---
author: Big Think
date: '2026-04-24'
guest: ''
layout: post.njk
source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Swxy4tUE3s
speaker: Big Think
tags:
- emotional-maturity
- values
- eudaimonia
- self-awareness
- anti-fragility
- meaning-purpose
title: 重塑内在指南：成为情绪成熟的成年人，活出有意义的人生
summary: 知名作家Mark Manson深入探讨了情绪成熟、价值观塑造和真正成功的内涵。他揭示了现代社会对“幸福”的误解，强调追求深刻的“至善”（Eudaimonia）而非短暂的“快乐”（Hedonia）。文章通过逆向法则、自我发展阶段理论，以及关于价值观、希望和不确定性的深刻洞察，提供了实用工具以发现并坚守真正的自我，最终实现超越世俗成就的生命意义。
insight: ''
draft: true
series: ''
category: psychology
area: society-thinking
project: []
people:
- Aristotle
- Alan Watts
- Jean Piaget
- Lawrence Kohlberg
- Robert Kegan
- Erik Erikson
- Isaac Newton
- Steve Jobs
- Warren Buffett
- Mark Manson
companies_orgs:
- Big Think
products_models: []
media_books:
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
- 'Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope'
status: evergreen
---
### 超越短暂快乐，拥抱至善的人生意义
现代社会普遍存在一种对**幸福**（Happiness）的过度追捧与误解。我们往往将舒适和短暂的快感混淆为真正的幸福，尤其是在一个高度优化、追求**享乐主义**（Hedonia: 追求感官快感、舒适和短期满足）的时代。从社交媒体的“点赞”到即时满足的消费体验，一切似乎都旨在提供快速的**多巴胺**（Dopamine: 神经递质，与快感和奖励机制相关）刺激。然而，古希腊哲学家**亚里士多德**（Aristotle）早已指出，幸福有两种形态：一种是享乐主义，另一种则是更深层次、**目的驱动的至善**（Eudaimonia: 源自古希腊，指基于美德、理性生活而达成的“好精神”或“兴盛”，强调长期的生命满足感和意义）。真正驱动人生满足感的，正是那种“此生值得”的至善感，即便经历苦难与挣扎也毫无悔意。
Original English Source
My name is Mark Manson. I am the author of the
subtle art of not giving a fuck, as well as
some other works. I'm a YouTuber, podcaster, and
my work focuses primarily on the importance of
values. This is Big Think, and today I'm going to
be talking about how to grow into an emotionally
mature adult. How to develop a healthy sense of
hope. How to improve your life by changing your
values. And how to find success through failure.
Chapter 1. Becoming an emotionally healthy adult.
One of my spicier arguments is that I think
happiness is greatly overrated in today's
age. I think people focus on it way too much.
I think they're focused on it backfires pretty
consistently. But worst of all, I think people
have started confusing comforts and highs for
the same thing as happiness. It's interesting if
you look at the ancient world, Aristotle actually
argued that there are two versions of happiness.
There's hedonia, which is kind of pleasure,
comforts, short-term satisfactions, and then
there's eudaimonia, which is kind of a deeper,
purpose-driven. This is a meaningful way to
live my life kind of feeling. And I think the
modern age has been very optimized to promote as
much hedonia as possible. Everything is designed
to make us as comfortable as possible, to
give us quick dopamine hits all the time,
to make us feel good all the time, and to promise
us really simple superficial happiness all the
time. But the problem is that what actually drives
life satisfaction is that sense of eudaimonia,
that sense of my life was worth living. I
have zero regrets. Everything I've suffered
or struggled through was worth the trouble.
### 逆向法则：接受痛苦，寻获持久幸福
**逆向法则**（The Backwards Law），源自哲学家**艾伦·瓦茨**（Alan Watts）的洞见，指出：你越是追逐积极体验，这种追逐本身就越是一种消极体验；反之，你越是接受消极体验，这种接受本身就越是一种积极体验。这一法则在生活的各个方面都有体现：你越想给别人留下深刻印象，就越会感到自己不够出色；你越想变得富有，就越会觉得自己贫穷和不足；你越是追求持续的快乐，就越容易感到不安。相反，如果能接受生活中的艰难与不顺，反而会变得更快乐、更从容。现代社会通过各种产品和信息贩卖自我认知的“好处”，比如“买这个产品让你更美丽、更自信”，这些诱惑看似美好，实则增加了我们经历负面体验的可能性，因为我们一直在追逐，而非接受。
Original English Source
One
thing to keep in mind in all this is an idea that
comes from Alan Watts that I call the backwards
law. And basically the backwards law is that the
more you chase a positive experience, that chasing
in and of itself is a negative experience. And the
more you accept a negative experience, the more
that acceptance itself is a positive experience.
So you see this show up in all sorts of different
areas of life, different ways. The more you try to
impress people, the less impressive you're always
going to feel. The more beautiful that you want to
be, the uglier you will constantly see yourself.
The more money you want to make, the more you will
feel too poor and inadequate, like you don't
have enough stuff. The more love you feel like
you need, the more lonely and isolated you will
feel. The more spiritually enlightened you want
to become, the more self-centered and narcissistic
you'll likely end up being. The more you try to
be happy all the time, the more easily you'll be
upset. Whereas if you just accept that sometimes
life is hard and shit goes wrong, the more happy
and easy going you'll become. So the significance
of the backwards law is important because so
much of what we're exposed to on a day-to-day
basis is kind of selling us these benefits
of self-perception. Hey, look at this by this
product. You'll become more beautiful. You'll
become happier. This will solve your confidence
issues. Hey, we can fix your health in 30 days or
your money back. All of these things, they sound
very enticing, but what you discover as you start
to go down that road is that you actually increase
the likelihood of your negative experiences
because you are constantly chasing that
positive.
与其追问“什么能让我快乐”，不如反思“我愿意为哪些问题而奋斗”。我们生命中大部分的意义和目标，往往就隐藏在那些我们乐于接受的挣扎和挑战之中。快乐并非通过刻意追求和获得，它更像是我们在生活中找到了更有意义的目标后，随之而来的自然副产品。这种深刻的领悟将我们从持续追逐短暂快感的“享乐跑步机”中解放出来，转而接受负面体验，从而获得更长久、更持续的积极感受。
Original English Source
So what I tell people is I say, instead
of asking yourself what's going to make me happy,
ask yourself, what am I willing to struggle
for? What are the problems I actually kind
of like having in my life? Sometimes when I give
talks, I ask the audience, what kind of masochist
are you? What's like the pain that you secretly
enjoy that most other people don't? Because it's
in that pain, that special relationship that
you have with that struggle, that's actually
probably where most of the meaning and purpose in
your life is going to be found. It's going to be
found in the struggles that you kind of relish
having and in the challenges that you are most
proud of overcoming. And this comes back to that
backwards law and that when you're constantly
chasing the positive experiences, you end up
on this experience of like a treadmill and that
every day and every moment you're looking for the
next hit, the next high to keep you going. Whereas
when you find the negative experiences that you're
happy to accept, that you're willing to embrace,
that embracing of that negative experience is
actually what's going to generate a much longer
and sustained positive experience. Because this is
the sneaky truth that most people don't understand
is that happiness is not something that you pursue
and achieve in and of itself. It's the natural
side effect of finding something more meaningful
and purposeful in your life. If you find something
that feels important, that's worth giving a
fuck about, the happiness will happen on its own
anyway.
### 从“特殊论”到“自恋主义”的陷阱
我们常常被灌输“人人都是特殊而独特”的观念，这本意是好的，但却容易导致**权利意识**（Entitlement: 认为自己应得某种待遇或结果，无需付出努力）的滋生。这种观念认为我们无需努力就能获得特定的结果，其根源有二：
1. **善意的父母教育**：过去心理学研究曾建议父母告诉孩子他们是特别的，拥有独特天赋。然而，现在我们意识到，这可能培养出**自恋者**（Narcissist: 过度关注自我，缺乏同理心，认为自己优于他人），而非拥有高自尊的人，他们期望享受所有好处却不愿承担任何代价。
2. **互联网的个性化**：互联网算法为我们量身定制信息流和广告，强化了“你很特别，值得拥有”的信念。这种持续的信息轰炸，对我们的心理和情绪健康造成了负面影响。
Original English Source
I think another common affliction today is
this idea that we are each special and unique. And
because we're so special and unique, we deserve
special treatment, special results, a special
place in the world. Ultimately, what this breeds
is a sense of entitlement. It's a sense that we
deserve certain outcomes without having to put
in the effort or the work. And I think this comes
from two different places. I think one was very
well-intentioned, which was our parents raised us,
telling us that we were special and amazing and
unique, and that we had unique gifts to share
with the world. And they simply did this because
the self-esteem research at the time said this is
what you're supposed to tell your kids. Of course,
nowadays, we realize that that's not the case.
