风云第二梦是谁:言之无理，问题何在？

哲夫·克伯 文

Success leads to happiness.

幸福源于成功。

On the surface, this seems like a straightforward enough statement, one that’s not difficult to accept. But there are at least three problems with it. The first two may be obvious to you:

此说法表面上很直观，容易让人接受，但至少存在三个问题，头两个显而易见：

Defining “success” is difficult 

1、成功不易说清；

Defining “happiness” is difficult. 

2、幸福难以道明。

Because these concepts are difficult, there is – as far as I can tell – a near universal tendency to associate success with attainment of one variety or another (e.g., lots of money, education from the best schools, high social status) and happiness with mere pleasure (or, as a guest writer here recently put it, with “perkiness.”)

由于很难给这两个概念下定义，在我看来，大家有一种较为普遍的看法，认为成功意味着某种价值的获取，比如赚到很多钱，受过良好教育或拥有较高的社会地位等；而认为幸福就是快乐，或者如本网站一位特约撰稿人最近所言，是一种“浅层次的快乐”。

Even if we can get past these issues and arrive at a deeper understanding of success and happiness, the third issue may not be obvious:

就算我们解决了这两个问题，能够更深刻地理解成功和幸福，第三个问题很可能一般人不会想到：

The order is wrong. 

我们本末倒置了。

However you happen to define either success or happiness, it’s actually the latter that tends to lead to the former – i.e. happiness leads to success – rather than the other way around. At least, that’s what a growing body of research seems to indicate.

无论你怎样去定义成功和幸福，其实都应该是后者决定前者，即成功源于幸福，而非幸福源于成功。至少，越来越多的研究成果都证实了这个观点。

For more background and a glimpse into the research, I recommend a recent Harvard Business Review IdeaCast (@ 15 minutes) with Shawn Anchor, author of The Happiness Advantage. In the podcast, Shawn talks about both success and happiness as concepts and argues that traditional approaches to success often interfere with real happiness – and ultimately with true success.

如果想要进一步了解该项研究，我向您推荐《哈佛商业评论》HBR IdeaCast 最近对《幸福的优势》（The Happiness Advantage）一书的作者肖恩·安克（Shawn Anchor）进行的（约15分钟）视频采访。视频中，肖恩谈到了成功和幸福的概念，他认为人们对成功的传统理解常常会成为获得真正幸福的障碍，并且最终会妨碍人们获得真正的成功。

Anchor’s perspective is an important one, I think, for lifelong learners. One of the key motivators for learning tends to be “success” in one form or another and consciously or not, success is usually perceived as a step towards happiness.  The problem, however, is that the steps never end – one success demands the next – and it’s easy enough to find yourself well down a path you never meant to take.

我认为对终生学习者而言，肖恩的观点很重要。学习的重要原动力之一往往就是某种形式有意无意的“成功”，通常被视为通往幸福的必经之路。可是，问题在于成功之路漫长修远，没有尽头，成功了一次，就想成功第二次，你会不知不觉发现自己踏上了一条不归之路。

Starting from a different perspective – one that puts happiness first – is no small challenge. In most formal education systems conventional notions of success as attainment – high grades, degrees, credentials – are emphasized from day one. Schools are about “success,” not happiness.  (What if the opposite was true?)

把幸福置于决定性地位，观点很新颖，挑战可不小。大多正规的学校教育从第一天开始就强调，分数、学位、证书等荣誉的获取就是成功。学校教育是为“成功”服务的，但并不创造幸福。（如果教育能针对幸福，那又是怎样一番情景呢？）

Breaking free from this mindset after years as a student is perhaps the greatest challenge faced by the serious lifelong learner. There is no easy way to do it, though Anchor’s comments point to habits that I emphasize often here at Mission to learn – particularly consciousness, practice, and reflection.

如果你是一个严肃认真的终生学习者，当了这么多年的学生，想要摆脱传统观念的桎梏，难度之大，可想而知。可是，没什么捷径可走，尽管肖恩指出习惯的养成——尤其是意识、实践、内省等——很重要，我在 Mission to Learn 网也常常强调这一点。

Also, it is important to emphasize that a focus on happiness does not take success out of the equation. Rather, it leads to a higher ideal of success and ultimately to a much higher level of success than traditional approaches. In short, it gets the order right:

Happiness leads to success.

此外，我们看重幸福，但并非忽视成功，这点很重要。相反，有了幸福，才会有更远大的追求，也才能最终获得更卓越的成就，其意义远非传统所谓的成功所能及。简言之，传统意义上的成功和幸福的关系应该倒过来：

成功源于幸福。

Jeff

哲夫undefined

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