Strangers sometimes ask me for advice, which is both flattering and alarming, because I only know about the things I write here, and sometimes not even those.
有时陌生人会向我寻求建议，这既让人感到受宠，又让人感到惊慌，因为我只了解我在这里写的东西，有时甚至连那些都不了解。
For instance, someone recently asked me if I had any advice about how to teach people to fly planes, which makes me wonder: who’s running the pilot education system?? Now, whenever I get on a plane, I scrutinize the captain to see if they have that “A blogger taught me how to fly” kind of look.
比如，最近有人问我是否有关于如何教人驾驶飞机的建议，这让我想知道：谁在管理飞行员教育系统？现在，每次我登机时，我都会仔细观察机长，看看他们是否有那种“一个博主教会了我如何飞行”的样子。
I often don't know how to respond to such questions, on account of my general incompetence. But I've realized that most of these folks have something in common: they're stuck. They’re looking for advice less in the sense of “any good restaurants around here?” and more in the sense of “everything kinda sucks right now and I’d like to change that but I don’t know how?”
我经常不知道如何回答这样的问题，因为我总是感到无能为力。但我意识到，这些人大多有一个共同点：他们感到困惑。他们寻求的建议不是指“这附近有什么好餐厅吗？”而是更多地表达“现在一切都有点糟糕，我想改变，但不知道该怎么做？”
Being stuck is the psychological equivalent of standing knee-deep in a fetid bog, bog in every direction, bog as far as the eye can see. You go wading in search of dry land and only find more bog. Nothing works, no options seem good, it’s all bleh and meh and ho hum and no thanks and more bog. This is the kind of dire situation that drives people to do crazy things like ask a blogger for advice.
被困就像心理上站在一个污浊泥沼中，四面都是泥沼，眼睛所及之处都是泥沼。你试图涉水寻找干地，却只发现更多的泥沼。一切都不顺利，没有好选择，都是无聊和无趣，拒绝和更多的泥沼。这种绝望的境地会让人做出疯狂的事情，比如向博客作者寻求建议。
Fortunately, I’ve spent much of my life in that very bog. Some say I was born in it, a beautiful bouncing baby bog boy. And I've learned that no matter how you ended up there—your marriage has stalled, you're falling behind in your classes, your trainee pilots keep flying into the side of a mountain—the forces that keep you in the bog are always the same. There are, in fact, only three, although they each come in a variety of foul flavors.
幸运的是，我生命中的大部分时间都在那个沼泽里度过。有人说我就是在那里出生的，一个漂亮的沼泽男孩。我学到了，无论你是怎么陷入其中的——婚姻陷入僵局，课业落后，实习飞行员总是撞山——让你留在沼泽里的力量总是一样的。实际上，只有三种，尽管它们各有不同的恶劣味道。
It's a new year, the annual Great De-bogging, when we all attempt to heave ourselves out of the muck and into a better life. So here, to aid you, is my compendium of bog phenomena, the myriad ways I get myself stuck, because unsticking myself always seems to be a matter of finding a name for the thing happening to me.1 May this catalog serve you well, and may your planes always be flown by people who never learned anything from me.
新的一年到了，每年的大脱困时刻，我们都试图从泥泞中挣脱出来，迈向更美好的生活。因此，为了帮助你，我整理了一份泥潭现象的汇编，记录了我陷入困境的种种方式，因为摆脱困境似乎总是要找到一个能描述我所经历的事情的名称。愿这份目录对你有所帮助，愿你的飞机永远由那些从未向我学到任何东西的人驾驶。
1. INSUFFICIENT ACTIVATION ENERGY
活化能不足
Most of my attempts to get unstuck look, from the outside, like I'm doing nothing at all. I'm standing motionless in the bog, crying, “THIS IS ME TRYING!” That means I've got insufficient activation energy—I can't muster the brief but extraordinary output of effort it takes to escape the bog, so I stay right where I am.
大多数我试图摆脱困境的尝试，在外人看来，就像我根本什么都没做。我站在泥潭中一动不动，大声哭喊：“这就是我在努力！”这意味着我缺乏激活能量——我无法鼓起那一瞬间的非凡努力来逃离泥潭，所以我就呆在原地。
There are few different ways to end up here.
有几种不同的方式会导致最终到达这里。
Gutterballing Gutterballing 滚沟球
People will sometimes approach me with projects I don't really want to do. But if I do them, those people will smile and shake my hand and go, “We feel positive emotions, and it's because of you!” and that will feel good. So I often end up signing on to these projects, feeling resentful the whole time, cursing myself for choosing—freely!—to work hard on things I don't care about.
