TED | 如何面对艰难选择How to make hard choices

演讲简介

人生的选择无处不在，有的选择很简单，有的选择则很艰难。而艰难的选择并不都是大的抉择，甚至中午吃什么也会变得很艰难。所以面对艰难选择，我们应该如何抉择？ Ruth Chang将告诉我们，面对艰难选择，我们一开始的方向就错了。

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

 

When we choose between options that are on a par, we can do something really rather remarkable. We can put our very selves behind an option. Here's where I stand. Here's who I am, I am for banking. I am for chocolate donuts.

当我们需要在等价选项间抉择时，我们能做出一些十分了不起的事。我们能把自身放在一个选项之后。（说道）这就是我的选择，这就是我。我选银行业。我选巧克力甜甜圈。

 

This response in hard choices is a rational response, but it's not dictated by reasons given to us. Rather, it's supported by reasons created by us. When we create reasons for ourselves to become this kind of person rather than that, we wholeheartedly become the people that we are. You might say that we become the authors of our own lives.

在艰难抉择中，这种反应是一种理性反应，但却不是由我们面前的各种原由所决定的。反而，这是由我们自己创造的理由所支撑起来的。当我们为自我创造原由去成为这种人而非那种人时，我们就打心底里完完全全地成就了真正的自己。你可以说，我们成了谱写自我人生篇章的作者。

 

So when we face hard choices, we shouldn't beat our head against a wall trying to figure out which alternative is better. There is no best alternative. Instead of looking for reasons out there, we should be looking for reasons in here: Who am I to be? You might decide to be a pink sock-wearing, cereal-loving, country-living banker, and I might decide to be a black sock-wearing, urban, donut-loving artist. What we do in hard choices is very much up to each of us.

所以当面对艰难抉择，不应该拿脑袋撞墙绞尽脑汁地去想哪个选项更优。最佳项并不存在。与其在外界苦命寻找理由，我们该往心里找： 我想成为什么样的人？你可能会决定成为一个穿粉色袜子、爱好干麦片，还住在乡村的银行家。而我可能会决定成为一个穿黑袜子，住在城市里，喜欢吃甜甜圈的艺术家。面临艰难抉择时的反应很大程度上 取决于我们自己每个人。

 

 

 

Now, people who don't exercise their normative powers in hard choices are drifters. We all know people like that. I drifted into being a lawyer. I didn't put my agency behind lawyering. I wasn't for lawyering. Drifters allow the world to write the story of their lives. They let mechanisms of reward and punishment -- pats on the head, fear, the easiness of an option -- to determine what they do. So the lesson of hard choices: reflect on what you can put your agency behind, on what you can be for, and through hard choices, become that person.

那些不锻炼自己规范性力量的人会成为“漂流者”。我们都认识那样的人。我（被理性原由限定）“漂流”成了律师。我并没有全身心投入到律师业务当中。我不适合当律师。漂流者允许这个世界谱写他们的生命篇章（被拖着走）。他们让奖罚机制—— 鼓励、畏惧、选择的简单性——来决定自己的道路。所以艰难抉择教会我们要审视自己能把身心与精力放到何处，自己究竟追求什么，并通过困难抉择来成为那种人。

 

Far from being sources of agony and dread, hard choices are precious opportunities for us to celebrate what is special about the human condition, that the reasons that govern our choices as correct or incorrect sometimes run out, and it is here, in the space of hard choices, that we have the power to create reasons for ourselves to become the distinctive people that we are. And that's why hard choices are not a curse but a godsend.

艰难抉择不是痛苦和恐惧的来源，而是难得的机遇让我们庆幸人类有如此特殊的选择权利，庆幸有时候区分选择正误的理性原由会用尽，而且，庆幸有在这个具有艰难抉择的世界里，我们有能力去为自己创造理由，去成为与众不同的自己。这就是为什么，艰难抉择不是一种诅咒，而是天赐之物。