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The day I got laid off from my job at Martha Stewart I was relieved. I loved the job. I really did but the relationship was over and I didn’t know how to end it and then it broke up with me. At the time I’ve been also hosting a radio show for the Martha Stewart brand on SiriusXM and then not long after that got canceled too. 在被MarthaStewart(美国知名女性财富人物)解雇的那天，我竟然感到很轻松，我很热爱这份工作，真的。当时我也在主持一档和MS品牌相关的电台节目。 On the day of my last show I got onto the elevator at the 36th floor and as it started to drop, I started to cry. Every floor took me further and further from what I had been, a magazine editor, a radio host, the person with the cool job to talk about at parties. 不久之后，那档节目也被叫停，在最后一期节目结束之后，我坐上了电梯，当电梯从36层开始下降时，我最终还是没忍住，开始哭个不停，每一个楼层都见证了我的努力，从最初的无名小卒到杂志标记、电台主播，我是一个可以在派对上炫耀自己体面工作的人。 And honestly, I had no idea what I was going to do and quite frankly no one was looking for me. So I did what anyone would do in that situation. I was making some phone calls, hey, what are you up to, that I mention I’m available. I needed to get paid to do something, right? I mean, I live in New York City. If you’re not paid to do something, you’re not going to be there very long. 说真的，当时我不知道接下来我可以做什么了。而且，坦白地说，当时没有一个人找我介绍工作，所以我做了在那种情况下任何人都会做的事情，我开始打电话给我的朋友们：“嘿，你最近在忙些什么呀？”我会提到自己最近时间比较多，需要找份活儿干，我的意思是，我生活在纽约，如果不找份能够养活你的工作，是待不久的。 With this idea that I had to know when I was supposed to do now, is to pursue this passion. It just bugged me. It always had and that’s because there’s a dangerously limiting idea at the heart of everything we believe about success and life in general. And it’s that you have one singular passion and your job is to find it and to pursue it to the exclusion of all else. And if you do that, everything will fall into place. And if you don’t you fail. 但是这个想法必须知道是你已经道应该做什么，追求什么的想法，它让我感到烦躁，一直都是。这是因为在我们的内心深处有一种非常危险的，险隘的想法关于成功以及生活，那就是每个人都应该有一份热情，你的任务就是找到它，接着把它发挥到极致，如果你找到了找份热情，其余一切都不用操心了，如果没有找到，就是失败。 The pressure starts really young and it goes your whole life but it’s perhaps most pronounced when you’re graduating from school, right? Wow, the world at your feet, what are you going to do now? And it’s so intimidating it’s like picking a major for life. I had a hard time picking a major for four years and I changed that once if not twice. 这种压力，从小时候就开始了，并且伴随了我的整个人生，不过感受最深切的时候，应该是从学校毕业时。每个人都会对你说“哇喔，世界就在你的脚下，接下来你打算做些什么呢？”就好像在选择专业，在为人生选择专业，要知道，为大学四年选择一个专业就已经足够我纠结的了，而且还换了一次专业，差点还换了两次。 I mean it was like just intimidating. And this compelling, I mean this really forceful cultural imperative to choose your passion is stressful to me but it’s not just me. Everyone I talked to agrees with me. The woman who sold me this dress, I told her what I needed to dress for when I was talking about and she said, oh my gosh, I really need to hear this talk because I just graduate from school, my friends and I we don’t know what we’re passionate about. We don’t know what we’re supposed to do. 我的意思是为人生选择专业，那太可怕了。这种看似挺有道理的，强有力的，紧迫的确定人生追求的想法，对我而言，压力很大，不过，不仅仅是对我，所有我接触过的人都这么认为，我们在大学期间不知道自己喜欢做什么，更加不知道接下来毕业后做什么。 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。 Now as you know, an entire cottage industry has sprung up around helping people find their passions, write books, coaching, webinars, whatever and their heart is in the right place, it’s great. I’m all about self-discovery. But when you ask someone what’s your passion, it’s triggering. It’s like upsetting, like oh my god, I have to come up with a good answer for this. 虽然今天有各种方式帮助人们找到自己的热情所在，书本、辅导课、在线研讨会等等，他们的初心是好的，很棒，我支持自我探索。但是，当你问一个人“你对什么事最有热情”，这是一个会引发一些列话题的问题，而且会让人很焦虑，你会想，“我的天，我必须想出一个很好的回答”。 One of my friends is in her mid-forties and she’s looking at like what’s her life going to be now. And she’s like I don’t know what I’m passionate about. And she is legitimately concerned about this. She’s ready to hire a team of people, it’s like why are we worried about this, you know why, because you think something’s wrong with her. 