有时人们会找我做一些我其实不想做的项目。但如果我完成了，他们会微笑着握我的手说：“我们感到很开心，都是因为你！”这会让我感到很好。所以我经常会加入这些项目，一直心怀怨恨，咒骂自己为什么要自愿地努力做一些我不在乎的事情。
This is gutterballing: excelling, but in slightly the wrong direction. For most of its journey, after all, the gutterball is getting closer to the pins. It's only at the end that it barely, but dramatically, misses.
这就是“沟道球”：表现出色，但方向略有偏差。毕竟，在大部分的路程中，沟道球都在逐渐靠近球瓶。直到最后一刻，它才勉强地、却戏剧性地错过了。
Gutterballing is a guaranteed way to stay stuck in the bog because people will love you for it. “You're doing the right thing!” they'll shout as you sink into the swamp. “We approve of this!”
滚球是留在泥沼中的一种绝对方式，因为人们会因此而喜爱你。“你在做正确的事！”他们会在你沉入沼泽时大喊。“我们赞同这个！”
Waiting for jackpot 等待中奖
Sometimes when I'm stuck, someone will be like, “Why don't you do [reasonable option]?” and I'll go, “Hold on there, buddy! Don't you see this option has downsides? Find me one with only upsides, and then we'll talk!”
有时候当我遇到困难时，有人会说：“为什么不做[合理的选择]呢？”然后我会说：“等一下，伙计！你没看到这个选择有缺点吗？找一个只有优点的给我，然后我们再谈！”
I'm waiting for jackpot, refusing to do anything until an option arises that dominates all other options on all dimensions. Strangely, this never seems to happen.
我在等待中奖，拒绝做任何事情，直到出现一种选择在所有方面都超越其他选择。奇怪的是，这似乎从未发生过。
Often, I'm waiting for the biggest jackpot of all: the spontaneous remission of all my problems without any effort required on my part. Someone suggests a way out of my predicament and I go, “Hmm, I dunno, do you have any solutions that involve me doing everything 100% exactly like I'm doing it right now, and getting better outcomes?”
通常，我在等待最大的奖金：所有问题自发地消失，而我不需要付出任何努力。有人建议一种解决我的困境的方法，我会说：“嗯，我不知道，你有没有任何解决方案，让我做的事情百分之百和我现在做的一模一样，却能得到更好的结果？”
Declining the dragon 拒绝龙
Okay, this is a version of waiting for jackpot, but it's so common that it deserves its own entry.
好的，这是等待中奖的一种版本，但它如此普遍，以至于值得单独列出。
Sometimes I'll know exactly what I need to do in order to leave the bog, but I'm too afraid to do it. I'm afraid to tell the truth, or make someone mad, or take a risk. And so I dither, hoping that the future will not require me to be brave.
有时候我确切地知道我需要做什么才能离开泥潭，但我太害怕去做。我害怕说出真相，或让某人生气，或者冒险。所以我犹豫不决，希望未来不会要求我变得勇敢。
Everybody thinks this is a bad strategy because it merely prolongs my suffering, but that's not why it's a dumb thing to do. Yes, every moment I dither is a moment I suffer. But when I finally do the brave thing, that's not the climax of my suffering—that moment is the opposite of suffering. Being brave feels good. I mean, have you ever stood up to a bully, or conquered stage fright, or finally stopped being embarrassed about what you love? It's the most wonderful feeling in the world. Whenever you chicken out, you don't just feel the pain of cowardice; you miss out on the pleasure of courage.
大家都认为这是一个糟糕的策略，因为它只是延长了我的痛苦，但这并不是它愚蠢的原因。是的，我犹豫的每一刻都是我在受苦，但当我最终做出勇敢的事情时，那不是我受苦的高潮，那一刻是与受苦相反的。勇敢的感觉很好。我的意思是，你有没有站出来对抗恶霸，或战胜舞台恐惧，或最终不再为自己喜欢的事情感到尴尬？这是世界上最美妙的感觉。每当你退缩时，你不仅感受到懦弱的痛苦，还错过了勇气的快乐。
Medieval knights used to wander around hoping for honorable adventures to pop up so that they could demonstrate their bravery. They were desperate for big, scary dragons to appear. When I put off doing the brave thing, I am declining the dragon: missing an opportunity to do something that might be scary in the moment but would ultimately make me feel great.
中世纪的骑士们曾四处游荡，希望能遇到光荣的冒险，以展现他们的勇气。他们渴望有巨大可怕的龙出现。当我推迟做勇敢的事情时，我就是在拒绝面对那条龙：错过了一个可能在当下看起来可怕，但最终会让我感觉良好的机会。
The mediocrity trap 平庸陷阱
About half of my friends kind of hate their jobs, so they're moderately unhappy most of the time, but never unhappy enough to leave. This is the mediocrity trap: situations that are bad-but-not-too-bad keep you forever in their orbit because they never inspire the frustration it takes to achieve escape velocity.