When you raise children telling them that they're
special and they deserve to have everything,
you're not raising a human with high self-esteem,
you're raising a little narcissist who thinks that
they deserve all the benefits without any of the
costs. Now, what most people don't realize is that
there's two flavors of narcissism. Now, when
most people think of an entitled narcissist,
they think of what's known as a grandiose
narcissist, which is the person who believes that
they are bigger and better than everyone else,
that they are amazing and unique. They're amazing
and perfect and the best and they deserve special
treatment because they're so superior. But there's
a flavor of narcissism that most people haven't
heard of, and that's the vulnerable narcissist.
The vulnerable narcissist defines themselves as
a special, unique victim. Everything has gone
wrong. Everything is unfair. They've been treated
uniquely poorly. And because of all those things,
they deserve special treatment. And what's
interesting is that grandiose narcissists and
vulnerable narcissists, while having completely
opposite attitudes and justifications for their
selfish behavior, the result is exactly the
same. Everyone should pay attention to me.
Everybody should stop everything they're doing
for me. Everybody should give everything I want
to me. I think the second cause is just the
nature of how the internet has evolved itself,
is that everything is personalized. It's catered
exactly for you. You get online and everything
in your news feed is perfectly curated for your
interests and the things that you care about and
the things that you want to know about. All of
the ads are directed at how special you are and
how much you deserve this outcome and how if
you just buy this product, then you are going
to live up to it. And we're going to live up to
all the potential that you always knew that you
had. I think this messaging has become the water
that we all swim in and it's terrible for our
mental and emotional health.
自恋主义有两种主要形式：**浮夸型自恋**（Grandiose Narcissist: 认为自己比所有人都伟大、独特和完美，理应得到特殊待遇）和**脆弱型自恋**（Vulnerable Narcissist: 认为自己是特殊的受害者，一切不公都降临在自己身上，因此也理应得到特殊待遇）。尽管两者表现和理由不同，结果却殊途同归——都要求世界以自己为中心，满足自己的所有需求。许多传统自助技巧，如积极想象和自我肯定，也仅仅是短暂的“糖衣炮弹”，它们对于那些本已自信的人有效，而对真正缺乏自信的人来说，反而会加剧其自我怀疑和痛苦。这些方法治标不治本，只是放大了我们原有的状态。
Original English Source
Most conventional
self-help techniques are really just focused on
these sugar highs of making you feel a little bit
happier for a moment or making you feel special
for a moment. The idea that you should stand and
look in the mirror and tell yourself that you're
beautiful or you're smart or that people are
going to like you. Ultimately, the research shows
that that's not that effective. In fact, what the
research finds is that a lot of these techniques,
like visualizations and affirmations and gratitude
practices, they work better for the people who
don't need them. So if you already feel good about
yourself, then yeah, standing in the mirror is
going to make you feel a little bit better. But
if you feel like crap about yourself, the only
thing that standing in the mirror reciting lines
to yourself reminds you of is that you feel crap
about yourself, that you are the type of person
who needs to stand in front of a mirror and say
affirmations to yourself. It just makes you feel
more pathetic. So a lot of these techniques,
they are sold and marketed as solutions to feeling
happy and fulfilled and satisfied every day of
your life. But really, they're just amplifying
what's already there.
### 人生发展三阶段：从儿童到成人思维的跃迁
我对**发展心理学**（Developmental Psychology: 研究人类从出生到死亡各个阶段心理变化和发展的学科）产生了浓厚兴趣，并借鉴了**让·皮亚杰**（Jean Piaget）、**劳伦斯·科尔伯格**（Lawrence Kohlberg）、**罗伯特·基根**（Robert Kegan）和**埃里克·埃里克森**（Erik Erikson）等著名研究者的理论，将其简化为人生发展的三个阶段：
* **儿童期**（Childhood）：以最简单的方式看待世界——“我想要某物，我能得到吗？”如果得到，就快乐；如果得不到，就生气。儿童尚未形成**心智理论**（Theory of Mind: 理解他人有不同于自己的思想、信念、愿望和意图的能力），无法理解他人有不同视角或产生同理心。
* **青春期**（Adolescence）：进入“交易阶段”。青少年开始意识到他人有自己的视角和欲望，并学会通过某种行为来获取自己想要的东西，例如通过穿搭或言谈来换取社交地位或关注。这种“条件式”互动在某些边缘情境中尚可接受，但在更广泛的人际关系中，却会令人感到筋疲力尽和虚假。
* **成年期**（Adulthood）：走向“无条件”的成熟。成年人开始寻找生命中真正重要、值得为之坚守的事物，即便这会招致他人的不喜欢或反对。这种“插旗”式的坚定，意味着愿意为更重要的东西放弃短期的“甜头”，从而与那些拥有共同价值观的人建立真诚关系。
Original English Source
So when I was in my 20s,
I developed a really intense fascination with
developmental psychology, like most 20 year olds.
And I started reading a lot of really brilliant
and famous researchers from Jean Piaget to
Lawrence Kohlberg to Robert Keegan, Erik Erikson.
And they all have these amazing frameworks of just
how people develop throughout their lives. And
the early developmental psychologists like Piaget,
they began an early childhood and they kind of
looked at how an infant develops basic logical
reasoning and rational skills and can identify
the difference between self and other. And then
other psychologists came along later and they
continued by looking at how adults develop and how
different moral frameworks arise at different
parts of our lives and how there are different
tensions at different ages that really define
how we see the world. So I just kind of became
obsessed with this with a bunch of these theories
and frameworks and I eventually kind of simplified
everything into a framework that I think really
ties together a lot of what we're trying to
achieve in our lives. So I broke it down into
three really simple categories. There's childhood,
there's adolescence, and there's adulthood.
Each is defined by something very simple,
but the progress from one stage to the next is
not necessarily guaranteed. So the child sees the
world in the simplest of ways, which is, I want
a thing, do I get the thing or not? You know,
the child wants ice cream, it reaches for the
ice cream. The child wants a cookie, it reaches
for the cookie. All it understands is, I want
this thing and I either get it or I don't get
it. If I get it, I'm happy, if I don't get it, I'm
unhappy. After being upset enough times, I start
developing a theory of the world that explains why
I don't always get a cookie when I want it. Well,
it turns out mom gets to decide whether I get
a cookie or not. And it also turns out that mom
has a different experience and perspective than I
do. Oh, that's actually really interesting. There
are other people who have their own perspectives
of how the world works and they have their own
desires. They want their own cookies or they
don't want their own cookies. And sure enough,
when you look at a lot of studies, young children,
they don't have a concept of self yet. They don't
understand that other people have different
perspectives than themselves. They're not
able to empathize like older humans are able
to empathize. They're not able to understand
social status or social signaling or cultural
standards or anything like that. And so once
the child develops these theories of mind, they
enter the adolescent stage, which I kind of think
of as like the transactional stage of life. If you
think back to high school, essentially what high
school is is everybody's trying to barter with
each other for social status, right? It's like,
oh, if I wear this jacket, maybe they'll
think I'm cool. If I wear the right shoes,
then maybe I'll fit in and they'll be friends
with me. If I say the funny thing in class,
then maybe the cute girl will pay attention to me.
Everything is conditional. It's tit for tat. If
I do this, it will get that reaction out of that
person. And this is very logical, right? Because
once you understand it, like, okay, every other
person has their own perspective, then what is
the behavior that I need to do that is most likely
going to make them allow me have my cookie? Now,
this carries over into the real world. In fact,
there's a lot of relationships in the real world
that function this way that are very conditional.
Like, you know, the coffee shop I went to this
morning, I have a conditional relationship with
the barista. I don't really care who they are or
where they went to school or where they grew up.
I just want them to give me my coffee and give
it to me quick, right? And that's fine. That's
fine in very small, marginal situations. So what
you start noticing as you go through life is that
this constant conditional interaction with people,
it's exhausting. It feels inauthentic. It feels
like you're performing all the time. And even when
you get people to like you, it's very unsatisfied.
And so what you eventually start to realize is
that the only way to truly be happy with other
people and be happy in the world is to behave
unconditionally, is to find something in your life
that matters so much to you. That you're willing
to be disliked for it. That you're willing to
suffer disapproval. You're willing to not get the
cookie because you found something more important
than the cookie. And this is what adulthood is.
It's finding the things that really you're willing
to plant your flag in and say, "This is who I am,
take it or leave it. And if I'm not for you,
that's totally fine. I get it. Live and let live."
But I'm going to go look for the people that are
right for me and that share in these values.
