feel life was short if we lived 10 times as long?

生命短暂，这是众所周知的。小时候，我曾经想过这个问题：生命真的那么短暂吗？还是我们其实只是在抱怨生命的有限？如果我们的寿命延长到十倍，我们还会同样觉得生命短暂吗？

Since there didn’t seem any way to answer this question, I stopped wondering about it. Then I had kids. That gave me a way to answer the question, and the answer is that life actually is short.

由于当时似乎没有办法回答这个问题，我就不再去思考它了。后来我有了孩子，这让我找到了答案：生命实际上确实很短暂。

Having kids showed me how to convert a continuous quantity, time, into discrete quantities. You only get 52 weekends with your 2 year old. If Christmas-as-magic lasts from say ages 3 to 10, you only get to watch your child experience it 8 times. 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. 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.

孩子让我学会了如何将连续的时间量转换成离散的数量。比如说，如果你的孩子已经两岁了，你就只能和他共同度过52个周末。如果孩子觉得圣诞节神奇的年龄大约从3岁持续到10岁，那么你只能看着孩子经历8个圣诞节。虽然对于像时间这样连续的量来说，很难说多少算多多少算少，但8这个数字显然不多。如果你只有8颗花生，或者书架上仅有8本书可供选择，无论你的寿命多长，这个数量都会显得很有限。

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

好吧，既然生命确实很短，知道这一点有什么意义呢？

It has for me. It means arguments of the form “Life is too short for x” have great force. It’s not just a figure of speech to say that life is too short for something. It’s not just a synonym for annoying. If you find yourself thinking that life is too short for something, you should try to eliminate it if you can.

对我而言，这确实很有意义。这意味着像“人生太短暂，不值得去做x”这样的说法就非常有说服力。把“生命太短暂”当作放弃做某事的理由，并不仅仅是一个比喻，也不仅仅等同于“太麻烦”。如果你发现自己在想“人生太短暂，不值得做某事”，那么只要条件允许，你就应该尽量把它从生活中剔除。

When I ask myself what I’ve found life is too short for, the word that pops into my head is “bullshit.” I realize that answer is somewhat tautological. It’s almost the definition of bullshit that it’s the stuff that life is too short for. And yet bullshit does have a distinctive character. There’s something fake about it. It’s the junk food of experience. [1]

当我问自己，有哪些东西让我觉得人生太短暂而不值得去做时，我脑海中浮现出的词就是“废话”。我知道这个答案有点自相矛盾，几乎可以说“废话”的定义就是那些人生太短暂没必要浪费时间做的东西。然而，废话确实有其独特的特质。它总带有某种虚假感，就像是一种体验中的垃圾食品[1]。

If you ask yourself what you spend your time on that’s bullshit, you probably already know the answer. Unnecessary meetings, pointless disputes, bureaucracy, posturing, dealing with other people’s mistakes, traffic jams, addictive but unrewarding pastimes.

如果你问自己，你把时间花在哪些废话上，你大概早就知道答案了：无谓的会议、毫无意义的争执、官僚主义、装腔作势、处理别人的失误、交通堵塞，以及那些让人上瘾却毫无回报的消遣活动。

There are two ways this kind of thing gets into your life: it’s either forced on you, or it tricks you. To some extent you have to put up with the bullshit forced on you by circumstances. You need to make money, and making money consists mostly of errands. Indeed, the law of supply and demand ensures that: the more rewarding some kind of work is, the cheaper people will do it. It may be that less bullshit is forced on you than you think, though. 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. This could become more common.

这种废话进入你生活的方式有两种：要么是被环境强加给你，要么是它自己欺骗你。在某种程度上，你必须容忍那些环境强加给你的废话。你需要赚钱，而赚钱主要由各种零碎的差事组成。事实上，供求规律保证了：越有回报的工作，人们越愿意以低价去做。不过，被强加给你的废话或许并不像你想象的那么多。总有一群人选择跳出现有的常规忙碌，去那些按常规标准机会更少但生活感觉更真实的地方。这种现象未来可能会更加普遍。

You can do it on a smaller scale without moving. The amount of time you have to spend on bullshit varies between employers. Most large organizations (and many small ones) are steeped in it. 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.