我大约一半的朋友都有点讨厌自己的工作，所以他们大部分时间都感到有些不开心，但又不至于不开心到离开的地步。这就是平庸陷阱：那些不够糟糕的情况会让你永远留在原地，因为它们从未引发足够的挫败感，让你产生逃离的动力。
The mediocrity trap is a nasty way to end up in the bog. Terrible situations, once exited, often become funny stories or proud memories. Mediocre situations, long languished in, simply become Lost Years—boring to both live through and talk about, like you're sitting in a waiting room with no cell reception, no wifi, and no good magazines, waiting for someone to come in and tell you it's time to start living.
平庸的陷阱是最糟糕的陷入泥潭的方式。糟糕的情况一旦走出来，往往会变成有趣的故事或自豪的回忆。而平庸的情况，长期虚度时光，只会成为失落的岁月——无聊的生活和谈论，就像你坐在一个没有手机信号、没有 WiFi 和没有好杂志的候诊室里，等待有人进来告诉你是时候开始生活了。
(I have previously written about this phenomenon as an underrated idea in psychology.)
我之前曾将这一现象写作心理学中被低估的一个观点。
Stroking the problem 解决问题
I spend a lot of time thinking about my problems, but it usually looks like this:
我花了很多时间思考我的问题，但通常情况是这样的：
“Oh boy, what a problem! A real whopper, I'd say. Massive, even. Get a load of this problem, would ya! Wowzers!” I can spend days doing this. “How big would you say that problem is? Large? Huge? And that's just its size! Don't get me started on its depth.”
哇哦，这问题可真是个大麻烦！我得说，它真是个难题，而且还相当庞大。你瞧这问题有多大！哇塞！我可能得花上好几天才能解决这个问题。“你觉得这问题有多大？很大吗？巨大吗？而这还只是它的规模！别让我开始谈它的深度。”
This isn't solving the problem; this is stroking the problem. It looks like a good use of time, but it's just a form of socially acceptable anxiety, a way to continue your suffering indefinitely by becoming obsessed with it.
这并不能解决问题；这只是在纵容问题。看起来是个不错的时间利用，但实际上只是一种社会上被接受的焦虑表现，一种通过沉迷于问题来无限延续痛苦的方式。
2. BAD ESCAPE PLAN 糟糕的逃跑计划
Even if you've worked up a big enough head of steam to launch yourself out of the bog, you still have to aim properly. (“I’m doing it! I'm doing it!” I shout as I crash land onto my launch pad.)
即使你已经积蓄了足够的能量，可以让自己从泥潭中腾空而起，你仍然需要正确地瞄准。（“我做到了！我做到了！”我大喊着，当我坠落到我的发射台上时。）
Here are a few of my recurring bad escape plans:
这里是我一直以来的一些糟糕的逃跑计划：
The “try harder” fallacy “更加努力”谬误
I played a lot of Call of Duty in high school, and I used to roll with a gang of bad boys who would battle other gangs online.2
我在高中的时候玩了很多使命召唤，曾经和一群不良少年一起在线对战其他团伙。
We weren't very good. Whenever we lost the first round, which was almost always, we would regroup in the pregame lobby—basically the online locker room—and decide what we really need to do in the next round is “try harder.” As if the reason we had all just been shot in the head 25 times in a row was that we were not sufficiently dedicated to avoiding getting shot in the head. Armed with the most dimwit plan of all time, we would march into battle once more and lose just as badly. As our virtual corpses piled up, we'd yell at each other, “Guys, stop dying!”
我们表现得并不好。每当我们输掉第一轮比赛，几乎总是这样，我们会在赛前休息室——基本上就是线上更衣室——重新集结，并决定下一轮我们真正需要做的是“更加努力”。仿佛我们刚刚被连续击中头部 25 次的原因是因为我们不够致力于避免被击中。带着史上最愚蠢的计划，我们会再次冲入战斗，并且同样惨败。当我们的虚拟尸体堆积起来时，我们会互相大喊：“伙计们，别再死了！”
This is the try harder fallacy. I behold my situation and conclude that, somehow, I will improve it in the future by just sort of wishing it to be different, and then I get indignant that nothing happens. Like, “Um, excuse me! I've been doing all of this very diligent desiring for things to be different, and yet they remain the same, could someone please look into this?”3
这就是更加努力的谬误。我审视自己的处境，并得出结论，以某种方式，通过只是希望它变得不同，我将来会改善它，然后我感到愤怒，因为什么都没有发生。就像，“嗯，打扰一下！我一直非常努力地渴望事情变得不同，然而它们仍然保持不变，有人能看看这个问题吗？” 3
The infinite effort illusion
无限努力的错觉
The try harder fallacy has a cousin called the infinite effort illusion, which is the idea that you have this secret unused stock of effort that you can deploy in the future to get yourself unstuck. I'm always a week late responding to emails? No problem, I'll simply uncork my Strategic Effort Reserve and clear my correspondence debt.