许多人停滞在青少年期的思维模式，不断通过“表演”来换取外界的认可。现代世界的交易性和高度互联性，加剧了这种对外部反馈的依赖。然而，真正的**反脆弱性**（Anti-fragile: 在不确定性、波动性、混沌和压力下，不仅能够承受，还能变得更强大的特性）恰恰来源于成年期的心态。当我们坚守自己的价值观，并愿意为之奋斗和承受不被认可的痛苦时，任何困难和挫折反而能使我们变得更强大，帮助我们适应新环境，寻找新的动力。这与古希腊**亚里士多德**的**美德伦理学**（Virtue Ethics: 强调品格和美德而非规则或结果的伦理学理论）不谋而合。美德是我们可以随时实践、掌控，并且具有社会建设性的品质。如果我们将其作为最高价值观，便能无条件地生活，从失败和拒绝中获益，无需为取悦他人而表演，也无需追逐世俗的地位和赞誉。
Original English Source
Now
the tricky thing is that I think a very large
percentage of people get stuck in that adolescent
mindset, that they're stuck bartering with the
world performing for approval all the time. And
I think a big reason for that is that the modern
world is more transactional. It is more you're
exposed to so many different people in so many
different ways and there's so many different
opportunities that you feel like you should be
performing all the time to get what you want.
And so if you never watch that performance fail
enough times to start living virtuously, then
you'll never cross over into that adult framework
of living. And if you don't cross over into that,
if you don't find the thing that you're willing
to be disliked for, then you're never going to
have a stable, happy relationship in the world.
If we zoom out, like philosophically speaking,
the reason we want to get to adulthood is because
living that way makes us anti-fragile. Like the
adolescent mindset, the childlike mindset, they're
very fragile. They're easily disrupted. If things
don't go your way, if you don't say the right
thing, if you don't do the right thing at the
right moment, everything falls apart. Whereas with
the adult mindset, if you just have something that
you stand for and you're willing to struggle
for and you're willing to suffer through being
disapproved for, any hardship or setback actually
makes you stronger. It actually shows you,
it helps you adapt to new circumstances. It helps
you find new ways and reasons to work towards the
thing that you believe in or stand for the thing
that you care about. And the funniest thing about
all this too is, you know, I went down this
like deep modern psychological rabbit hole.
And when I got to the bottom of it, I just
found Aristotle. This is basic ancient Greek,
Aristotelian philosophy 101. His whole argument
was, third basic virtues. These are things that
you can practice in each and every single moment
that you can practice when people love you and
when they hate you, that you can practice
when you're broke and when you're rich,
that you can practice when things are going well
and when things are a total fucking dumpster fire.
They're in your control at any given time.
And they are always socially constructive,
regardless of where the political fault lines are
that week or that month. And if you prioritize
them, if you make them your highest values, you
can pursue them in every moment. You can live
unconditionally. You can be anti-fragile. You
can gain from failure and rejection. You don't
have to perform for others. You don't have to
chase status or accolades. You don't have to
prove anything to anybody. It's this basic virtue
ethic that has been sitting in front of us for the
entirety of Western history. And I found myself
staring at it in the face in between scrolling on
TikTok and Instagram being like, "Oh, this
was the answer all along." And so I think
ultimately it's we are all developing towards an
adulthood that is just reflective of what some of
the wisest minds in history called out all along.
That just pursue virtue, just value the timeless
things that are good for everybody. And don't
get lost in the hedonic treadmill of chasing more
likes or chasing a couple more bucks or getting
the next car or getting the next date. Because
that's temporary. It's just a high and it's just
going to create more suffering than it alleviates.
### 构建健康希望：直面终极虚无与自我赋能
生命的**不适真相**（Uncomfortable Truth: 指我们及所爱之人终将消逝，宏观宇宙中一切努力都微不足道）虽然残酷，却也蕴含着乐观的可能：我们可以自主创造和构建生命的意义。这种由内而生的意义，能在我们面对艰难险阻时提供支撑，成为我们每日前行的动力。然而，**希望**（Hope）也存在危险的一面——我们往往过度捍卫甚至执着于不切实际的希望，最终将自己困在无法实现丰盛人生的死胡同里。
Original English Source
So I guess we're back at the start. Chapter two,
developing a healthy sense of hope. So there's
something I call the uncomfortable truth of life
and it's not fun to hear or think about. And that
is basically that you and everyone you know are
going to die and that basically nothing we do is
going to matter in the grand scheme of things.
That in the infinite expanse of the universe,
we're just insignificant microscopic dust milling
about. And none of this matters. And while that
sounds very dark and fatalistic, I do think there
is an optimistic view of that and that we get to
create and construct meaning for ourselves. We
get to decide what matters in our lives and they
sustain us through hardship and challenges
and when things go wrong. Our hope keeps us
getting up in the morning and moving forward.
But there's a dangerous side of hope as well,
which most people don't think about. And that
is that we defend our hopes often violently
that we cling to our hope because it sustains
us so much emotionally. And so if we hope for
the wrong things or if we hope for things that are
unrealistic, we can end up painting ourselves into
a corner where living a fulfilling life is simply
impossible.
健康的希望由三个核心要素构成，这些要素主要基于**自我决定理论**（Self-Determination Theory: 一种关于人类动机、人格和幸福的宏观理论，强调自主、胜任和联结是基本心理需求）：
* **自主感**（Autonomy: 感到能够掌控自己的未来，做出自我决定的能力）。
* **超越自我的重要事物**（Something larger than oneself: 愿意为之奋斗和牺牲的更高目标）。
* **归属感**（Belonging: 拥有一个与你分享或支持你价值观的社群或“部落”）。
然而，这三个要素的实现远比想象中复杂。例如，**自控力**（Self-control）在心理学看来，在很大程度上是一种**幻觉**（Illusion: 虚假的信念或感知），因为我们本质上是**非理性行为者**（Irrational Actors: 决策受情绪驱动多于理性考量的人）。因此，提升自控力的关键并非简单地依靠意志力或僵硬的规则，而是与自身情绪建立更健康的关系。正如**柏拉图**（Plato）用“战车与马夫”的比喻来形容，理性思想是驾驭马匹（本能冲动）的马夫。
Original English Source
So I break our hopes down into three
component parts and these component parts are
largely based on self-determination theory, which
is the predominant framework for understanding
motivation and psychology. So the first one is,
do you have a sense of autonomy? Do you feel like
you control your future? Do you feel like you're
able to make decisions for yourself? The second
component is, do you have something that you feel
like is more important than yourself? Is there
something in your life that you're willing to
struggle for or sacrifice for? And then the third
is, do you feel like you belong to something? Do
you feel like you have a tribe of people around
you who share your values or support your values
as you pursue them? And if you have all three
of those things, then you can develop a healthy
sense of hope. But as we'll see, each one of
those three things gets very complicated. So
the first complication comes around autonomy
and self-control. And that is essentially that
self-control is an illusion. What psychology shows
us is that we are fundamentally irrational actors.
We are very emotionally driven and then we
rationalize our emotional decisions after
the fact. And so a lot of what we think about in
terms of self-discipline, habits, goal-setting,
self-control, these are largely dictated by
our emotional impulses. And so paradoxically,
the way to develop more control and discipline
in your life is not to implement rigid structures
and just brute force everything with willpower.
It's actually to develop a better relationship
with your own emotions. Because once you get in
touch with your emotional impulses, you can start
directing them in more productive directions.
Plato characterized it as a chariot and a horse.
And the rational thinking part of ourselves is
the chariot with the whip and the reins trying to
control the horses of our instincts and making
sure that we go where we actually want to go.
我们的意识就像一辆汽车，**感受脑**（Feeling Brain: 情绪和本能驱动的部分）才是真正的驾驶者，而**思考脑**（Thinking Brain: 理性、逻辑思考的部分）则扮演着导航员的角色。思考脑的任务是有效地与感受脑沟通，引导它走向正确的方向，而非让它随意追逐“闪光物”。这种思想与情感的张力持续存在，关键在于学会不压抑情绪，舒适地体验各种感受，并学会引导冲动。
Original English Source
So imagine that we have two brains. We have the
thinking brain and the feeling brain. And imagine
that our consciousness is a car. Most of us assume
that the thinking brain is driving the car. And
the feeling brain is in the passenger seat being
this noisy child screaming, looking at stuff out
the window, getting excited or upset about various
things. But the truth is that it's actually the
opposite. The feeling brain is driving the
car and the thinking brain is sitting in the
passenger seat and trying to act as the navigator.
So the job of the thinking brain is to effectively
communicate to the feeling brain to kind of almost
like a dog tame the feeling brain into going where
it should go. Because if you don't, then the
feeling brain is just going to drive over the
median and the oncoming traffic, follow whatever
shiny object that it wants to chase after. So
the struggle and tension between our thoughts and
emotions is ever-present. And really what it boils
down to is developing a healthier relationship
with ourselves, an understanding of our emotions
without suppressing them, a comfort experiencing
various emotions without overindulging them,
and learning how to direct some of our
impulses and cravings without overdoing them.
