前言

這一篇是《黑客與畫家》作者的文章。剛開始嘗試翻譯，已經粗校了一遍，還需要打磨。
“生命短暫”，想要做的事情，就開始去做吧。不要等到某個特殊的時刻才開始。加油！
因為觸發了圖靈垃圾檢測機制，先把更新版放在這裡： https://www.jianshu.com/p/682429f8ac3f ，待收到回覆郵件後，再來這裡更新。

Life is Short

（January 2016 ）
原文地址：http://www.paulgraham.com/vb.html

生命短暫 （2016 年 1 月）
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?
眾所周知，生命是短暫的。當我還是孩子的時候，我常常對此感到疑惑。是生命真的短暫，還是我們在抱怨它的有限？如果壽命延長10倍，我們是否還會覺得生命短暫呢？

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.
既然似乎沒辦法回答，我也就不再想它了。後來我有了孩子。我有了回答這個問題的方法。答案是，生命真是短暫的。

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，我學會了如何將時間這個連續的數量轉換成離散的數量。你只有52個週末與你2歲的寶貝相處。如果聖誕節的魔法可以從3歲持續到10歲，你也只能和你的孩子體驗8次。對於像時間這類連續的概念，我們不能說它是多還是少，但8的確不是很多。如果你有8個花生，或者8本書，不管你壽命如何，這個數量肯定都是有限的。

Ok, so life actually is short. Does it make any difference to know that?
好吧，生命真的很短。知道這一點，有什麼意義嗎？

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.
對我而言這有意義。它意味著像"對x來說，生命太短暫"這類話很有力量。說生命對於某事來說太短暫不僅僅是打一個比方。它也不是令人討厭的同義詞。如果你發現自己想要做某事但時間不夠。如果可能的話，你應該試著消滅這個念頭。

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
當我問自己，我發現了什麼事是生命太短以至於我不能做的，突然出現在我腦海中的詞是"廢話"。我意識到這答案似乎有點重複或者說囉嗦。這幾乎是“廢話”的定義，它本身就是指生命太短我們不能去做的東西。然而，“廢話”確實有獨特之處。它有欺騙性，就好比“垃圾食品”。 （這一段翻得不是很好，回頭再繼續修改。bullshit翻譯成“無意義之事”會不會更好） 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.
如果你問自己把時間花在了哪些不必要的事情上，答案可能你已經知道。不必要的會議，毫無意義的爭吵，官僚主義，故作姿態，處理別人的錯誤，交通堵塞，上癮但無回報的消遣。

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 insures 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.
這種無意義的事情進入你的生活有兩種方式：要麼強迫你，要麼欺騙你。在某種程度上，你必須忍受環境所強加給你的“廢話”。你需要賺錢，而賺錢大多數時候就要完成各種的“苦差事”。事實上，供求規律決定了：一種工作的回報越多，人們就越會這樣做。不過，可能比你想象的“廢話”要少。總是有一些人選擇退出這樣的環境，去一個傳統意義上的機會較少的地方生活，但生活感覺更真實。這樣的做法可能會更普遍。（還要打磨這一段）

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.
您可以較小程度的實現這一點而無需搬家。你花在廢話上的時間因僱主而異。大多數大型組織（和許多小型組織）都沉浸其中。但是，如果你有意識地把避免“廢話”放在金錢和聲望等其他因素之上，你可能會發現會浪費更少時間的僱主。

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.
如果您是自由職業者或者在經營小公司，您可以在個人客戶級別上執行此操作。如果你解僱或避開“有毒客戶”，你一生中的“廢話”數量會減少，並且會比你收入減少的更多。

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
但是，雖然一些廢話不可避免地強加給你，通過欺騙你潛入你的生活的廢話不是任何人的錯，而是你自己的錯。然而，你選擇的廢話可能比強加給你的廢話更難消除。吸引你浪費時間的事情非常善於欺騙你。很多人熟悉的一個例子是在網上爭論。當有人反駁你時，他們從某種意義上說是在攻擊你。有時相當明顯。你被攻擊時的本能是保護自己。但是，像許多本能一樣，它不是為我們現在生活的世界設計的。儘管感覺有悖常理，但大多數時候最好不要為自己辯護。否則，這些人真的“拿走了”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?"
線上爭吵只是碰巧讓人成癮。有更多比這還容易讓人上癮的事情。像我以前提到的，科技進步的一個副產品就是，各種產品都讓我們更容易上癮。這意味著我們必須花費更多努力來避免上癮——我們需要跳出我們自己並問自己，這是我想要的利用時間的方式嗎？

