TED | 停止寻找你的热情

演讲简介

 

热情不是一个计划，热情是一种感觉。人们总是认为热情创造成功，其实相反，往往是成功创造热情。不要无所事事地去等待热情的出现，现在就去解决你想要解决的问题吧！

 

 

 

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

 

I’m leery of passion for a few reasons. But one of them is that passion is not a plan. It’s a feeling and feelings change. They do. You can be passionate about a person one day, at a job and then not passionate the next. We know this and yet we continue to use passion as the yardstick to judge everything by, instead of seeing passion for what it really is, the fire that ignites when you start rubbing sticks together.

我对热情这个词非常警惕，其中一个原因是热情不是一个计划，热情是一种感觉，而感觉是会变的，你可以今天对一个人，一份工作很有热情，第二天就不在了。虽然大部分的人都懂这个道理，但我们仍然得盲目地用“热情”作为标准来判断每件事情是否值得去做而并没有弄清楚“热情”到底是什么，它是把所有火柴点燃时的那一团火光吗？

 

Anyway I was such a mess when I was in my twenties, such a mess, I was anxious and depressed and had no life to speak of. I was tempting to keep my options open and I was sitting around at night in my underwear watching Seinfeld reruns, actually I still do that, that’s not the worst thing in the world to do. Fine.

在二十几岁时，我的生活一团糟糕，简直是糟透了，那时我很焦虑、抑郁，我没有任何生活可言，任由机会从身边溜走，穿着内衣在家里看剧。其实现在也会这样，不过这不是世界上最糟糕的事情。

 

But I called my mother every night crying and I was turning away perfectly good fulltime jobs, why because I was afraid. I was sure that I would pick the wrong one and get on the wrong train headed to the wrong future. My mother begged me to please take a job, any job, you’re not going to be stuck. You’re stuck now. You don’t create your life first and then live it. You create it by living it, not agonizing about it. She’s right, she’s always right.

当时每晚我都会哭着给我妈妈打电话，我拒绝了一个非常好的工作机会。为什么？ 因为我害怕，当时我很确信自己会做错决定，坐上一班错误的列车，驶向错误的未来。当时我妈妈恳切地和我说“找一份工作吧，任何工作，你不会被困住的，现在的你才是被困住了。”不是先创造人生，再去过好它的，是一边生活，一边创造人生的，而不是整天抱怨。她是对的，我妈妈总是对的。

 

And so I took a full time job as an assistant at a management consulting firm where I knew nothing about nothing. Okay, zero. Except I knew I had a reason to get up in the morning, get showered, leave the house and people who are waiting for me when I got there. And I got a paycheck every two weeks and that is as good a reason to take a job as any.

所以我找了一份全职工作，作为一名助理，一个管理咨询公司的助理，当时我对管理咨询一点儿都不了解，一无所知，除了知道每天必须早起，必须去冲澡，走出家门，在公司里，有一群等我来做的事儿的人，每月会收到工资，这是一个最好的需要找一份工作的理由。

 

Did I know that - if I want to be an office administrator for the rest of my life? No, I had no idea, truly. But this idea that everything you’re supposed to do should fit into this passion vertical is unrealistic. You show me someone who washes windows for a living and I will bet you $1,000,000 if not because he has a passion for clean glass.

如果你问我，当时我知道自己下半辈子就想成为一个办公室主任么？不！我当然不知道！当时这种想法，每一件你应该做的事情都必须符合自己热情的想法是不切实际的，叫我说，那是搞精英主义，如果你告诉我一个以擦窗户为生的人，我用一百万美元和你打赌，那绝不是因为他对把窗户擦干净有热情。

 

One of my favorite columns is a piece by Dilbert creator Scott Adams. He wrote a piece in The Wall Street Journal few years ago about how he failed his way to success and one of his jobs was as a commercial loan officer. And he was taught specifically: do not loan money to someone following their passion. Now loan it to someone who wants to start a business, the more boring the better.

我最喜欢的漫画家在几年之前曾在华尔街日报上发表过一段关于他错失成功机会的经历，他曾做一段时间的商业贷款专员，在接受培训时被重点告诫，千万不要把贷款批给那些追随自己热情的人，要把钱借给那些想要做生意的人，越无聊的生意越好。

 

Adam says that in his life success fueled passion more than passion fueled success. When I got my first job as a magazine editor in publishing, I was thrilled. But I had to take a pretty big paycut because at the time I’d been a catalog copywriter at a Wig Company. Laugh if you will, clearly you are and many many people did. But Wigs paid and so I had to figure out a way to make some  money.

Adams说，在他的人生里，成功造就了热情，多过于热情造就了成功。当我获得第一份出版行业杂志编辑工作时，我欣喜若狂，但是工资却少很多，我必须要想办法多赚一些钱。

 

So a friend of mine invited me to a jewelry party and I said what is a jewelry party? She said it’s like tupperware but with bracelets. I said, okay, got it.I went and I had the best time. I was there hanging out trying on jewelry and the salesperson’s having a great time and I was like, that’s a job. I could do  that.

当时有一个朋友，邀请我参加一个珠宝party，于是我问，什么是珠宝party， “就是试试戴各种手链耳环”，她说。我就去参加了这场party，结果，那天过得超级愉快，我在哪儿和人聊天，试戴各类耳环手链，珠宝销售也很享受，当时我在想，“这也是工作，没搞错把，这工作，我也可以做啊”。

 

I mean really she seems to be having a great time. Now I had no background in sales - Girl Scouts, and I was terrible and I had no passion for jewelry. I mean honestly my earrings cost $20 combined all of them and then I was like I think I can fling silver jewelry to suburban moms drinking daiquiris. Yes, I  could do that.

我是认真的，那销售看上去真的很轻松，当时我没有任何销售经验，而且对于珠宝，我并没有热情，说真的，我的耳环，只花了20美元。 我当时有一个念头，我可以把珠宝首饰卖给那些住在郊区喝着德贵鸡尾酒的母亲们，所以我当时就报名加入了。

 

And so I did it, I signed up, I became a jewelry designs rep and listen to me I was not setting the world on fire away, really. I was so like awkward and afraid of selling, and I got better, I got better. I started making some money. I started getting really passionate about it, not just because of the money but because what I realized is people bought at the stuff. They were happy to pay for it.

所以我注册了，成了一个珠宝设计代表，听我说，当时我并没有一下子就成功。真的，那时很尴尬，我对于推销非常胆怯。不过情况慢慢好转。相信我，这件事情没有一开始就很顺利，而是慢慢地好转，然后我开始对这一行有了热情。。后来我赚了一些钱，比这个更开心地是，我意识到，有人愿意为我的付出买单。

 

I sold so much jewelry that year. I won a free trip to St. Thomas. I eventually let my jewelry business go because my career path shifted, but I was so glad that I did that because it planted an entrepreneurial seed I didn’t know was there and that bears fruit to this day.

那一年我卖了很多珠宝，还赢得了免费圣托马斯岛旅游的机会。这是真事儿，最终我成为了一个珠宝商人，因为我的职业规划改变了，我很高兴那时候我这样子做了。那段经历在我心里播下了一个创业的种子，虽然我当时并没有意识到，但今天，那颗种子结果了。