我的著作《**万事皆空：一本关于希望的书**》（Everything is F*cked: A Book About Hope）中，我以**艾萨克·牛顿**（Isaac Newton）的**运动三定律**为喻，提出了“情感三定律”，揭示情绪与自我认同的互动机制：
1. **情感作用力与反作用力**（First Law of Emotion: For every action, there will be an equal and opposite emotional reaction）：我们生命中的每一个行动或经历，都会根据其对我们**自我认同**（Identity: 一个人对自己的定义和认知方式）的影响，产生相应的、成比例的情绪反应。例如，如果有人批评我的写作，作为作家，我会有强烈的情绪反应；但如果批评我的“手模”能力，我可能一笑置之，因为这不是我的核心认同。
2. **身份是情感经验的总和**（Second Law of Emotion: Your identity is the sum of all of your emotional experiences throughout your life）：我们持续的情感体验塑造了我们的认同。长期体验负面情绪会形成负面的自我认同，反之亦然。我们选择某些认同，是因为与这些认同相关的积极体验总和。
3. **身份的惯性**（Third Law of Emotion: There's an inertia to your identity, that your identity will continue to be your identity until some force acts against it and redirects it）：我们的认同具有惯性，除非有外部力量或与现有认同相反的经历来改变它。要改变自我认知，就必须主动去经历那些挑战旧认同的事件，证明过去的自我定义是错误的。
Original English Source
In my book, Everything is Fock the Book about
Hope, I write a full chapter about Isaac Newton
as kind of an allegory of understanding how
our emotions and our identity interact with
each other. In that story, I create Newton's
three laws of emotion. The first one is that
for every action, there will be an equal and
opposite emotional reaction. So every action
that we take in our life or every experience that
we have in our life, whatever its impact on our
identity, how we identify ourselves, there will
be an emotional reaction that is proportional
to how we perceive that experience to interact
with our identity. So let's say I have a large
identity as an author and I run into somebody on
the street who says like, "Wow, you're a terrible
hand model." Well, I don't identify as a hand
model. It's not a core part of how I see myself.
So I'll probably just kind of laugh and be like,
"Wow, that's really weird." But if I run into
somebody on the street who stops me and says, "Oh,
wow, I read your books. You're a terrible author."
Since that's such a core part of my identity,
I will probably have a proportional emotional
response to that experience. And I'll probably
get very upset, embarrassed, confused, angry,
whatever it is. But the emotional response will
be directly proportional to how much the action
is taking effect on my identity. Newton's second
law of emotion is that your identity is the sum of
all of your emotional experiences throughout your
life. So if you have consistently felt bad around
yourself, you will start to develop an identity
of somebody who is bad. Somebody who just fails
at things is incapable of doing things nobody's
ever going to like you and so on. Whereas if you
experience a large sum of positive experiences
throughout your life, you'll develop an identity
around those positive experiences. And ultimately,
this is why we adopt certain identities. I adopt
an identity as an author because I have intense
positive experiences trying to be an author. I
adopted an identity as bad at cooking because I
have pretty much nothing but negative experiences
every time I try to cook. And a Newton's third law
is that there's an inertia to your identity, that
your identity will continue to be your identity
until some force acts against it and redirects it.
And so when you're trying to change who you are
or try to change your understanding of yourself,
the only way you can actually do that is to go
have contrary experiences, go out into the world
and do things that act against the identity
that prove your self-definition wrong in some
way.
通过认同那些**超越自我**（Beyond Oneself: 指更宏大、更持久的外部目标或价值，而非个人感知或成就）的事物，可以获得情绪上的稳定和更强的自控力。当你的希望寄托于家庭、社区或某个宏大愿景时，个人荣辱得失的影响便会大大减弱。
Original English Source
Now the lesson to take on all of this is that
ultimately you want to identify with things that
are beyond yourself. As long as your emotional
stability is based on how you perceive yourself
and others perceive you, it's going to fluctuate
wildly and you're going to lose control of your
own actions. But if you have something outside of
yourself that you identify with, that you really
give yourself to, then that grants you a certain
amount of stability in your life because it's no
longer about you. It's like if you give your life
to raising a family, then it's you no longer care
if people criticize you for being a bad author
or a bad cook. It doesn't matter to you. It's
this more important thing outside of yourself
that you can tether your hopes to that provides
more emotional stability and a greater amount of
self-control.
然而，**社群**（Community: 共同生活或拥有共同价值观的群体）的发展也带来挑战。当人们围绕共同价值观聚集时，虽然能极大促进心理健康和幸福感，但社群也容易滋生排他性和对抗性，将希望建立在对其他群体的权力或资源优势之上。现代社会提供了更便捷的社群构建方式，却也无意中放大了群体间因希望差异而产生的冲突。所有这些观点和见解，尽管不总是令人愉快或激动，但它们就像**心理蔬菜**（Psychological Vegetables: 比喻那些对心理健康有益但可能不那么吸引人的观念或实践），是构建健康生活不可或缺的组成部分，能带来更强的活力、专注力和行动力。
Original English Source
And finally, the third complication
comes around community. So when we find something
outside of ourselves, we develop like an emotional
gravity and that we attract people with similar
values as our own. And we repel people with
opposite values of our own. So when you start
to value something outside of yourself, you
will naturally start to coalesce with other people
around similar shared values. And eventually you
develop a community. Now communities are amazing.
They're great. They're absolutely fundamental
to our mental health. We're very much wired as
social creatures. Our relationships are probably
the highest correlated thing to our happiness
and well-being out of everything that we've ever
measured in psychology. So developing a community
around shared values is amazing. It's incredible.
The problem is that humans have a tendency to
not just create a benign community and celebrate
something. Once they've got the community,
they like to play politics. They like to start
thinking, "You know what? Our little community is
better than that community." I think our community
should have more access than that community. I
think our community should maybe be in charge of
that community over there. And this is where hope
can turn dangerous because if your hopes hinge
completely on your community having more access
or power or resources over that community, then
your hope essentially hinges on gaining power and
gaining control over others. It starts to hinge on
something that is by definition exclusionary and
antagonistic to the rest of the world around it.
And I think an unintended side effect of the
modern world by making it so accessible and
possible for people to form communities around
shared values, we've unintentionally amplified the
ability to create strife and conflict around each
other's hopes. All of these perspectives and ideas
that I've been talking about, they're not fun.
They're not exciting, but they're good for you,
and they make you a better functioning human
being. So in this sense, I think of them like
psychological vegetables. Nobody likes eating
vegetables, but we all know we need to eat our
vegetables. And vegetables are boring. They're
everywhere. They're ever present. They're in
every meal, but they're always the least exciting
part of the meal. But the thing is, is that when
we have a diet that's predominantly vegetables, we
end up becoming healthier, we're more energized,
we have more ability to focus, we have more
ability to act in the world. It's ultimately
what's good for us. Whereas chasing the highs of
happiness, believing that everybody should like
you all the time, believing that you're special
and you deserve special treatment, these are like
the sugar and desserts of our psychological
diet. They feel good for a brief moment,
but they always come with a hangover, and they
always make us deeply unhealthy in the long run.
### 通过重塑价值观来改善人生
我的作品常因其“不在乎”（Not Giving a Fuck: 意指选择性地关注真正重要之事，而非对一切都过度投入）的粗俗表述而受到误解，但其核心实则是一场关于**价值观**（Values: 个人认为最重要、并指导其行为的原则或信念）的深入探讨。我们每个人都在乎某些事，关键在于我们选择在乎什么。我们关注的焦点、投入的精力，无一不反映着我们内心深处对事物的优先级排序。这种无意识的内在排序，成为我们看待世界的**滤镜**（Filter: 影响我们感知和解释世界的方式）。自助行业的盲点往往不在于如何变得更快乐或更成功，而在于“为什么”你想要这些。如果你的底层价值观有问题，那么即使实现了表面的成功，也可能带来负面结果。
Original English Source
Chapter three, how to fix your life by changing
your values. I think a lot of people discount my
work simply because of the profanity. They think
that it's juvenile, that I'm kind of pandering to
my audience by making them giggle. And I think
what a lot of people miss about my work is that
the whole not giving a fuck thing, it's really
just a bit of a Trojan horse for discussion of
values. Because if you think about it, we all have
to care about something, we all have to give a
fuck about something. The question is, what are we
choosing to give a fuck about? And what we choose
to give a fuck about, what we give our attention
to or what we choose to focus on. Ultimately,
that is a reflection of our values, of what we
are prioritizing in our lives, what we find most
important to ourselves, and that prioritization
that we do internally and probably unconsciously
ultimately has an effect on everything that we do.
It becomes kind of the filter or the lens in which
we see everything. And so I think the big blind
spot in the self-help industry, it's not how do I
become happier, or how do I become richer, or how
do I become more successful. It's why do you want
to be happier, why do you want to be richer,
why do you want to be more successful? Like,
what is success, how are you measuring that? How
are you defining that? Because if you're defining
it in a really terrible way, if the underlying
value is just bad, then achieving that success is
actually going to be a bad thing for you. You can
waste years of your life chasing this thing that's
ultimately not going to make anything better.
