Growing up, assuming you came from a decent home, you probably watched your parents haul off to work every day so they could put food on the table, clothes on your back and a roof over your head. Or some variation of that theme.
假設(shè)你來(lái)自這樣一個(gè)小康家庭：你打小就看著父母每天辛勤工作，為的是能讓這個(gè)家能夠吃飽飯、有衣服穿、有地方住。其實(shí)，大部分家庭都是這樣的。

But it probably never felt like your parents were stuck in an existential malaise, longing to run off so they could find themselves. They weren’t stricken with the “why me?” disease that it seems everyone under the age of 30 has now.
你可能鮮有感受到他們有想要去尋找真正的自己、被困在“存在究竟為何“的憂思之中。他們不會(huì)像現(xiàn)在 30 歲以下的人那樣會(huì)經(jīng)常問(wèn)自己“為什么是我？”。

That’s because things were different then. Baby-boomers came of age at a time when the idea of having a job at all was a big deal. They stayed employed at their companies for long periods of time. By the late 90s, the economy was booming and companies took care of their employees. Having a career meant you were secure.
時(shí)代畢竟不同了。上一次嬰兒潮的那一代，他們最大的想法就是找份穩(wěn)定的工作。一旦找到，通常他們也會(huì)在供職的公司工作上很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間。而到了 90 年代后期，經(jīng)濟(jì)形勢(shì)一片大好，公司對(duì)員工也很關(guān)照，那時(shí)，有一份工作對(duì)人們來(lái)說(shuō)就意味著安全感。

But in the past twenty years everything has changed. Kids now aren’t taught to find careers. They’re taught to find their ‘passions.’ Then they’re encouraged to pursue them.
20 多年后的今天，一切都變了。孩子們不在被教導(dǎo)說(shuō)要去尋找一份職業(yè)，而是去尋找并追尋他們的“激情”。

Except the world doesn’t bend to everyone’s beckoning whim— it doesn’t really give a shit about your passion— because it needs people to do normal stuff like collect garbage, police streets, put out fires. Here you were, told that you were awesome and that you wouldn’t have to settle for a life of mediocrity, and that’s all you’ve got. That sucks.
過(guò)去沒(méi)有人在乎你的激情，因?yàn)槿藗冃枰龅氖虑槎际欠浅Ｏ∷善匠５氖虑?，比如清垃圾、做游警、撲滅火?zāi)等等。而現(xiàn)在的小孩從小到大總是被“你很酷！”等各種贊譽(yù)之聲包圍，告訴你你沒(méi)有必要過(guò)一個(gè)平庸的生活。

Years ago, when someone was a ‘creative,’ they were off in their own space. If they were successful, if they’d made it, you might have heard about them through word of mouth. Maybe you saw them on television or in a magazine.But they weren’t posting on their Facebook feed, or updating their Twitter timeline, constantly telling you about their really cool life. They weren’t digitally showing you whatever it is they were working on while you were sitting in your lowly cubicle, making you feel like a failure.
幾年前，但凡是具有創(chuàng)新精神的人，他們都生活在自己的世界里。就算他們最終獲得了成功，達(dá)成了夢(mèng)想，你也只能通過(guò)電視、雜志等各種媒體或者口口相傳知道他們。這群人不會(huì)更新 Facebook 狀態(tài)，或者隨時(shí)發(fā) Twitter，告訴你他們真實(shí)的生活是怎樣的。他們不會(huì)告訴正窩在小隔間的你他們手頭正在做什么驚人的項(xiàng)目，讓你覺(jué)得自己就是一個(gè)失敗者。

Spectating has become a full-time job in and of itself— looking at other people’s LinkedIn pages, their Facebook page, their Wikipedia page— and now we judge ourselves too often by what we haven’t done, instead of what we have.
窺探他人的生活成了一項(xiàng)“永不下班”的工作——看其他人的 LinkedIn 主頁(yè)、Facebook 或者 WiKipedia 頁(yè)面——其結(jié)果就是，我們每天都會(huì)通過(guò)對(duì)比來(lái)甚至那些自己沒(méi)有做過(guò)的事，而非我們究竟做了什么。