你也可以不搬家而在小范围内做到这一点。不同雇主会让你花在废话上的时间各不相同。大多数大公司（还有很多小公司）都充斥着废话。但如果你有意识地把避免废话放在比金钱和声望更重要的位置，你很可能会找到那些浪费你时间更少的雇主。

If you’re a freelancer or a small company, you can do this at the level of individual customers. If you fire or avoid toxic customers, you can decrease the amount of bullshit in your life by more than you decrease your income.

如果你是自由职业者或小公司的话，你可以在客户层面做到这一点。如果你辞掉或者避免那些难缠的客户，你生活中的废话量就可以减少得比你的收入减少得更多。

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. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that’s forced on you. Things that lure you into wasting your time have to be really good at tricking you. An example that will be familiar to a lot of people is arguing online. When someone contradicts you, they’re in a sense attacking you. Sometimes pretty overtly. Your instinct when attacked is to defend yourself. But like a lot of instincts, this one wasn’t designed for the world we now live in. Counterintuitive as it feels, it’s better most of the time not to defend yourself. Otherwise these people are literally taking your life. [2]

但是，虽然有些废话是不可避免地被强加给你的，那些以欺骗方式悄悄渗入你生活的废话却只能怪你自己。更何况，你自己选择的废话往往比被强加给你的废话更难去除。那些诱使你浪费时间的事物一定非常擅长欺骗你。许多人都熟悉的一个例子是网络争论。当有人与你的观点相矛盾时，从某种意义上说他们是在攻击你。有时攻击非常明显。被攻击时，你本能地会为自己辩护。但像许多本能一样，这种本能并不是为我们现在所处的世界设计的。虽然这感觉违反直觉，但大多数情况下，你最好不要为自己辩护。否则，这些人几乎就是在用你的生命和你作对[2]。

Arguing online is only incidentally addictive. There are more dangerous things than that. As I’ve written before, one byproduct of technical progress is that things we like tend to become more addictive. 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?”

网络争论只是顺便会上瘾。还有比这更危险的事情。正如我以前写过的，技术进步的一个副产物是：我们喜欢的东西往往变得更容易上瘾。这意味着我们将不得不越来越有意识地避免上瘾——跳出自我问自己：“我真想要这样度过时间吗？”

As well as avoiding bullshit, one should actively seek out things that matter. But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what matters to them. 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. 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.

除了避免废话，人们还应该主动寻找那些真正有意义的事情。但对每个人来说，有意义的事情各不相同，而且大多数人都必须逐渐发现什么对自己有意义。有些幸运的人很早就意识到自己热爱数学、照顾动物或写作，并想办法花大量时间去做那些事。但大多数人的生活开始时都夹杂着重要的事和无关紧要的事，他们只能随着时间慢慢学会分辨两者。

For the young especially, much of this confusion is induced by the artificial situations they find themselves in. In middle school and high school, what the other kids think of you seems the most important thing in the world. 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.

尤其对年轻人来说，这种困惑很大程度上是由他们所处的种种人为情境造成的。在初中和高中阶段，别人对你的看法似乎是世界上最重要的事情。但当你问成年人，他们在那个年纪时做错了什么，几乎所有人都会说当时他们太在意其他同学对自己的看法。

One heuristic for distinguishing stuff that matters is to ask yourself whether you’ll care about it in the future. Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter. That’s how it tricks you. The area under the curve is small, but its shape jabs into your consciousness like a pin.

辨别什么才重要的一个方法是问自己：将来你还会在意它吗？那些表面上看起来很重要的虚假事情，通常只有短暂的一个关注峰值。这就是它欺骗你的方式：虽然高峰下的面积很小，但尖锐的峰值会像针一样刺入你的意识。

The things that matter aren’t necessarily the ones people would call “important.” Having coffee with a friend matters. You won’t feel later like that was a waste of time.

真正重要的事情不一定是人们所说的“重要”事情。比如，与朋友一起喝杯咖啡就是有意义的。日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. They grab your sleeve as you’re staring at your phone and say “will you play with me?” And odds are that is in fact the bullshit-minimizing option.