如何选择正确的价值观？以下三个原则能帮助我们判断：
1. **可控且即时**（Immediate and Controllable: 你能否在自身环境中掌控它？）：例如，取悦他人并非好价值观，因为它不可控。相反，专注于自己的行为、真诚和脆弱，能使关系更牢固。
2. **基于现实**（Reality-Based: 你能否验证其真实性？）：我们倾向于沉溺幻想，但依附于虚假信念只会带来痛苦。虽然我们不可能总是正确，但应始终努力追求基于现实的真相，并不断审视自己的错误假设。
3. **具有社会建设性**（Socially Constructive: 对社会有益？）：我们都希望对他人友善、乐于助人。然而，人们常会自欺欺人，将“对我有利”等同于“对社会有利”。我们对他人的伤害，往往是出于善意和无知。
Original English Source
So this raises the question, what should you
give a fuck about? What is a good value? What's
a good thing to focus on? Well, I think there's
a few principles that can help us figure this
out. So the first principle is, are you giving
a fuck about something that is immediate and
controllable? Is it something that you can control
within your own environment? So for example, the
reason people pleasing is a terrible value is not
because it's bad to be liked. We all want to be
liked. The problem is that you can't control what
other people feel. And in fact, when you try to
control what other people feel, that makes you an
asshole. You're interfering with their agency.
But when you focus on what you can control,
your own behavior, your own honesty, your own
vulnerability, that will make your relationship
stronger. But it won't necessarily make you liked
by everyone. The second principle of having good
values is valuing something that is reality-based.
Something that you can verify and know to a
certain degree is true. We tend to get very caught
up in fantasies and invent a lot of ideas in our
head about what's true about the world, the way
other people should be, different beliefs about
how society should work. And it's unavoidable
that we're going to be wrong about something some
of the time, but we should always be working
towards some reality-based version of truth.
Simply because believing in illusions ultimately
is going to make us suffer. Being attached to the
illusion that everybody should say hi to me
on Saturday morning is just going to piss me
off every Saturday, because it's unrealistic and
it's based in this fantasy version of the world.
This principle is particularly tricky because
it requires us to constantly evaluate the ways
that we might be wrong. The ways that we might
be believing in a fantasy or have some false
assumption about ourselves or other people or the
way that the world should work. And then the third
principle for having good values is that it should
be socially constructive. Now this sounds very
obvious and simple, but it gets very complicated
because yes, you should be nice to people. You
should be helpful. You should believe in things
and care about things that are good for society.
I think we all, the vast majority of us, believe
in something like that. The problem is that we all
have a tendency to delude ourselves into thinking
that what's good for us is actually good for
society. And so most of the harms that we cause on
the world are well-intentioned and also ignorant.
“不在乎”并非彻底的漠不关心，而是**选择性地在乎**。它意味着：
* **敢于与众不同**（Comfortable Being Different: 接受因独特观点或价值观而带来的后果或不认同）。
* **在乎更重要的事**（Care About Something More Important: 当有更重要的事值得你投入时，对逆境或他人看法就能放下）。
* **始终有所在乎**（Always Giving a Fuck: 每个人每时每刻都在选择关注和在乎的对象，这并非可选项，而是人类心理的固有机制）。
我们常常欺骗自己，对价值观认识不清。要厘清真正的价值观，可以使用两种实用技巧：
* **时间审计**（Time Audit: 诚实记录每周时间分配，对照你声称的价值观）。
* **死亡冥想**（Memento Mori: “记住你终将死去”的斯多葛主义实践，想象临终回顾人生，辨别真正值得做的事）。
Original English Source
So if we're trying to live a life where we don't
give a fuck, and by that I mean we're trying to
live a life where we're giving our attention or
our focus in the right places, there are three
subtleties that come along with that. So the first
one is that not giving a fuck is actually about
being comfortable, being different. It's being
comfortable with the fallout or repercussions of
having a different opinion or having a different
point of view or caring about something that other
people don't care about. The irony is that the
people who want to stop giving a fuck the most,
they are the people who are trying not to be
different in any way, shape, or form. They're
the ones who are trying to make everybody happy
all the time. They're the ones who are trying to
just blend in with the crowd. And ultimately that
becomes very stressful because they don't stand
for anything. They don't have anything that they
get to own and call their own. Which brings us to
the second subtlety, which is that the way to stop
giving a fuck about adversity is to give a fuck
about something more important than adversity.
And basically the way to stop giving so many
fuck what everybody thinks all the time is to find
something more important than what everybody else
thinks all the time. It's this idea that you have
to find something in your life that you're willing
to struggle for, that you're willing to stick
your neck out for, that you're willing to plan
a flag end and say, "This is mine. This is what I
care about. This is what I stand for. And if you
don't like it, fuck it. Deal with it." Like not
giving a fuck, it doesn't get rid of adversity,
it just makes the adversity okay. And then finally
the third subtlety is the realization that you
are always giving a fuck in every moment. You're
always choosing something to give a fuck about,
right? Like if you're choosing to try to not
give a fuck about what anybody else thinks,
that is giving a fuck about what everybody else
thinks because you're trying to not give a fuck
about it. So it's giving a fuck is not optional.
It is something that is very much hardwired into
our psychology. It is something that is always
operating and dictating what we focus on and what
we don't focus on. And so the question is, what
are you choosing to focus on and what are you
choosing to not focus on? What are you choosing to
suffer for and what are you choosing to not suffer
for? Where are the yeses in your life and where
are the noes in your life? That ultimately is
the important question. So the tricky thing about
our values is that we often lie to ourselves about
what we actually value. We say to ourselves and
others, "Oh, I really care about honesty and then
we turn around and lie to somebody." Or we say
that we really care about our health but we are
binging cheesecake on a random Thursday afternoon.
So even getting an accurate sense of what we are
prioritizing, what we are giving a fuck about
is often a difficult process. But there are two
techniques that I am going to share with you that
can help you figure out your values in the next
20-30 minutes. So the first one is what I call a
time audit and it is pretty simple. You take out
a sheet of paper, you write down what you spend
your time on throughout the week and try to be as
honest as possible. And if you want to get really
hardcore about it, you can actually track for five
days how much time did you spend on the computer?
How much time did you spend watching Netflix? How
much time did you spend talking to friends? Just
doing that time audit often surprises people. They
think in their head, they are like, "Oh, I am
spending a lot of time at work." But then they
realize they are not doing a whole lot of work.
Or they think that they are spending a lot of
time keeping in touch and connecting with family.
But they are actually not talking to their family
nearly as much as they thought they were. So
when you do the time audit, you get a clear
picture of how many hours are going into each
activity in your life. And then you can also
gauge those in terms of how much you actually
value them. And you start to realize, "Oh, this
thing that I barely value at all, I am spending
15, 20 hours a week doing it." Whereas the thing
that I really value and I feel like I lack in my
life, I am only investing two hours a week into
it. The second technique you can do is a classic
stoic practice known as Memento Mori, which is
you imagine your own death. You imagine that you
are on your deathbed and you are looking back at
your life and you ask yourself, "What was worth
doing and what was a complete waste of time?"
And this practice is incredibly powerful because
I think nothing gives us real clarity on the value
of the things in our life. The way imagining our
own death does. Because most of the things that we
care about on a day to day basis are not going
to matter anymore once we are dead. And only a
few things are. And what you realize when you
do this exercise is that those few things that
are potentially going to matter long after you are
dead, those are actually the things that you wish
you were spending more of your time on. And as
humans, we instinctually avoid thinking about our
own death. It's not fun. It's very uncomfortable.
But I think it's so useful for this reason. And
there's a lot of different ways you can do it.
You can project into the future. Imagine when you
are 80 and you are on your deathbed and you are
looking back at your life. You can do it that way.
Another way to do it is imagine if you have one
year left to live, what would you spend the next
year doing? Another way to do it is what Steve
Jobs did when he was alive, which is every morning
he would look in the mirror and he'd say, "If this
was the last day I was going to be alive, would
I be happy with what I'm doing today?" And if he
said no too many days in a row, then he would make
a major change in his life. So there are a lot of
different ways to attack it, to approach it. But
what's important is that you develop some sort
of regular habit of at least thinking about it.