“更加努力”谬误有一个近亲叫做“无限努力幻觉”，即认为你拥有一种秘密的未使用的努力储备，可以在未来动用，让自己摆脱困境。我总是迟一周才回复邮件？没问题，我只需动用我的战略努力储备，清理一下我的邮件债务就行了。
This never works because there is no Strategic Effort Reserve. All of my effort is currently accounted for somewhere. If I want to spend more of it on something, I have to spend less of it on something else. If I’m consistently not getting something done, it’s probably because I don’t want to—at least, not enough to cannibalize that time from something else—and I haven’t admitted that to myself yet.
这从来都行不通，因为根本就没有战略努力储备。我所有的努力都已经被其他事情占用了。如果我想在某件事情上花更多的努力，就必须在其他事情上花费更少的努力。如果我一直做不到某件事，很可能是因为我并不想做，至少不想从其他事情中牺牲时间出来，而我还没有承认这一点。
Blaming God 责怪上帝
I spend a lot of stints in the bog wailing about how I don’t have enough time. “Oh, if there were only 25 hours in the day,” I lament, “the things I would accomplish!”
我经常在沼泽地里抱怨自己没有足够的时间。"哦，如果一天有 25 个小时就好了，"我哀叹道，"我会完成多少事情啊！"
But here’s a stupid question: what am I mad about, exactly? That I don't have a time-turner? That I can’t find a little eddy in the spacetime continuum where I can hide out while I cross a few more things off my to-do list? Do I really believe that the way to get unstuck is to ruminate on how unfair it is that time marches ever forward at one second per second?
但这里有一个愚蠢的问题：我到底在生谁的气？因为我没有时光转器吗？因为我找不到时空连续体中的一个小涡流，可以在那里躲藏，同时完成待办清单上的更多事情？我真的相信，摆脱困境的方法是反复思考时间以每秒一秒不断前进的不公平吗？
This is blaming God: pinning the responsibility for my current predicament on something utterly unchangeable. And while many religions teach that God intervenes in human affairs, none of them, as far as I know, believe that he responds to whining. (Would you worship a god who does miracles if you just annoy him enough?)
这是在责怪上帝：把我目前的困境归咎于完全无法改变的事情。虽然许多宗教教导上帝会干预人类的事务，但据我所知，没有一种宗教相信他会因为抱怨而作出回应。（如果你只是不停地烦他，他就会施行奇迹，你会崇拜这样的上帝吗？）
Diploma problems and toothbrushing problems
文凭问题和刷牙问题
Some problems are like getting a diploma: you work at it for a while, and then you're done forever. Learning how to ride a bike is a classic diploma problem.
有些问题就像拿到毕业证书一样：你花一段时间努力，然后就永远解决了。学会骑自行车就是一个经典的“毕业证书”问题。
But most problems aren’t like that. They’re more like toothbrushing problems: you have to work at them forever until you die. You can’t, as far as I know, just brush your teeth really really well and then let ‘em ride forever.
但大多数问题并非如此。它们更像是刷牙的问题：你必须一辈子不断努力解决，直到你死去。据我所知，你不能只是非常非常彻底地刷牙，然后就让它们自生自灭。
When I had a skull full of poison, I assumed feeling good again was a diploma problem. I just had to find the right lever to pull and—yoink!—back to the good times forever. People warned me it wasn't going to be like this and I didn't believe them; I assumed they had simply failed to earn their diplomas.
当我脑袋里充满了毒药时，我以为重新感觉良好只是一个文凭问题。我只需要找到正确的杠杆，然后——嘭！——永远回到美好时光。人们警告我事情不会像这样，但我不相信他们；我以为他们只是没有拿到他们的文凭。
I only started making progress when I realized I was facing a toothbrushing problem: feeling normal again would probably require me to do stuff every day for the rest of my life. I might get better at doing that stuff, just like when you first start brushing your teeth as a kid you get toothpaste everywhere and end up swallowing half of it, and eventually you learn not to do that. But even when you're a toothbrushing expert, it still takes you a couple minutes every day. You could be mad about that, but it won’t make your teeth any cleaner.
