人生苦短，屁事当斩。

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人生苦短，屁事当斩。 by Howie和小能熊

今天，我要带你读一篇10年前的文章（是的，你没看错，不是热点，可能是经典）。

而且要读5678遍。

1800年前，古人感叹，“对酒当歌，人生几何”……现在，国人都会发出这样感叹，“人生苦短”……而讲英文的人则会感叹，“life is short”……

这篇文章用词极其简单，英文原文都是小学二三年级水平，但思想深刻，表达真诚。最后，paul graham给出的答案振聋发聩：

Relentlessly prune bullshit, 

don't wait to do things that matter, 

and savor the time you have.

屁事当斩，

贵事即办，

寸阴当品。

当人生苦短，这是你该做的事。甚至，“屁事当斩”，只要做到这一点，每一个人生都不会太短。

祝你阅读愉快～

人生苦短

author: paul graham

date: January 2016

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?

人生苦短，这一点众所周知。小时候，我常常琢磨这个问题：生命真的短暂吗？还是我们抱怨的其实只是生命有尽头？如果我们的寿命是现在的十倍，我们还会觉得生命短暂吗？

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.

因为似乎找不到答案，我就不再琢磨这个问题了。后来我有了孩子。这让我能够回答那个问题，而答案就是：生命确实很短暂。

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.

有了孩子让我明白怎样把连续的量（时间）转换成离散的量⁠⁠。举例来说，孩子两岁那年，你和他在一起也只有 52 个周末。如果说孩子对圣诞节的奇幻想象只会持续从 3 岁到 10 岁，那么你也只能看着孩子这样体验圣诞节 8 次。而对于时间这样的连续量，我们很难说清多少算多、多少算少，可 8 这个数量无论如何都算不上多。打个比方，如果你手里只有 8 颗花生，或者书架上只有 8 本书供挑选，无论你的寿命有多长，这样的数量无疑都会显得有限。

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

好吧，⁠⁠那么生命确实很短暂。明白这个事实会有什么不同吗？ ⁠⁠

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，确实如此。这意味着，“人生苦短，不值得把时间浪费在 X 上”这类论点的确非常有力。说 “⁠生命太短，不值得做某事⁠” 并不仅仅是客套话，它也并非只是“令人厌烦”的另一种说法。如果你发现自己在想“人生太短，不值得做某事”，那你就应该尽可能把它从生活中剔除。

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：⁠有哪些事情是生命如此短暂以至于不值得去做的？ 我脑海中蹦出的一个词是 “⁠⁠bullshit”（狗屁⁠⁠事/屁事）。我也意识到这样的回答多少有点同义反复。毕竟，“bullshit” 这个词的定义几乎就是生命太短，不值得去做的那些事。然而，这种狗屁事确实有它独特的特征——它总带着一种虚假的成分，是人生体验中的垃圾食品。[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.

问问自己，⁠⁠你都把时间浪费在了哪些狗屁事上？⁠⁠其实答案你很可能早已知道。不必要的会议、无谓的争执、官僚主义、装腔作势、处理别人的错误、堵车、⁠⁠令人上瘾却毫无收获的娱乐⁠⁠。

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.

这类东西能进入你生活的方式无非两种：要么是被强加于你，要么是诱你上钩⁠⁠。 在某种程度上，对于环境强加给你的那些狗屁事，你不得不忍受。你需要赚钱，而赚钱这件事本身大多由各种杂务构成。事实上，根据供求法则，一份工作本身越令人满足，人们愿意接受的报酬就越低。不过，也许真正被强加给你的狗屁事并没有你想象的那么多。⁠⁠一直以来，都有人选择跳出常规的打拼，去那些从传统角度看机会更少但生活更真实的地方生活。这种选择在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.

不用搬家，在更小的范围内你也能做到这一点。不同雇主让你浪费在狗屁事上的时间有多有少。大多数大机构（以及许多小公司）都充斥着大量这类狗屁事。但如果你有意识地将“远离狗屁事”置于金钱和名望等因素之上，你或许还是能找到那些较少浪费你时间的雇主。

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经营一家小公司，你可以在挑选具体客户的层面上做到这一点。只要你辞掉或避开那些难缠的客户，你生活中狗屁事减少的程度很可能会大于收入减少的程度。

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]

然而，有些狗屁事不可避免地会被强加给你，而那些⁠⁠通过诱骗潜入你生活的狗屁事⁠⁠，除了你自己，怪不到别人。而且，相比被强加给你的狗屁事，那些你主动选择的狗屁事可能更难清除。能够诱使你浪费时间的事情必然在欺骗方面非常高明。很多人都很熟悉的一个例子就是⁠⁠在网上争论⁠⁠。当有人反驳你时，在某种意义上他们就是在攻击你——有时甚至是公开的攻击。受到攻击时，你的本能反应是进行自我辩护。但是，就像许多本能一样，这种本能并不是为我们当今的世界所设计的。虽然这么做听起来有悖直觉，但⁠⁠大多数情况下，最好不要为自己辩护⁠⁠。否则，这些人就真的等于在偷走你的生命。[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?"

网上争论充其量只是略带上瘾性。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会变得 更容易令人上瘾⁠⁠。这意味着⁠⁠我们将越来越需要有意识地去避免上瘾⁠⁠——跳出自身，问一问：“这真是我想要花费时间的方式吗？”

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.