### 解放自我：拥抱不确定性与曼森回避定律
我们之所以抗拒“不在乎”，是因为害怕失控和失败。然而，真正的成长源于**不确定性**（Uncertainty: 对未来或当前状态缺乏明确认知），源于承认自己“不知道”的意愿。佛教的**执着**（Attachment: 对某种观念、情感或世界观的固守）原则认为，一切痛苦最终都源于执着。过度追求确定性，尤其是在混乱的世界中，只会加剧痛苦。**曼森回避定律**（Manson's Law of Avoidance: 某事物越是威胁到你的自我认同和确定性，你越会想方设法去避免它）指出，无论是对有害还是有益的事物，我们都会因其可能挑战我们的认同而选择回避。例如，逃避健身或难以与同事进行艰难对话，甚至自毁大好机会或人际关系，都是出于这种对自我确定性的防御。
Original English Source
I think we resist not giving a fuck about things
because we feel like if we let go of something,
it's going to go wrong. It's going to fall
apart. It's going to fail. But the problem is
that any sort of growth or development comes from
a feeling of uncertainty, comes from not knowing
what you're doing, comes from the willingness to
be unsure about what's right and what's wrong.
One of the fundamental Buddhist principles is
this idea of attachment, that all suffering is
ultimately rooted in being attached to whether
it's an idea, a feeling, a view of the world.
And I really see that as kind of an indictment on
certainty and not doubting yourself. And actually
the experience of not giving a fuck about
something is it's actually quite liberating.
Like narrowing your focus to just a handful
of things that really matter in your life,
it's you're not actually limiting yourself, you're
freeing yourself from having to dedicate mental
bandwidth to dozens and dozens of things that
ultimately don't matter. You know, it's funny,
when I was dating my wife, like a lot of men I
agonized over whether I should propose to her or
not. I spent months and months and months thinking
about it and talking to friends and family and
just like weighing all the pros and cons. And
I'm trying to like project into the future,
like understand like a clairvoyant, like, "Is this
the woman for the rest of my life? Am I making the
biggest mistake ever?" And it was funny because
the second that I proposed, all of the doubts
and uncertainty, it just melted away because all
that mattered was that commitment. It's like, "Do
I know if she's the right person for me for the
rest of my life?" No, I don't. But I do know that
I have control over how much I commit to trying to
make her the right person for the rest of my life.
And because I narrowed my focus to the one thing
I had control of, it allowed me to turn off,
it was like turning off 100 television screens in
my mind of like all these alternative realities,
all these like ideas of like other people I could
date and other lives I could live and like what
would happen if this happened or that happened?
It all just got shut off. And suddenly my mind
went silent and there was just this resulting
piece as a result. So it comes back to this
original Buddhist idea that it's what we cling
to that determines our suffering. We all have a
natural instinct to crave certainty in our lives.
And I think the more chaotic the world seems,
the more confusion we have around what to do, the
more we crave knowing something for sure. I think
most of our suffering comes from our certainties
about ourselves, about how the world should be,
how people should treat us, about ideas other
people should have. When we cling on to those
things and refuse to let go, that's what causes
all of detention and conflict, both within
ourselves and with others. And so I actually think
that we should embrace more uncertainty. I think
we should know less. I think people should have
fewer opinions and hold them more loosely. Because
the way our identities work is that the more
I believe myself to be something, the more I'm
going to defend it with everything that I've got.
In my book, I have this concept called Manson's
Law of Avoidance, which states that the more
something potentially threatens your identity,
threatens your certainty of who you are, the
more you will find ways to avoid it. And what's
interesting about the law of avoidance is that
it applies to both good things and bad things. I
think everybody's had an experience of avoiding
something that could be harmful or upsetting or
uncomfortable for us. We find excuses to not go to
the gym, we find reasons to not have a difficult
conversation with a colleague. But a lot of us
have also had experiences where we avoid things
that are good for us, that we sabotage our own
opportunities, that we mess up good relationships.
And I think at our core, that happens for the
exact same reason, that the good thing in our
lives also challenges our notion of who we are. It
also potentially threatens our certainty of how we
see the world. And so our instinct is to resist it
and to act against it.
越是能**松动自我认同**（Looser Identity: 不僵化地定义自己，保持开放性），越能客观地看待周遭经历。一个简单的日记练习可以帮助你审视核心信念：
1. **“如果我错了呢？”**（What if I'm wrong?）：思考所有可能的错误方式，拓宽视角。
2. **“如果我错了意味着什么？”**（What would it mean if I'm wrong?）：揭示深层敏感点和不愿面对的推论。
3. **“错了会带来更好还是更糟的问题？”**（Would being wrong give me a better or worse problem?）：通常，承认错误短期痛苦，但长期会带来更易解决的问题，从而获得解放。
Original English Source
And so I think the looser
you can hold your identity, the less sure you can
be about yourself or who you are, the less you can
find yourself. The more open you are to all of the
experiences that are going on around you, and the
more objective you can be as you choose to move
through the world. So one way to actually look
at this in yourself is to do a little journaling
exercise. So if you take something in your life
that you're struggling with and take kind of the
core belief behind that conflict or that struggle,
and just sit down and ask yourself three
questions. The first one is, what if I'm wrong?
And take a minute and write out all of the ways
that you could potentially be wrong. You're not
necessarily saying you are wrong, but we just want
to think through all the possibilities of maybe
you're mistaken somewhere, maybe you're missing
something, maybe there's a perspective you haven't
considered yet. Then the second question is, what
would it mean if I'm wrong? What would that say
about me? What would that say about my life? What
would that say about the world? And this is where
you actually start to uncover a lot of the deep
core sensitivities that you're probably avoiding
dealing with, right? It's like, well, if I'm wrong
about this, then that probably means that I don't
know what I'm talking about. Or if I'm wrong about
that, then that means I'm actually the problem in
my relationship. What you start to uncover
are a lot of implications that you probably
instinctively avoid. And finally, ask yourself the
third question, which is, would being wrong give
me a better or worse problem than being right?
I think a lot of people would be surprised that
being wrong, although very painful in the short
term to accept, gives them a much better problem
in their life than holding on to being right. But
as soon as we let it go, the experience that we
have is a liberation, a liberation from all of
the things that we don't have to care about.
对于那些生活艰难的人来说，清晰的价值观和专注力尤为重要。富裕的人可以挥霍注意力，而贫困背景的人则没有这种奢侈。讽刺的是，越是艰苦的生活环境，反而越容易找到生活的目标。例如，一位印度自给自足的农民，他的日常目标是明确的——耕作，否则就无法生存。而对于拥有无数选择的现代年轻人来说，过多的选择反而会令人麻痹，感到迷失。这种**选择的悖论**（Paradox of Choice: 过多的选择反而会降低决策满意度甚至导致决策瘫痪）是当下信息爆炸时代独有的困境。在所有这些复杂性中，关键在于：**你生活的质量取决于你价值观的质量，而你价值观的质量则取决于这些价值观所带来的问题的质量**。选择那些你乐于拥抱、觉得值得的“好问题”，才能最终获得那种长久的至善幸福。
Original English Source
It's funny because a lot of people, they hear this
and they say, "Well, that's easy for you to say,
Mr. Big, successful author. You didn't grow up
like I did or you haven't been through what I've
been through." And what's funny about this is that
I think the more hardship you've gone through in
your life, the more important this is, right?
If you think about somebody who's very wealthy,
like a trust fund kid or something, they can
afford to not figure out their values. They can
afford to kind of drift through life aimlessly
and not worry about anything. Whereas like,
if you've grown up in poverty, if you had a lot of
tough shit handed to you throughout your life, you
don't have that luxury. You have to get focused.
It is 100 times more important that you know what
you're spending your time and attention on because
you don't have the luxury of being able to waste
your attention away on things that don't matter.
And the other irony here is that I actually think
it's easier the harder your life circumstances
are. If you think about like a subsistence farmer
in India, they don't have many options. They
wake up. There's one thing to do. You go out
and farm. There's no question. There's no like,
"Oh, what am I doing with my life? Is this what
I'm meant to be? Have I found my purpose?" No,
they go out and farm because if they don't farm,
they're not going to eat. It's that simple.
So any question of purpose or what they're
valuing or what they're prioritizing, it's already
solved. They don't even have to think about it.
Whereas if you're like a typical upper middle
class young person in the United States or Europe,
you have grown up with so many options, so many
opportunities, so many different paths in life
that you could potentially take, that it's
petrifying to consider these things. That you
probably feel completely adrift because you can
envision 20 different versions of your own future.
And because you can imagine 20 different versions
of your own future, it is terrifying to pick one
because that means you have to kill the other 19.
I think this is why this message is resonating so
much in this day and age, and particularly with
these younger generations, because these are the
first generations that are growing up with this
much optionality, with this much exposure to
all the different lives. All the different life
paths that they could take. That's when you need
values the most is when you could see all of these
different options and opportunities, but you only
have access to take one. Ultimately, in all of
this, the important thing to remember is that the
quality of your life is determined by the quality
of your values. And the quality of your values
is determined by the quality of the problems that
come with those values, because no matter what you
choose to care about, no matter what you give a
fuck about, it's going to create problems in your
life. There are going to be struggles associated
with that thing that you care about. And so you
want to care about the things that bring the
right problems, that bring the problems into
your life that you are happy to have, that feel
worth having. Because that ultimately is what's
going to create that long term sense of
happiness, that eudaimonic happiness.