我只有当意识到我面临一个刷牙的问题时才开始取得进展：恢复正常可能需要我每天做一些事情，这将持续一辈子。我可能会在做这些事情上变得更好，就像当你小的时候开始刷牙，牙膏到处都是，最后还吞了一半，最终你学会了不这样做。但即使你成为了刷牙专家，每天还是需要花几分钟。你可能会因此而生气，但这不会让你的牙齿更干净。
Fantastical metamorphosis
奇幻变形
Here’s one of my favorite bad escape plans: I’ll just be a different person in the future. Like, “I know I hate working out, but in the future I will overcome this by not being such a baby about it.” Or, “I find quantum physics boring, so I’ll just learn about it later, when I find it more interesting.”
这是我最喜欢的糟糕逃避计划之一：将来我会成为一个不同的人。比如，“我知道我讨厌运动，但将来我会克服这一点，不再像个孩子一样。”或者，“我觉得量子物理很无聊，所以我以后再学，等我对它更感兴趣的时候。”
These are fantastical metamorphoses. I have not, so far, woken up one day and found myself different in all the ways that would make my life easier. I do hope this happens, but I’ve stopped betting on it.
这些都是奇幻的变形。到目前为止，我还没有一天醒来发现自己在各种方面都变得更容易生活。我希望这种情况会发生，但我已经不再抱有期待。
Puppeteering 操纵木偶
People are always causing me problems by doing foolish things like trying to drive on highways while I'm also trying to drive on them, or expecting me to pay rent every month, or not realizing my genius and putting me in charge of things. In these cases, it feels like the only solution is to get other people to act differently. I'm only stuck because other people are unreasonable!
人们总是给我惹麻烦，比如在我驾驶高速公路时也要驾驶，期望我每个月支付房租，或者没有意识到我的天赋，不让我掌控事情。在这些情况下，唯一的解决办法似乎就是让其他人改变行为。我之所以陷入困境，只是因为其他人不讲道理！
A good word for this is puppeteering: trying to solve your problems by controlling the actions of other humans. Puppeteering often looks attractive because other people's actions seem silly and therefore easily changeable. Funnily enough, it doesn't feel that way to them. They have lifetimes of backstory that lead them to act the way that they do, and their actions are, on average, only as changeable as yours. So unless you think of yourself as being easily redirected with a few tugs of your strings, puppeteering is probably not going to get you out of the bog.
这种情况可以用“操纵”来形容：试图通过控制其他人的行为来解决自己的问题。操纵看起来很吸引人，因为别人的行为似乎很愚蠢，所以容易改变。有趣的是，他们并不这样认为。他们有着漫长的故事背景，导致他们以特定的方式行事，而他们的行为，平均而言，只有和你一样的可改变性。所以，除非你认为自己的行为可以轻易被一些拉扯的线索改变方向，否则操纵可能不会让你摆脱困境。
3. A BOG OF ONE'S OWN
独自的泥沼
A confession: most of my bogs are imaginary. The world doesn’t stick me there; I stick me there. These are, paradoxically, the most difficult bogs to escape, because it requires realizing that my perception of reality is not reality, and a lot of the mind is dedicated to preventing that exact thought.
坦白说：我大部分的泥沼都是虚构的。世界并没有把我困在那里；是我自己把自己困在那里。令人矛盾的是，这些是最难逃离的泥沼，因为需要意识到我的现实感知并非真实，而大部分的思维都致力于阻止这种想法的产生。
Floor is lava 地板是岩浆
Every kid learns to play the “floor is lava” game, where you pretend that you'll get incinerated if you touch the carpet. Even toddlers can pick it up, which reveals something profound: very early on, we acquire the ability to pretend that fake problems are real. We then spend the rest of our lives doing exactly that.
每个孩子都学会了玩“地板是岩浆”的游戏，你要假装如果触碰地毯就会被烧毁。甚至幼儿也能学会，这揭示了一个深刻的事实：我们很早就掌握了假装虚假问题是真实的能力。然后我们在接下来的一生中继续这样做。
Often, when I’m stuck, it’s because I've made up a game for myself and decided that I’m losing at it. I haven’t achieved enough. I am not working hard enough and I am also, somehow, not having enough fun. These games have elaborate rules, like “I have to be as successful as my most successful friend, but everything I've done so far doesn't count,” and I’m supposed to feel very bad if I break them. It’s like playing the absolute dumbest version of the floor is lava.
通常，当我陷入困境时，是因为我给自己设定了一个游戏，并决定我正在输掉这个游戏。我还没有取得足够的成就。我工作还不够努力，而且在某种程度上，我也没有足够的乐趣。这些游戏有着复杂的规则，比如“我必须像我最成功的朋友一样成功，但到目前为止我所做的一切都不算数”，如果我违反了这些规则，我应该感到非常糟糕。这就像玩最愚蠢的版本的“地板是岩浆”。
Did I create these games by thinking really hard about how to live a good life? No! I pulled them out of my butt. Or someone else pulled them out of their butt, and I said, “Ooh, can I have some of that?”