除了避免狗屁事之外，我们还应该积极⁠⁠寻找那些真正重要的事情⁠⁠。不过，每个人认为重要的东西都不尽相同，而且大多数人需要慢慢摸索出对自己来说什么才是重要的。少数幸运的人会很早意识到自己热爱数学、照料动物或写作之类的事情，并且找到方法让自己花大量时间去做这些事。但大多数人最初的生活都是重要的和无关紧要的事情混杂在一起，他们只能逐渐学会将两者区分开来。

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.

尤其是对于年轻人来说，这种困惑很大程度上源于他们所处的一些人为情境。在中学阶段，别的孩子怎么看待你似乎成了世界上最重要的事。但是当你问成年人，他们在那个年纪哪点做错了，几乎所有人都会说：他们那时候太在乎别的孩子对自己的看法。

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.

判断哪些事是真正重要的一个方法是：问问自己将来是否还会在乎它⁠⁠。那些假装重要的事情通常会在某一刻看起来格外重要——这就是它欺骗你的方式。它的曲线下面积很小，但那陡峭的峰值却像针一样刺进你的意识。

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.

真正重要的事情未必就是人们通常所说的“要事”⁠。和朋友一起喝杯咖啡这件事就很重要——事后你不会觉得那是在浪费时间。

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.

养育年幼的孩子有一大好处：他们会让你把时间花在真正重要的事情上——也就是他们自己⁠⁠。当你盯着手机时，他们会拽着你的袖子说：“你能陪我玩吗？” 而十有八九，这正是能让你远离狗屁事的最佳选择。

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，那么我们应该预期这种短暂会令我们措手不及。而事实往往的确如此。我们把很多事情视作理所当然，然后它们转瞬即逝。你以为自己总还可以去写那本书、爬那座山、做某件事，可之后才意识到机会的窗口已经关闭。最令人难过的是，当别人去世时，那些机会窗口也跟着关闭了——他们的生命同样短暂。我母亲去世后，我真希望自己曾花更多时间陪伴她。我那时过着她仿佛会永远在世的日子，而她也以她一贯安静的方式助长了这种错觉。但那终究只是个幻觉。我想，许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.

要避免被某件事搞得措手不及，通常的方法是有意识地保持警觉。过去在生活更为脆弱的年代，人们对死亡的意识强烈到如今看来都有些病态。我说不清为什么，但一直提醒自己每个人肩头都有死神似乎并不是正确的答案。或许更好的办法是⁠⁠换个角度思考这个问题：培养一种对你最想做之事迫不及待的习惯⁠⁠。别再等着去爬那座山、写那本书或者探望你的母亲。你不必不停地提醒自己为什么不该等——不要等待就是了。

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.

我还想到，⁠⁠当某样东西所剩无几时，人通常会做两件事⁠⁠：尽力去得到更多，以及充分品味自己已有的部分。这两点对这里的情况同样适用。

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长短。大多数人在这方面本可以做得更好——我也不例外。

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.

但是，更加关注你所拥有的时间，可能会带来更大的收效。人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，其实有一个阴暗的近亲——它会让你在每日纷乱的杂事和警报声中不停忙碌，而无法暂停下来细细品味生活。我读过的最令我震撼的一句话不在书的正文里，而是在一本书的标题上：詹姆斯·索尔特的《Burning the Days》。

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.

我们其实可以在一定程度上放慢时间的脚步。我已经变得更擅长这么做了。孩子会有所帮助。当你有年幼的孩子时，生活中会出现许多如此完美的瞬间，让你不由自主地停下来细细品味。

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.

当你觉得自己已经从一段经历中榨取了所有收获时，这种满足感确实会有所帮助。我为母亲感到难过，不只是因为我想念她，还因为我想到我们本可以一起做却没做的种种事情。我的大儿子很快就要 7 岁了。虽然我也怀念他 3 岁时的模样，但至少我不觉得我们错过了什么本可以一起经历的事。⁠⁠在他 3 岁那年，我们度过了父亲和三岁孩子所能拥有的最美好时光⁠⁠。

⁠⁠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.

屁事当斩，贵事即办，寸阴当品。。当人生苦短，这是你该做的事。

Notes/注释

[1] At first I didn't like it that the word that came to mind was one that had other meanings. But then I realized the other meanings are fairly closely related. Bullshit in the sense of things you waste your time on is a lot like intellectual bullshit.

[1] 起初，我并不喜欢自己想到的那个词，因为它还有其他含义。但后来我意识到那些其他含义其实都很接近。从“浪费时间的事”这个意义上来说，“bullshit”和智识上的 “bullshit” 非常相似。

[2] I chose this example deliberately as a note to self. I get attacked a lot online. People tell the craziest lies about me. And I have so far done a pretty mediocre job of suppressing the natural human inclination to say "Hey, that's not true!"

[2] 我有意用这个例子来提醒自己。我在网上常常受到攻击，人们编造了各种离奇的谎言来诋毁我。而对于人类那种想要大喊“嘿，那不是真的！”的天生冲动，我至今抑制得还很不够。

延展阅读

本周干货文章一览

本周共发文9篇（周三和周五发了两篇，因为世界读书日），目前已连续日更76天。

这个“小破号”，期待用每天一篇干货文章，陪伴你终身学习，和你共同成长。

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