The Work/Life Paradox
Work is essential to people for obvious reasons. If you don’t earn money, you can’t pay for a place to stay or food to eat. So I can see why many people put a lot of importance on getting and maintaining a job. 工作对于人们的必要性显而易见。如果不去赚钱，就没法养家糊口，所以才有那么多人在拼命找工作、保住工作。
However, there is a hidden cost to having a job. It takes up a lot of your time. This is time you could be spending with friends, family, hobbies or any number of other free-time activities. This isn’t really anything new. But if you look closer at your work/home life in relation to the money you make and the time you take doing it, an interesting paradox comes up. 然而，有工作的人有一项隐性开销——它占用了你大把大把的时间。这些时间你本可以用来和家人朋友在一起、花在你的爱好或是其它什么闲时做的事情上，这确实没什么新鲜的。但是如果你审视一下自己“公司和家”两点一线的生活状态和你得到多少薪水及所花多少时间之间的关系，你就是发现一个有趣的悖论。
Time and the Work/Life Paradox
时间与工作生活的悖论
If you have a low to middle-income paying job, it really doesn’t take much money to maintain a place to stay, put food on the table and have some minor entertainment on the side. But on this pay scale, you’ll have to sacrifice any luxury and make-do with the bare minimum. It’s a meager existence, but it can still work.
如果你有一个中低等收入的工作，住房方面的开销其实不是很大，把食物摆上餐桌后还能再来点儿娱乐项目。但在这个薪级，你就不得不放弃一切奢侈的享受，什么都得凑合着来。收入的多少是有些微不足道，但也过得去。
In order to increase your lifestyle, you have to put in either more hours or get a higher paying job. This seems straight forward. Work more hours if you can at your existing job or get an additional one. If you want better pay, you will need to apply for a different position or go to school to get your credentials for that higher paying job.
为了提高生活质量，你要么需要在工作上花更多的时间，要么找份待遇更好的工作，这道理似乎很直白。在现有的工作上加班加点或者再找一份兼职工作，要是想拿高点儿的薪水，就需要去申请另一个不同的职位，或者为达到那个更高薪水的职位的要求，回到学校去拿文凭。
However, that requires some sacrifice. In order to do this, you need to give up the time you put into your home life and put more of it to your work life. Working additional hours, getting another job or going back to school all take additional time away from your home life.
然而，那样也得做出牺牲。为了做这些，你就得把用在生活的时间用在工作上。加班加点、做兼职或是重返校园这些都会夺去你用在生活上的时间。
And it doesn’t necessarily end once you get that higher paying job or you graduate from school. Many higher paying jobs require 50-60 hour weeks. This could be 10-20 hours more than you were putting into your low to middle-income level job. This means you are permanently taking time away from your home life and putting it into your work life.
但即便在有了待遇更好的工作或是从学校毕业之后这种情况也没有结束。许多待遇好的工作要求每周工作50到60个小时，比之前中低收入的工作多出了10到20个小时。这意味着你总是要把时间从生活划到工作中去。
The Role of Money
金钱的角色
The perverse aspect of this paradox comes when we look at it through time and money. When you have a low to middle-income paying job, you will have more free time. However, since you put so much of that money towards rent and food, you don’t have much left over to pay for anything more than cheap entertainment.
当从时间和金钱角度去看时，这个悖论不利的一面就会显现出来。当有一份中低收入的工作时，你有的时间就更多。当把大部分钱都用在房租和食物上，节余也就仅够一些花费少的娱乐了。
When you have that higher paying job, you’ll have much more money left over at the end of each month. However, because you are working so many more hours, you have very little time to actually spend that money on anything you want to. In the end, all those hours will tire you out so that you don’t want to do anything really. And you may just end up spending your money accumulating more things because you don’t have the time to spend your money on experiences. 当有一份收入更好的工作时，每月的节余会大大增加，但因为要工作这么长时间，你就仅有一点点时间去买想要的东西。到最后长时间的工作会把你累垮，让你什么都不想做。最终会买回来的东西越来越多，因为你没有时间自己去体验什么 。
In both situations, the vast majority of people end up in front of their television sets wishing they had what the other person has. The low to middle-income person wishes they had all the extra money the higher paid person has. The higher income person wishes they the time off that the low to middle-income person has.
在这两种情况下，绝大多数人都会坐在电视机前，梦想他们也能有别人有的东西——中低收入人群梦想能够拥有高收入人群的额外收入，而高收入人群却想着能够有中低收入人群大把悠闲的时光。
How to Overcome the Paradox
如何打破悖论
Finding a way around this paradox can be difficult. As your pay increases, the time you spend at work also tends to increase. So you either have to settle with lower pay and more free time or higher pay and no free time at all.
想要找到一个能避开悖论的方法会很难。随着收入的增长，你花在工作上面的时间也会跟着增加。所以要么就老老实实拿低薪水，要么就拿高薪水，牺牲你的休息时间。
But you can find some alternatives if you look hard enough. Of course, there are some people who don’t care that they have to work longer hours so long as they get that extra pay. That’s certainly fine if you are happy with that. But in general, I think most people would like to have good pay with more time off.
但是要是够仔细的话，你就能发现一些选择的余地。当然有的人不在乎去工作更长时间，只要能拿高薪水就可以。要是本人愿意这样的话，这未尝不可；但是总得来说我想大多数人都乐意有更高的薪水和更长的休息时间。
Researching jobs before you enter them will give you a great idea of the work/home life balance you can expect. For example, doctors and lawyers notoriously have larger pays, but extremely long days. However, many nurses can be paid really well but work shorter hours than the traditional 40 hour work week.
研究成果会让你对工作与生活的平衡有一个极好的认识：比如，医生和律师都有他们令人发指的高收入，可他们要工作很长时间。然而许多护士们收入不菲，工作时间却短于一般的每周40个小时。
Looking for employment with good pay and ample free time can have an additional difficulty. In order to be happy at work, you must find something that you enjoy doing. This might narrow down your choices considerably. But taking the time to find the right job might be worth it to actually have both the money and the time to do more things you want.
想要找一份薪水多同时休息时间还长的工作还存在另一个困难。为了工作得开心，你就必须找一些自己乐于做的事情，这就大大缩小了选择范围。但如果能够同时拥有更多金钱和时间去做想做的事情，花些时间去找一份这样的工作也是值得的。
If having a good work/home life balance is important to you, you need to be aware of this paradox. If you don’t make yourself aware of this phenomenon, you could either get stuck at a low or high paying job that leaves you with little more to do than watch television during your free time.
如果找到工作生活的平衡点对你来说很重要，那你就需要更加注意这一悖论。如果还没有注意到这一现象，那你可能会被中低收入的工作困住，休息时间里除了看电视什么也做不了。
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