我是不是通过认真思考如何过上美好生活来创造这些游戏？不是！我是凭空想象出来的。或者是别人凭空想象出来的，然后我说：“哦，我也想要一些！”
Super surveillance 超级监视
During the Trump administration, I took on a part time job: keeping up with all the outrages. Every twenty minutes or so I would have to check my phone in case any new outrages had occurred, so that I could...collect them? Make them into a scrapbook? I'm not sure.
在特朗普政府任内，我承担了一份兼职工作：跟踪所有的愤怒事件。大约每隔二十分钟，我都得检查手机，以防发生新的愤怒事件，这样我就可以……收集它们？把它们做成剪贴簿？我不太确定。
I now think of this as super surveillance, tracking every problem in the world as if they were all somehow, ultimately, my problems. Super surveillance is an express ticket to the bog, because the world is full of problems and you'd be lucky to solve even a single one.
我现在把这看作是超级监视，仿佛世界上的每个问题都与我息息相关。超级监视就像是通往泥潭的快车票，因为世界充满了问题，你幸运的话可能只能解决其中一个。
I know some people think that super surveillance is virtuous, but they mainly seem to spend their time looking at screens and feeling bad, and this doesn't seem to solve any of the problems that they're monitoring. To them, I suppose, the most saintly life possible is one spent sitting in front of a hundred screens, eyelids held open with surgical instruments, A Clockwork Orange-style, bearing witness to all human suffering simultaneously. I, uh, feel differently.
我知道有些人认为超级监视是一种美德，但他们似乎主要是花时间盯着屏幕感到糟糕，这似乎并不能解决他们正在监视的任何问题。对他们来说，我想，可能最圣洁的生活就是坐在一百个屏幕前，眼睑被外科器械撑开，像《发条橙》中的方式，同时见证所有人类的苦难。我，呃，感觉不同。
(See also: Reading the news is the new smoking.)
（另见：阅读新闻就是新的吸烟。）
Hedgehogging 刺猬行为
Sometimes I get this feeling like, “Nothing will ever work out for me, I will always be unhappy, the rest of my life will be a sort of wandering twilight punctuated with periods of misery.”
有时候我会有这种感觉，觉得“对我来说，什么都不会顺利，我会一直不快乐，余生将是一种漫长的徘徊，偶尔会有痛苦的时刻。”
And my wife will go, “You're hungry.”
我的妻子会说，“你饿了。”
And I'll go, “No, no, this is true unhappiness, it comes to me unadulterated from hell itself, it lives inside my bones, I am persecuted by God, you could not possibly know what it's like to be me.”
我会说：“不，不，这是真正的不幸，它纯粹地来自地狱，它生活在我的骨头里，我受到上帝的迫害，你不可能知道成为我是什么感觉。”
And then I'll eat a burrito and be like, “Never mind I'm fine!”
然后我会吃一个墨西哥卷饼，然后说：“没事，我还好！”
This is hedgehogging: refusing to be influenced by others, even when you should.
这就是刺猬心态：即使应该受到影响，也拒绝受他人影响。
Personal problems growth ray
个人问题的成长之光
You know how, when you go up in a tall building and look down at the street, everybody looks not just small, but kind of silly? Like, “Aww, look at those tiny little guys, walking around in their suits like they're people! They don't even know they're so small!”
你知道吗，当你站在高楼上往下看街道时，每个人看起来不仅很小，而且有点滑稽？就像，“哎呀，看那些小家伙，穿着西装像个人一样走来走去！他们甚至不知道自己有多小！”
This is how other people's problems look to me. A friend will tell me, “I'm stressed!” and I'll go, “Aww, what a silly little problem, walking around like it's real! Just don't be stressed, and then you won't be stressed!”
这就是别人的问题在我眼里的样子。朋友告诉我，“我好紧张！”我会说，“哎呀，多么可笑的小问题，像是真的一样！不要紧张，那你就不会紧张了！”
My problems, on the other hand, are like 50-foot-tall moody teenagers. They're so big and so real and so complicated! They cannot possibly be solved! I can only flee from them, hide among the rubble, and peek out at them with horror!
与此相反，我的问题就像 50 英尺高的情绪化十几岁青少年。它们如此庞大、真实和复杂！根本无法解决！我只能逃避它们，藏在废墟中，惊恐地窥视着它们！
Such is the result of the personal problems growth ray, which makes all of your own problems seem larger than life, while other people's stay actual size. This makes reasonable solutions look unreasonable—the actions that solved your human-sized problems could never solve my giganto-problems; they can only be addressed with either a lifetime of cowering or a tactical nuke.