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.
和避免“廢話”一樣，人們要積極的尋找對自己而言重要的事情。但是對每個人，重要的事情都不同，人們也需要學習到底什麼是對他們重要的事情。少數人很幸運，他們很早就意識到自己喜歡數學或者照顧小動物，並且找出花費很多時間在上面的辦法。但是多數人的生活都混雜了很多有用和無用的事情，慢慢的才會區別開它們。

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.
尤其是對於年輕人而言，這種混亂很大程度是由於他們發現自己處於人為的環境而引起的。在中學和高中，其他孩子對你的看法似乎是世界上最重要的事情。 但是，當你問大人，他們在那個年齡出了什麼問題時，幾乎所有人都說他們太在意其他孩子對他們的看法。

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.
確認重要內容的一種啟發式方法是問自己是否將來會關心它。 假冒的東西通常看起來很重要。 那就是它欺騙你的方式。 曲線下的區域很小，但形狀像大頭針一樣刺入您的意識。

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.
對我們有意義的事情不一定是人們通常認為“重要”的事情。 和朋友一起喝咖啡也很重要， 因為以後您並不會覺得那是浪費時間。

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.
生小孩的一大好處是，他們會讓您將時間花在重要的事情上：他們。 當您凝視手機時，他們抓住你的袖子，說：“能和我一起玩嗎？” 實際上，這是避免“廢話”最佳選擇。

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.
如果生命短暫，我們應該期待生命的短暫帶給我們的驚訝。 而這也是趨勢。 你認為理所當然的事情，突然就消失了。 您認為您總是可以寫那本書，或者爬那座山，或者做其他事，然後您就會意識到，“機會之窗”已經關了。 當你周圍的人死亡時，那扇最可悲的“機會之窗”也會關閉。 他們的生命其實也很短暫。 我母親去世後，我真希望我能和她在一起多待一些時光。那之後，我感覺好像她永遠都在那裡， 並且母親也以她慣有的安靜方式鼓勵了我的這種幻想。 但是那畢竟是一種幻想。 我認為，很多人都犯了和我相同的錯誤。

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.
避免被某些事物嚇到的通常方法是有意識地意識到這一點。 當生活更加不穩定時，人們曾經意識到死亡的程度現在似乎有些病態。 我不確定為什麼，但是不斷提醒自己，死神徘徊在每個人的肩膀上似乎是不正確的答案。 也許更好的解決方案是從另一個角度來看問題。 養成對您最想做的事情“立刻去做”的習慣。 不要等待某一天有機會再去爬山，或寫書，或去看望母親。 您無需經常提醒自己為什麼不應該等待。 別等待就對了。

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.
我想到沒有太多東西時可以做的兩件事：嘗試獲取更多東西，或者仔細品味擁有的東西。 兩者都有意義。

How you live affects how long you live. Most people could do better. Me among them.
您的生活會影響您的壽命。 大多數人可以做得更好。 我也是。

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，通過密切關注自己的時間，您可能會獲得更大的效果。 讓日子匆匆過去很容易。 富有想象力的人們如此喜歡的“心流”狀態具有更暗的表親，可防止您在日常的差事和警報中停下來品嚐生活。 我讀過的最驚人的東西之一不是在一本書中，而是一本書的標題：詹姆斯·索爾特的《燃燒的日子》。 （還要再看看這一段，flow，darker cousin）
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.
讓時間變慢，在一定程度上是可能的。 這方面我做得挺好。孩子們給了我幫助。 當您有小寶貝時，一定有很多美好的時光，是您不會錯過的。

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.
感覺到您已經從經驗中擠出了一切，這確實有幫助。 我為母親感到難過的原因不僅在於我想念她，還在於我想到了我們本可以做的所有事情，而我們沒有做過。 我的大兒子快七歲了。 當我想念他3歲的樣子時，我至少沒有任何遺憾。 我們度過了父親和三歲孩子的最佳時光。

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.
不停地想方設法避免“光陰虛度”，不要等待去做重要的事情，並享受自己的時間。 這就是生命短暫時我們應有的態度。

Notes
備註：
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，我不喜歡想到的這個詞還有其他含義。 但是後來我意識到其他含義和主題也是密切相關的。 在浪費時間的這個意義上，“廢話”也像智力上的胡話。

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我故意選擇此示例作為對自我的註釋。 我在網上受到了很多攻擊。 人們說關於我的最瘋狂的謊言。 到目前為止，我在抑制人的自然傾向方面做得相當平庸，他說：“嘿，那不是真的！”

Thanks to Jessica Livingston and Geoff Ralston for reading drafts of this.
感謝Jessica Livingston和Geoff Ralston閱讀了這份草稿。