### 实现真正的成功：过程、反向思维与行动力
我们生活在一个过度痴迷**成功**（Success: 达成目标或获得认可，但常常被物质和地位所定义）的文化中，认为金钱、豪车、伴侣等外在成就就能解决一切问题。然而，我们往往忽视了如何定义和衡量成功，也未曾深入思考成功背后的真正动机。许多人追求的所谓成功，实际上是为了获得**尊重**（Respect）、**认可**（Approval）或**关注**（Attention），而这些目标有更简单的方式可以实现。
Original English Source
Chapter four, achieving the right kind of
success. Today, we live in a success obsessed
culture. People feel like if they can just make
enough money, if they can just have the right car
or buy the right house, if they can find the
right partner, then everything's going to be
fixed and fine. And what's tricky is that I think
we tend to be kind of bad at defining success for
ourselves. We don't think very hard about how are
we measuring success? What is the metric by which
we determine if whether we're making progress or
not? And a lot of this comes back to understanding
our own motivations, right? Like a lot of people,
maybe they want to have a really fancy car or
really nice house or live in a certain part of
town. And they think that's actually what they
want, but really what they want is respect or
approval or attention, not realizing that there
are way easier ways to go about getting respect,
approval and attention in your life than having
to go spend a million dollars in a house on the
other side of town.
如果想要达到**非凡的成功**（Extraordinary Success: 远超平均水平的巨大成就），需要做到三点：
1. **持有逆向思维**（Contrarian Take: 愿意提出与众不同、甚至被大多数人视为愚蠢的观点或方法）。这与许多人追求成功是为了被认可的初衷相悖，因为真正的创新者往往是先被视为“异类”或“疯子”。
2. **证明逆向思维的正确性**（Be Right About the Contrarian Idea: 在大多数人看错的情况下，你的非主流观点最终被证明是正确的）。大多数逆向思维是错误的，因此这需要极高的洞察力。
3. **坚定执行力**（Conviction to Execute Massively: 对自己的想法有足够信念，全力以赴地去实现）。人们往往只关注成功人士的日常习惯，却忽略了他们为实现某个“荒谬”想法而彻底重塑生活的决心。**沃伦·巴菲特**（Warren Buffett）曾说，其80年职业生涯的绝大部分成功，都归结为十几个正确的决策。
Original English Source
If we don't question how we're
measuring success, then we're going to be unclear
on what we're willing to give up to get there. And
if we're not willing to give anything up to get
there, then we're basically guaranteeing that
we're never going to be successful in the first
place. In these days, people are particularly
obsessed with extraordinary success, like massive
outlier success, multi-multi-billionaire type
success. And people want to replicate that, but
I don't think people are paying attention to the
right thing. I don't think they realize what is
actually involved. Because if you want to achieve
massive extraordinary amounts of success, you have
to do three things well. And people tend to ignore
or overlook two of them. The first one is, is
that you have to have a contrarian take. This
is just basic logic. If you want to capitalize
on an opportunity that is greater than 99.9% of
other opportunities, then you have to be willing
to look somewhere that 99.9% of other people are
not willing to look. You have to find an idea
that 99.9% of people think is a stupid idea.
You have to be willing to consider it. And the
irony is that this willingness to be contrarian,
this willingness to look at ideas that
other people think are ridiculous,
usually goes completely against why people want to
be extraordinarily successful. People imagine that
if they're extraordinarily successful, they're
going to be celebrated and everybody's going to
love them. Everybody's going to want to hang out
with them and be friends with them. And it's like,
no, actually, the thing that's going to make you
that successful is going to make you a pariah.
It's going to make you look ridiculous. You're
going to sound stupid. People are going to be
like, that guy is crazy. What is he on about?
Step number two is you have to be right about
that contrarian idea. Most contrarian ideas are
contrarian for a reason because they're horrible
ideas. They're ridiculous. They're wrong. They're
stupid. So you have to find that rare contrarian
idea that everybody else is overlooked and
everybody else is wrong about. And then step
number three is you have to have enough conviction
on that idea to execute on it massively. And this
is where everybody gets tripped up because they
look at somebody like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or
Warren Buffett, whoever, name your famous super
successful person, and they look at like, okay,
what was their morning routine? How many hours
a day were they working? What did they do with
their weekends? Completely missing the fact
that this person took an idea that everybody
else thought was ridiculous and then completely
rearranged their life to optimize for that idea.
The optimization itself is completely secondary.
Whether you wake up at 4am or 6am or work 13 hours
a day or 12 hours a day, it doesn't matter. It
really doesn't matter. What matters is you found
the right contrarian idea. You're correct about
it where most other people are incorrect and then
you invested massively into it. Like one of the
things Warren Buffett said himself is that over
the course of a career that has spanned nearly
80 years, the vast majority of his success could
be boiled down to roughly a dozen correct bets.
追求非凡成功常常带来人际关系的复杂化，因为你无法判断他人的动机是真诚还是有所图。许多人渴望成功的结果，却不愿付出代价。我曾劝说数百名有志写作的年轻人“去发表50篇文章再来找我”，但近二十年来只有两人真正做到了。这说明人们想要的是**结果**（Result），而非**过程**（Process），想要**收益**（Benefit），却不愿承受**成本**（Cost）。如果你不愿为某事物付出代价，那么你可能并非真正想要它。
Original English Source
And the truth is that almost nobody will do this
because A) they're probably not going to have
a contrarian idea to begin with because they're
too dependent on the people around them to dictate
what they think. B) even if they have a contrarian
idea, they're probably not going to be right about
it. And then C) even if they're right about it,
they're probably going to be too scared to drop
everything else they're doing and go all in on it.
And even if you do get to the other side
of it, even if you do get all the money
and the accolades and the fame, now you're in
a situation where everybody who comes to you,
you don't know why they're there. Are they there
to get something from you? Are they there because
they want something from you? Are they trying
to take advantage of you in some way? And you
start asking yourself, where were these people
before I was famous? What you realize is that
that extraordinary success, it creates conditions
for people to be attracted to you that undermines
the benefits of having them in your life,
that it complicates your relationships, it
complicates your lifestyle. It makes you consider
all sorts of repercussions and motivations that
you never had to consider before. I see this
misalignment all the time with people who come
to me with questions. Obviously, I hear from a lot
of aspiring writers and authors who come to me for
advice. And it's funny because so many people come
and they're like, "I want to be a writer, I want
to do what you do. I've got all these great ideas.
How do I get there?" And my answer to them is
always, "Go publish 50 articles and then come back
and ask me again." And I say this for two reasons.
One is, it determines who's willing to actually do
the work from the ones who just want to fantasize.
But the other reason is that by actually writing
50 pieces and publishing them and getting feedback
on them, that in and of itself is probably going
to solve 90% of the person's questions. They're
going to learn everything that they would have
asked me. They're going to find out anyway. And
it's funny because I've been giving this answer to
people for almost two decades. I've probably told
multiple hundreds of people to do this at this
point, and only two people ever did it. And what
that tells me is that people want the result. They
don't want the process. People want the benefits.
They don't want the cost. And if you don't want
the cost of something, then I would argue you
don't actually want the thing.
我曾为成为职业音乐家而进入音乐学校，却发现演奏音乐的“高光时刻”只占不到1%，而99%的时间是独自排练和练习，无人喝彩。我讨厌这个过程，最终意识到我并不真正喜欢成为一个音乐家。因此，人们需要停止将**过程**与**结果**（Process vs Outcome: 达成目标所经历的步骤与最终实现的目标）割裂开来。成为畅销书作家，意味着发表数百篇文章，忍受嘲讽和误解，这才是现实的过程。过于关注结果，会因任务显得过于庞大而产生**行动瘫痪**（Action Paralysis: 因感到任务艰巨或恐惧失败而无法开始行动），失去动力。
Original English Source
I went through this
myself when I was younger. Before I was a writer,
I attended music school, and I wanted to be a
professional musician. And it's funny because when
I was in high school, I was the music guy. I'd
bring my guitar to parties and I'd sing and play
songs. And it was kind of a social identity. And I
loved it. It kind of defined my whole adolescence.
But when I got to music school and I actually
tried to be a professional musician, I realized
something, which is that the experience of the
music. The experience of playing music for people
and hearing applause and being seen as this really
talented guy on stage, that's like less than 1% of
what the experience of being a musician is. 99%
of the experience is practicing and rehearsing by
yourself alone in a room, being celebrated by
nobody. And I hated that experience. I didn't
enjoy any aspect of it. And it took me about 2
years in music school to finally accept to myself
that I don't actually like being a musician. That
because I'm not willing to sit in a room by myself
for 5 hours a day, practicing songs, I'm also
not willing to do what it takes to be the guy on
stage. So I think people need to stop separating
the process from the outcome. They need to realize
that being a successful best selling author is
posting hundreds and hundreds of articles online.