这就是个人问题增长射线的结果，它让你所有的问题看起来比生活还要大，而别人的问题则保持实际大小。这让合理的解决方案看起来不合理——解决你人类大小问题的行动永远无法解决我的巨大问题；它们只能通过终身的畏缩或战术核武器来解决。
Obsessing over tiny predictors
沉迷于微小的预测因素
In graduate school, I made the terrible mistake of signing up for a professional development seminar. We would convene every week for 90 minutes of discussions like “OH NO WE'LL NEVER GET PROFESSOR JOBS WE'RE ALL SCREWED” and “THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH AND I AM TOO SMALL” and “HELP HELP HELP”.
在研究生阶段，我犯了一个很糟糕的错误，报名参加了一个职业发展研讨会。我们每周聚在一起讨论 90 分钟，内容包括“天啊，我们永远都不会得到教授职位，我们都完蛋了”，“世界太大了，而我太渺小”，以及“救命啊，救命啊，救命啊”。
One week, we spent half the session arguing about whether you should print your name in bold when listing your publications on your CV. Like:
有一周的时间，我们花了半个会议时间讨论在简历上列出出版物时，是否应该将姓名以粗体打印。就像：
Tweedledum, M.R. & Mastroianni, A.M., (2024). Please give me a job I will do anything, including publishing this terrible paper. The Journal of Desperation, 4(12), 122-137.
《哑巴，M.R. & Mastroianni, A.M.，（2024）。请给我一份工作，我什么都愿意做，包括发表这篇糟糕的论文。绝望期刊，4（12），122-137。》
vs.
Tweedledum, M.R. & Mastroianni, A.M., (2024). Please give me a job I will do anything, including publishing this terrible paper. The Journal of Desperation, 4(12), 122-137.
请给我一份工作，我什么都愿意做，包括发表这篇糟糕的论文。《绝望杂志》，4(12)，122-137。
Some people thought bolding your name helps time-pressed hiring committees quickly assess your academic output. Other people objected that bolding your name looks presumptuous. A debate ensued. I forget who won—oh yes, it was none of us because this is a stupid thing to care about.
有些人认为加粗你的名字有助于时间紧迫的招聘委员会快速评估你的学术产出。其他人反对说加粗你的名字看起来很自以为是。于是展开了一场辩论。我忘了谁赢了，哦对了，没有人赢，因为这根本不值得关心。
This is obsessing over tiny predictors. It's scary to admit that you can't control the future; it's a lot easier to distract yourself by trying to optimize every decision, no matter how insignificant.
这是对微小预测的过度关注。承认自己无法控制未来是令人恐惧的，试图优化每一个决定，无论多么微不足道，会让你更容易分散注意力。
(If you're at the point where you're spending 45 minutes debating the use of bold letters on your CV, perhaps you should consider pulling up a list of every god and praying to all of them in turn, in case one of them is real and decides to help you.)
如果你已经到了花 45 分钟讨论在你的简历上使用粗体字的地步，也许你应该考虑列出所有的神祇，依次向他们祈祷，以防其中一个是真实存在的，并决定帮助你。
Parents who want to get their kids into elite colleges have perfected the art of obsessing over tiny predictors. When I gave campus tours, I would run into them all the time: “Should my kid play the timpani or the oboe?” “How many semicolons can you use in the personal essay?” “Can we include dental records to demonstrate a history of good brushing?” The joke was on them, of course: stressing about all those tiny things only makes you anxious, and even if your kid gets into a fancy school, they could still end up as a blogger.
想让孩子进入名校的家长们已经完美地掌握了对微小预测因素的痴迷。当我带领校园参观时，经常会遇到他们：“我孩子应该学大鼓还是双簧管？”“个人申请文书里可以用多少个分号？”“我们能不能提供牙科记录证明刷牙习惯良好？”当然，他们只是在自找烦恼：过度关注这些微小的事情只会让你焦虑不安，即使你的孩子被名校录取，他们最终可能还是成为一名博客。
Impossible satisfaction 不可能的满足
Sometimes people will be like, “Well, whatcha gonna do, life is suffering,” and I’ll be like, “Haha sure is,” waiting for them to laugh too, but they won’t laugh, and I’ll realize, to my horror, that they’re not joking. Some people think the bog is life!
