该放弃就放弃

该放弃就放弃 该放弃就放弃 When is it time to give up? 安东尼娅•马卡罗 , 朱利安•巴吉尼 为英国《金融时报》撰稿 字号 最大 较大 默认 较小 最小 背景                     中文 评论[11条] 打印 电邮 收藏 HYPERLINK "http://v.t.qq.com/share/share.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ftchinese.com%2Fstory%2F001039559%2Fce&title=%E8%AF%A5%E6%94%BE%E5%BC%83%E5%B0%B1%E6%94%BE%E5%BC%83%20-%20%E5%8F%8C%E8%AF%AD%E9%98%85%E8%AF%BB%20-%20FT%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E7%BD%91&source=1000014&site=http://www.ftchinese.com" \o "转播到腾讯微博" \t "_blank" 腾讯微博 新浪微博   The Shrink 精神科医师 You have been working towards a PhD for several years, battling with unsympathetic supervisors, becoming more and more stressed, unable to enjoy your normal leisure activities. So far, you have not even considered giving up, but this year you just wonder whether enough might be enough. But no – you’ve invested so much in it, why become a quitter? You will get there eventually. 博士生你已经读了好几年，一直与缺乏同情心的导师斗争，自己的压力越来越大，无法享受正常的休闲活动。直到现在，你从没有过放弃的念头，但今年你却开始困惑：什么时候才是个头呢？可是不行，你已经在其中投入了那么多，怎么能半途而废呢？你最终会实现目标的。 Tenacity is of course an essential virtue in life, but its value is so well rehearsed that it ends up being overstated. People often stick with things that are well past their use-by date, stubbornly beavering away at goals that are no longer alive. 坚韧不拔当然是人生中一种关键的美德，然而它的价值经过了太多的复述，最终显得有些言过其实。人们常常对已经过了保质期的东西不离不弃，一门心思朝着不再有意义的目标顽强奋斗。 The first trap to avoid is basing our decision on how much we have invested in a goal, financially or otherwise. In the case of your PhD, the years of toil and tuition fees paid should be irrelevant. All you need to consider is how much of a priority it is for you right now – not how much it was when you started on it. 首先要避免的一个圈套是，根据在一个目标上投入了多少来做决定，无论是财务投入还是其他投入。就你的博士学位而言，付出的多年努力和学费都并不重要。你需要考虑的只是这个目标现在对你有多紧要——而不是刚开始朝这个目标努力时，它有多重要。 The very conviction that persistence is always good was recently challenged by a series of studies on teenagers. Psychologists Gregory Miller and Carsten Wrosch found that the ability to let go of hard-to-reach goals had positive health benefits. They also discovered that, after a period of feeling low, those adolescents who gave up on a goal were able to regroup and set new goals, avoiding the serious depression that might later descend on those who were reluctant to move on. 近期针对青少年所做的一系列研究，对有毅力总是好的这种观念提出了挑战。心理学家格里格瑞•米勒(Gregory Miller)和卡斯滕•霍什(Carsten Wrosch)研究发现，能够放弃难以实现的目标有益于健康。他们还发现，在经过一段时间的情绪低落后，放弃目标的青少年能够重新组成团体、设立新的目标，从而避免遭遇不愿改变想法的人可能会遭遇的严重精神压抑。 Of course, if we realise that a goal is simply unattainable, the decision to abandon it should be easy enough to make. While it is not uncommon to fail to spot such an obstacle, shining a little objectivity on it should reveal it for what it is. The really difficult decisions are the ones that involve ditching projects that are attainable but only at a cost to health, relationships or enjoyment of life. 当然，如果我们发现目标根本无法达到，决定放弃就应该很容易。虽然无法发现这种障碍的情况并不鲜见，但给予一些客观的审视，应该就能揭示出真相。真正困难的抉择是：那些能够实现，但必须要付出健康、人际关系或人生乐趣的代价才能实现的目标，是否应该放弃。 