It's having your writing ridiculed. It's having
people trash you in the comments. It's having
people misunderstand you constantly. That is what
the process is. That is what the reality is. The
benefits are just 1% of it. The other problem
of focusing so much on the outcome instead of
the process is that it can paralyze you. It seems
too big. It seems impossible. Like this gigantic
mountain that you have to climb and surmount.
And so I think people just lose motivation and
they become too afraid to start.
我高中数学老师**帕克伍德先生**（Mr. Packwood）的一课，教会了我最重要的生活哲理：**“只做第一步”原则**（Just Do Step One: 当遇到难题时，只关注找到解决问题的第一步，而非整个过程）。他建议，如果卡在一个问题上，就重新写下问题，然后只寻找第一步。神奇的是，一旦迈出第一步，第二、第三步就会自然显现。这启发了我后来提出的**“立即行动原则”**（Do Something Principle: 当感到停滞不前时，只去做力所能及的最小行动，动力和灵感便会在行动中产生）。**灵感并非行动的原因，而是行动的结果。**你不会神奇地在沙发上感到被激励而去健身，而是当你起身去健身房，身处其中时，才会产生继续的动力。
Original English Source
One of the most
important life lessons I ever learned was actually
from my high school math teacher. His name was
Mr. Packwood. I remember we were sitting in class.
We were taking an exam. And I guess most of us
were having trouble with it because we were just
sitting there staring at the page, not writing
anything. And I remember he stopped the class
and he said, "Can I say something really quick?"
He said, "Let me give you a piece of advice."
He said, "If you're stuck on a problem, just
rewrite the problem and try to find the first
step." He said, "Don't worry about solving the
entire problem. Just rewrite it and find step one
because there's something magical in the process
of just writing step one. That steps two, three,
four, and five will start to reveal themselves."
And sure enough, it was crazy. I remember sitting
there writing out the problem, writing out like
the most basic step, and then suddenly seeing the
problem differently and realizing what steps two,
three, and four were. And as I got to university
and adulthood, I realized that this applied to so
many things in life. Like if I had a term paper
and I didn't know how to start it, I'd pull back
and I'd say, "You know what? Let's just write two
sentences. Let's just write one sentence." And
sure enough, in the process of writing that one
sentence, I could see the whole first paragraph.
And then in the process of writing that paragraph,
I would see the whole introduction. I saw this in
my social life. I'd go to a party, I'd see a cute
girl, I didn't know what to say to her. Just walk
up and say, "Hi." And in the process of saying,
"Hi," I'd find the next thing to say. And then
in the process of saying that, I'd find the next
thing to say. And next thing you know, you're
in a 20-minute conversation. Eventually, when I
started writing, I codified this and I called it
the "do something principle," which is basically
when you want something in your stuck, just do
something. Find the minimum viable action. Find
the action that feels doable in this moment. And
just go do it. Because in the process of doing it,
you will generate the motivation and inspiration
to keep going. And I think this is actually one of
the most profound realizations that I've had in my
life, which is that inspiration is not the cause
of action. It's the effect of action. The action
comes first. And then once you've done the action,
you get the inspiration to keep going. You don't
magically feel motivated one day on the couch
and then go get up and go to the gym. You get up
and go to the gym and the fact that you're there
motivates you to actually do something. And so
when you're stuck in life, look for that minimum
viable action. Look for the simplest thing you
can do in this moment. Because just in the act of
doing it, you will generate the motivation to keep
going.
人们不愿行动的另一个原因是**害怕失败和被拒绝**（Fear of Failure and Rejection: 担心无法成功或不被他人接受）。然而，从客观角度看，这是一种非理性恐惧。**拒绝**（Rejection: 不被接受或认可）本质上是一种**筛选机制**（Sorting Mechanism: 通过排除不适合的选项来聚焦于合适的选择），它帮助你剔除那些本就无法带给你快乐的人或事。同时，失败和拒绝也是宝贵的**信息**（Information），它们揭示你的优缺点，指导你改进。
我曾在2009年辞去金融工作开始写博客，尽管不被理解，但我坚信互联网内容是未来的趋势。我每天写作，不断测试市场反馈，累积了许多其他作家缺乏的经验。这让我对什么能引起读者共鸣有了清晰的认知，最终我的三本书都大获成功。然而，成功也带来了意想不到的**副作用**（Side Effect: 除主要目的外，额外产生的，通常指负面影响），例如成功的孤独感和对未来目标的迷失。在达到几乎所有梦想后，我曾陷入一段抑郁期，意识到真正的意义在于拥有超越个人成就的**梦想**（Dreams: 个人渴望实现的目标和愿景，在这里特指那些超越物质和世俗成就的更深层次的愿望），那些无法完全实现、非物质化的追求。
Original English Source
The other reason people don't take action
is a simple fear of failure and rejection. They
don't want to embarrass themselves. They don't
want to make a fool of themselves. And it's funny
because if you zoom out and you think about this a
little objectively, this is very irrational.
Because what is rejection? Rejection is you
signaling to the world. This is what I'm about.
This is what I care about. And it is a certain
percentage of the world looking at that and
being like, "No, not for me." And that's great
because now you don't have to deal with a bunch of
people who weren't going to make you happy anyway.
This is something that is very true, I think, in
dating that applies to everything, which is that
rejection is secretly a good thing because it is
the sorting mechanism of the universe for removing
all of the things that are not going to make
you happy. The other way failure and rejection
benefits you is that it's information. It shows
you what you're good at, what you're not good at.
It shows you how you can do things better. It's
part of the learning process. It's those failures
that generate the information and feedback that
allow you to become great at it. Nobody became
great the first time they did anything. So once
you start seeing failure as part of the process,
you see rejection as part of the natural
filtration of your life. Not only do you stop
being afraid of it, but you actually start leaning
into it. So it's funny, in my own career, I quit
my job in finance in 2009 to start blogging. And
everybody around me thought I was insane. But I
just had this conviction, "You know what? Content
on the Internet. It's going to be a thing. This
is really going to go somewhere. There's going to
be opportunities." And so I was publishing every
single day. I was writing articles all week, every
week. I was working around the clock. And for a
few years, I was struggling to get by. But what I
didn't realize at that time is that I was market
testing my ideas. I was finding different
perspectives that worked with people, that
connected with people. And I was getting reps that
most other writers in the world weren't getting.
Most other writers at that time, they would
publish once a month or once a week or once every
other year if they were writing a book. So they
didn't get that market feedback from the reader.
They didn't have that immediate relationship.
And so because I got all those reps and because I
wrote all of those bad articles and because I got
to see what all my good ideas were and all my bad
ideas were, when I did get my first book deal, I
had a much clearer sense of what I wanted to say
and what I thought was going to resonate and what
people connected with when I talked about it. And
all three of my books were massive. Smash hits.
And it's funny because by that point, I had spent
seven years being on this island, going home at
Christmas, having everybody in my family look at
me and be like, "What do you do for work again?"
And me trying to explain to them what a blog was
and why, no, thousands of people read this, I
promise. They're just kind of shaking their head
and being like, "Who? How do you make money?" And
then suddenly being this huge number one New York
Times bestseller, "My book is in every airport,
it's in every bookstore, it's on TV, it's on the
radio." And seeing the way people's disposition
changed and seeing how suddenly different people
started taking a different attitude towards me,
different aspects of my life started changing. And
don't get me wrong, success is great. Money's
great. Like, I wouldn't take it back. But it
does complicate things and it doesn't play out as
cleanly or smoothly as it does in your fantasies.
And what really surprised me is that after my
books took off and I found myself with all of
this publishing success, I went through a bit
of a period of depression because I didn't know
what the hope for anymore. I didn't have dreams
anymore. Like basically everything I had dreamed
of since I was 20 years old had come true. And
while that was amazing, it was amazing for a few
months, maybe a year. But then after that, I woke
up, I was the same guy, had the same problems,
dealt with the same bullshit, and I had nothing to
look forward to. It was like, "Oh wow, everything,
the best things I could have imagined for myself
are in my past. So what do I have to look forward
to? Why do anything?" And it was a surprisingly
hard period to work through, especially because
nobody wants to shed any tears for a depressed
multimillionaire. Nobody sympathizes with the
guy whose book is number one everywhere. It is
like, "I'm sad. I don't know what to do with my
life." And so you find yourself in this very odd,
lonely position that really the only people that
relate or understand are other people who have
experienced sudden astronomical success. It taught
me a lot about what is actually meaningful and
important in our lives. And I'm extremely proud of
the books and I'm extremely proud of the success.
But it showed me the importance of having things
to look forward to outside of my work, having
dreams that exist outside of my own achievements.
And be always maybe caring about something that
can't be achieved, that isn't worldly or material.
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