拥有年幼孩子的一大好处是，他们会让你把时间花在真正重要的事情上——他们身上。当你盯着手机发呆时，他们会拉你的袖子说：“你能陪我玩吗？”很可能这才是最少浪费时间的选择。

If life is short, we should expect its shortness to take us by surprise. And that is just what tends to happen. You take things for granted, and then they’re gone. You think you can always write that book, or climb that mountain, or whatever, and then you realize the window has closed. The saddest windows close when other people die. Their lives are short too. After my mother died, I wished I’d spent more time with her. I lived as if she’d always be there. And in her typical quiet way she encouraged that illusion. But an illusion it was. I think a lot of people make the same mistake I did.

如果生命短暂，我们就应该预料到生命的短暂会让我们措手不及，而实际上情况往往正是如此。我们把一些事视为理所当然，然后它们就消失了。你总以为自己总有时间去写那本书、去登那座山，又或者去做其他的事，但后来你才意识到机会之窗已经关闭。最令人伤感的关闭窗口是发生在别人去世时的窗口。他们的生命同样短暂。在母亲去世后，我多么希望自己当初能多陪陪她。我一直活在她会永远在那里的错觉中。而她也以她一贯的温柔方式助长了这种错觉。但那终究只是一个错觉。我想很多人都犯过和我一样的错误。

The usual way to avoid being taken by surprise by something is to be consciously aware of it. Back when life was more precarious, people used to be aware of death to a degree that would now seem a bit morbid. 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. Perhaps a better solution is to look at the problem from the other end. Cultivate a habit of impatience about the things you most want to do. Don’t wait before climbing that mountain or writing that book or visiting your mother. You don’t need to be constantly reminding yourself why you shouldn’t wait. Just don’t wait.

避免被事情蒙在鼓里的常见方法，是有意识地关注它。在过去生活更加不确定的年代，人们对死亡保持着高度的觉察，放到现在看似有些病态。我不太明白为什么会这样，但不断提醒自己死神时刻潜伏在身边，并非恰当之策。或许更好的办法是换个角度来看待问题：对那些最想做的事情保持一种迫切感。不要再拖延去爬那座山、写那本书或去看望母亲。你并不需要一直提醒自己为什么不能等，只要别再拖延就行了。

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. Both make sense here.

当一个人缺少某样东西时，通常会做两件事：一是设法获得更多，二是珍惜已经拥有的。这两点放在这里也很有道理。

How you live affects how long you live. Most people could do better. Me among them.

你的生活方式会影响你的寿命。大多数人都能够做得更好，包括我自己。

But you can probably get even more effect by paying closer attention to the time you have. It’s easy to let the days rush by. 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. 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.

不过，如果你更加关注自己拥有的时间，你可能会获得更大的收获。很容易让日子匆匆流逝。那些富有想象力的人钟爱的“心流”状态有一个更阴暗的表亲，它让你在日复一日的琐事和闹铃声中无法停下来去品味生活。我读过的一句最发人深省的话语并不出自书本内容，而是一本书的书名：詹姆斯·萨尔特( James Salter)的《燃烧的日子》。

It is possible to slow time somewhat. I’ve gotten better at it. Kids help. When you have small children, there are a lot of moments so perfect that you can’t help noticing.

让时间变得慢一些是可能的。我在这方面做得越来越好了。孩子能帮上一把。当你有了年幼的孩子，会有许多美妙的瞬间让你不由自主地去关注。

It does help too to feel that you’ve squeezed everything out of some experience. 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. My oldest son will be 7 soon. And while I miss the 3 year old version of him, I at least don’t have any regrets over what might have been. We had the best time a daddy and a 3 year old ever had.

感受到自己已经充分榨干了一段经历也很重要。我为母亲感到难过，不仅仅是因为想念她，更在于我想到我们本可以做却没有做的许多事情。我的大儿子很快就要7岁了。虽然我怀念他3岁时的模样，但至少对于那些可能发生却没有发生的事情我没有任何遗憾。我们度过了一段父亲与三岁孩子共度的最美好时光。

Relentlessly prune bullshit, don’t wait to do things that matter, and savor the time you have. That’s what you do when life is short.

无情地剔除废话，不要拖延去做那些重要的事情，并且好好珍惜你拥有的时间。当生命短暂时，这就是你该做的事。