PhD students, you will have to decide whether the costs are worth it, bearing in mind that being a quitter does not always mean being a loser. 博士生们，你们必须要确定付出的代价是否值得，要记住：放弃并不一定意味着失败。 The Sage 哲人 Kenny Rogers and Aristotle make an unlikely duo, but together they tell you pretty much all you need to know about when to give up. 乡村歌手肯尼•罗杰斯(Kenny Rogers)和哲学家亚里士多德(Aristotle)似乎不可能相提并论，不过把这两个人放在一起，基本上就可以向你彻底阐明应该在什么时候放弃。 Aristotle’s most enduring and useful insight was that virtually nothing is good for us if we have too little or too much of it. Determination is the perfect example. Too little, and you are weak and irresolute. Too much, and you are inflexible, blinkered or fanatical. Just right is the eponymous gambler of the Kenny Rogers’ song, who is able to look at the cards he’s got, know when to hold ‘em and know when to fold ‘em. 亚里士多德最经久不衰、也最有用的见解是：无论什么东西，过多或过少都不是好事。“决心”就是一个完美的例子。太少，就会优柔寡断；太多，则会不够灵活、目光狭窄或有些疯魔。就像肯尼•罗杰斯成名曲《赌徒》(The Gambler)中唱的那样，一个赌徒要能看清手上的牌，还要知道什么时候该继续叫牌，什么时候该弃牌认输。 The gambler gleans this wisdom by weighing up the value of the cards in his hand against the value of those he thinks others might be holding, and the stake on the table. But he doesn’t just do this when he first turns over the cards, sticking to his decision come what may. He always has to be aware of how the situation can change as new information comes to light. A risk worth taking becomes reckless when the stakes rise too high or if you get a better idea of your opponent’s hand. 赌徒要将自己手中的牌与他所猜想的别人手中的牌相比较，并对桌上的赌注做出权衡，因此才学到了这种智慧。但他们并非只是在第一次翻开牌时做出决定，以后不管发生什么都坚持到底。而是必须要随着显示出的新信息，随时了解局面的变化。如果赌注太高，或者对对手的牌了解得更清楚，本以为值得承担的风险，可能就会显得十分离谱。 In real life, the same basic principles apply. When we set out to achieve something, it is because we have decided, at least implicitly, that our goal is both desirable and achievable. But once we get started, reality has a habit of telling us that our initial calculations no longer add up. Sometimes, what changes is simply our own desire. 在现实生活中，同样的基本原则也成立。当我们决定要实现某个目标，是因为我们认定（至少潜意识中认为）这个目标既值得追求、又能够达到。然而开始之后，现实往往会提醒我们，最初的盘算不再合理。而有些时候，只是我们自己的欲望发生了改变。 On other occasions, we might continue to value what we seek just as much, but start to realise that the price of achieving it has risen too high. We have to remember that price includes the opportunity costs of the things we are not doing in our determination to stick it out: think of the sailing with your family you could have been doing all those weekends you dedicated to completing your matchstick model of the Cutty Sark in the shed. 其他情况下，我们可能仍认为自己所追求目标的价值并没有改变，只是开始意识到，实现目标的代价已过于高昂。不要忘了，这种代价还包括因为决心坚持目标而未能做的其他事情的机会成本，想一想在工作间专心致志地用火柴搭成卡蒂萨克号(Cutty Sark)模型的那些周末，你本可以与家人一同扬帆旅行。 You can sum up the combined wisdom of Athens and Nashville in a simple maxim: too much determination is when our resolution remains the same but the facts, or our knowledge of them, have changed. 你可以将雅典的智慧和纳什维尔(Nashville)的智慧结合成一个简单的道理：如果现实情况发生了变化，或者我们对现实的认识发生了变化，却仍然坚定不移，那就是过于顽固了。 The Shrink & The Sage live together in south-west England. Stephen Grosz returns next week 精神科医师与哲人共同生活在英格兰西南部 译者/王柯伦