有时候人们会说：“嗯，怎么办呢，生活就是苦啊。”我会笑着说：“哈哈，确实是。”等着他们也笑，但他们却不笑，我意识到他们并不是在开玩笑，感到恐惧不已。有些人把苦难当成了生活！
I get why you might think this if you’ve experienced lots of misfortune. If you, say, survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and then took the train to Nagasaki just in time for the atomic bombing of that city, too, you'd probably have a gloomy outlook on life.4
我明白如果你经历了很多不幸，你可能会这样想。比如，如果你在广岛经历了原子弹爆炸，然后赶上了去长崎的火车，又遭遇了那座城市的原子弹爆炸，你可能会对生活持悲观态度。
But most of the people I know who feel this way haven’t survived any atomic bombings at all. They’re usually people with lots of education and high-paying jobs and supportive relationships and a normal amount of tragedies, people who have all the raw materials for a good life but can’t seem to make one for themselves. Their problem is they believe that satisfaction is impossible. Like they’re standing in a kitchen full of eggs, flour, oil, sugar, butter, baking powder, a mixer, and an oven, and they throw their hands up and say, “I can’t make a cake! Cakes don’t even exist!”
但我认识的大多数有这种感觉的人根本没有经历过任何原子弹爆炸。他们通常是受过良好教育、收入丰厚、拥有支持性关系和正常数量的悲剧经历的人，拥有了美好生活的所有原材料，却似乎无法为自己创造一个美好的生活。他们的问题在于他们认为满足是不可能的。就像他们站在一个装满鸡蛋、面粉、油、糖、黄油、发酵粉、搅拌器和烤箱的厨房里，然后举起双手说：“我做不出蛋糕！蛋糕根本不存在！”
WISHING YOU GOOD ALTITUDE
祝你高处好景
In the big scheme of things, I haven't been alive for all that long. So there are probably lots of ways into the bog I haven't discovered yet. But I've been down there enough times to see the same patterns repeat, and sometimes I can even interrupt them.
在整个大计划中，我活了不算太久。所以可能还有很多通往泥沼的路我还没有发现。但我已经去过那里很多次，看到了相同的模式重复出现，有时甚至能够打破它们。
That's why having goofy names for them matters so much, because it reminds me not to believe the biggest bog lie of all: that I'm stuck in a situation unlike any I, or anyone else, has ever seen before. If you believe that, it's no wonder you'd suffer from insufficient activation energy, or bad escape plans, or self-bogging: you have no idea what to do, because you don't think anything you've learned, or anything anyone else has learned, can help you at all. Whenever I feel that way, whenever I think I'm in a bespoke bog, created just for me by a universe that hates me, if I can think to myself, “Oh, I'm gutterballing right now,” I can feel my foot hit solid ground, and I can start hoisting myself onto dry land.
这就是为什么给它们起荒谬的名字如此重要，因为这提醒我不要相信最大的谎言：我被困在一个我或任何人都从未见过的情境中。如果你相信了这一点，那你为什么会感到缺乏激活能量，或者没有好的逃生计划，或者自我陷入泥沼呢？因为你不知道该怎么做，因为你认为你所学到的东西，或者别人所学到的东西，都无法帮助你。每当我感到这样，每当我觉得我被宇宙特意为我创造了一个定制的泥沼时，如果我能对自己说，“哦，我现在是在滚沟里”，我就能感觉到自己的脚踏实地，然后开始把自己拉到干地上。
So, best of luck in 2024, and all the years to come after that. May you only spend as much time in the bog as is necessary to learn the lessons it has to teach you. And for goodness sake, if you see the side of a mountain coming toward you, pull up.
祝你在 2024 年和以后的岁月里好运连连。愿你只花费必要的时间在泥潭中，学到它要教你的一切。还有，如果你看到山坡朝着你走来，一定要躲开。
A periodic reminder that I am not a licensed mental health professional. I’m just a mop with a top hat on it.
我要提醒大家，我并不是持有心理健康专业执照的专业人士。我只是一个戴着高礼帽的拖把。
Our leader claimed to be a Marine, which I kind of doubt because he spelled the name of our group as “Delta Companay”
我们的领导声称自己是一名海军陆战队员，但我有点怀疑，因为他把我们团体的名字拼错成了“Delta Companay”
In fact, Tsutomu Yamaguchi seems like he was remarkably upbeat despite witnessing some of the most horrific events in history, and I try to remind myself of this when I am frustrated about, for instance, a restaurant not slathering my burger with enough spicy mayo.
事实上，山口彻似乎非常乐观，尽管目睹了历史上一些最可怕的事件，当我因为比如餐厅没有给我的汉堡涂抹足够多的辣椒酱而感到沮丧时，我会试着提醒自己这一点。
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1) Find what's true and make it useful. 2) Publish every other Tuesday. 3) Photo cred: my dad.
1) 发现真相并加以利用。
2) 每隔一个星期二发布。
3) 照片由我爸爸拍摄。
I hate that I didn’t write this, but I’m incredibly grateful you did. 🙏🏼 Thank you!
““Hmm, I dunno, do you have any solutions that involve me doing everything 100% exactly like I'm doing it right now, and getting better outcomes?””
Most insightful sentence of 2024 right here, and it’s only been 2 days