我有一位朋友当她被问到“你的生活将会怎样的时候”，她是这样说的“我竟然不知道自己对什么事情有热情”。 她准备聘请一群人，这就是为什么我们担心这一点，你知道为什么，因为你觉得她的错了。 I felt something was wrong with me when I was in the seventh grade and everyone was really in this like the rock bands and their actors and they would carve the names of those bands in the tables at the library. 我以前也觉得自己有问题。当我在七年级时，我感到有些错误。当时身边的每个人都有自己的摇滚乐队，有些是表演社成员，他们会在图书馆的桌子上刻录这些乐队的名字。 And I never carve anything because I couldn’t think of anything to carve. I mean I liked Bon Jovi as much as the next girl but not enough to deface school property. That’s probably why I don’t have any other — I don’t have any tattoos either, I’m assuming that’s boring. It’s really boring, I thought something was wrong with me but that’s the fear, isn’t it. 而我却从来没有刻过任何东西。因为我想不出有任何可以刻下的东西。我也很喜欢BonJovi和邻座的女孩儿一一样喜欢，但不足以喜欢到破坏学校的公物。可能这也是为什么我没有纹身的原因，我猜是这样的。不过但是我觉得自己是个无聊的人，我觉得自己一定是有问题的。不过那就是我们所害怕的东西，不是吗？ That when someone asks you at a party, on a date, at a job interview, what are you passionate about, that you’re not going to have this wow compelling answer, and that that means you’re not interesting or ambitious or that you don’t have a singular obsession or scary talent that you are hiding, and that your life is not worth living and that’s not true. 当有人在派对上、约会中、面试时问你，“你对哪些事情有热情呀？”。如果你无法回答出一个让人惊讶叹服的答案，那么久意味着你是一个无趣的人，一个没有志向的人，意味着你没有执着的追求，你没有唬得住人的才华，所以你的人生没有意义，是不值得生活的。然后这一切都是胡扯。 Passion is not a job, a sport or a hobby. It is the full force of your attention and energy that you give to whatever is right in front of you. And if you’re so busy looking for this passion, you could miss opportunities that change your life. You could also miss out on great love because that’s what happens when you have tunnel vision trying to find the one. We all think we know the kind of person we are and the kind of person we could love. But sometimes we’re wrong, blissfully wrong. 热情不是一份工作，不是一项运动，也不是一个兴趣，事情是一股劲，一股把自己所有的能量和精力投入到你所面临的任何事情中的劲。如果你忙于寻找自己的热情所在，你可能会错失很多能改变人生的机会，也可能错过精彩的爱情，这是因为你把所有的精力都局限于寻找那个“对的”。我们都觉得我们知道自己是怎样的人，我们适合怎样的人，可有时候，我们是会看错的，我们会犯幸福的错误； And sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to do next, right? I mean I don’t, I love not knowing what I’m going to be doing five years from now or what I’ll be into. And that’s okay, it’s okay not to know. You know why, because the most fulfilling relationships, the most fulfilling careers are those that still have the power to surprise you. 有时候，你会不知道接下来该做什么，不是吗？至少我会，不过我喜欢不知道，不知道自己未来五年会做什么、会喜欢什么，那没关系！不知道没有关系！你知道为什么吗？因为最令人欣喜的爱情，最令人满意的职业，是那些依旧能够给你带来惊喜的。 And as for the things you know you want to do, you want to write a book, you want to start a business, you want to change careers, great. But if you’re sitting around waiting for passion to show up and take you there, you’re going to be waiting a long time. 至于那些你知道自己想要做的事情，想写一本书、想创业、想换一份职业这些都很好，而你还在等待热情的出现，那么你可能还会等很久。 So don’t wait, instead spend your time and attention solving your favorite problems. Look for problems that need solving. Be useful, generous. People will thank you and hug you and pay you for it and that’s where passion is, where your energy and effort meet someone else’s need. That’s when you realize passion lives and realizing what you have to contribute. What do you think when you ask what they are passionate about, they say helping other people. 所以，不要等待。行动起来，用你的时间和精力去解决那些你最想解决的问题。寻找需要被解决的问题，做一个有用的人 做一个慷慨的人，人们会感谢你，大家会拥抱你，也会给你报酬，而那儿，就是你的热情所在。当你的能力和努力能满足人们的需求，你会意识到那儿就是你的热情所在。那些就是自己可以做的贡献。现在你应该明白了，当你问到其他人他们的热情所在时，为什么他们会说“帮助他人”。 So don’t wait. Listen to my mother. Just start doing because to live a life full of meaning and value, you don’t follow your passion. Your passion follows you. 所以不要再等了，可以听我妈妈的话，先行动起来。不要跟随你的激情，让你的激情跟随你。谢谢。 |
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