And so by age 30, if we haven’t done X, Y or Z, we’re left unfilled. There seems like there’s so much life out to be lived, and we’re called to it… whatever ‘it’ is.The myth of entrepreneurship doesn’t help, either. The American fantasy that you too can make your dreams a reality, all you have to do is try.
而到了 30 歲，如果你還沒(méi)有做 X、Y、Z，你會(huì)覺(jué)得自己的人生不完整，你會(huì)覺(jué)得自己其實(shí)還有很多很多事情沒(méi)有做...... 即便你已經(jīng)成功了，美國(guó)夢(mèng)還是會(huì)告訴你，你可以讓更多夢(mèng)想成真，只要你去嘗試。

But that’s not reality. Reality is that bills need to be paid and life has to be lived, and no matter what you’re doing these days, there is no respite. Your parents left an office at 5 PM and their work was over. It did not begin again until they walked in the next morning.
但事實(shí)并非如此。事實(shí)的情況是：欠債了就得還錢，生活還是得過(guò)。現(xiàn)在，不管你做什么行當(dāng)，生活中都不會(huì)有喘息的機(jī)會(huì)。你的父母可能下午 5 點(diǎn)就下班了，直到第二天早上上班，才又開(kāi)始工作，但你不是。現(xiàn)在很多事情都基于一個(gè)假設(shè)的：你所做的工作是你所愛(ài)。否則你不會(huì)半夜回郵件，同手機(jī)共枕眠。

Now, it’s almost assumed that whatever it is that you’re doing, you must love it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be answering email at midnight and sleeping with your phone in your bed.So as you get older, and have spent years plugged into this matrix where everything is work work work— where your mind is never able to turn off— you age a lot. Maybe not in physical years, like in the sense that you’re 60. But you’re 30 and you’ve somehow managed to squeeze double the amount of work into that period of time.
這種生活方式帶來(lái)的結(jié)果就是，你會(huì)一連花上好幾年完全沉在工作中，幾乎每件事都是工作、工作、工作...... 你的心思完全在工作上。盡管物理年齡可能只有 30 歲，但你的心智可能已經(jīng)達(dá)到了 60 歲的水平。很多人都想著在同樣長(zhǎng)的時(shí)間內(nèi)，做雙倍的事情，別人花 30 年，你只想花 15 年。

You’re old. Mentally.
在心智上，你“老”了

Your parents didn’t have to deal with this sort of thing. Rest assured, they had dreams and goals just like you. But they may have been able to spend a few hours on the weekend or in the evening entertaining these pursuits. And they weren’t answering email in the process.They certainly weren’t idle, watching what their old high school friends are doing, making themselves feel like shit in the process. Heck, they probably had to go to their office just to use a computer at all.
同樣，你的父母并不會(huì)碰到類似的問(wèn)題。自然，他們也會(huì)有同你一樣的夢(mèng)想和目標(biāo)，但是他們會(huì)在下班后或者周末的時(shí)候，去喂食他們的“夢(mèng)想”，并且在這個(gè)過(guò)程中，他們不會(huì)回郵件。他們很享受生活，并且過(guò)的也不閑散，比如他們會(huì)時(shí)不時(shí)的串串門了解下高中同學(xué)都在做些什么，或者做些自己感興趣的事兒。

So being unsettled and wanting more out of life is not a millennial problem or a hipster problem or a ‘whatever new word marketers are using to describe young people’ problem. It’s really a problem of being ‘plugged in’ all the time, and never being given the freedom to shut off.
因此，年輕人現(xiàn)在這種未達(dá)“穩(wěn)定”、時(shí)刻想要從生活中獲取更多的心態(tài)并非一個(gè)”時(shí)髦“的問(wèn)題，而是一個(gè)“時(shí)刻插電”，從來(lái)不給自由和享受生活任何機(jī)會(huì)的問(wèn)題。我們好像忘了工作的目的是為了更好的生活，而不是整個(gè)生活就是為了工作的。

Because society has a problem with leisure. The idea of sitting around doesn’t sound sexy. Winners never quit. Go hard or go home. Always be closing. Or some shit like that.
這是個(gè)討厭悠閑的社會(huì)。手頭無(wú)事，就那么干坐著聽(tīng)上去一點(diǎn)兒都不酷。成功人士是從來(lái)不會(huì)放棄的：繼續(xù)工作還是回家呢？再找點(diǎn)事做吧...

Whatever.You need a break. Just retire. Then start on something new. You may fail. But ultimately you’ll thank yourself later.
你需要休息。或者干脆退休吧。然后做點(diǎn)新的事情，就算你可能會(huì)失敗，但你會(huì)對(duì)自己當(dāng)初的決定心存感激。

本文轉(zhuǎn)載自36kr