How to Do What You Love

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</td > January 2006 To do something well you have to like it.

</td> 2006 年 1 月 要把一件事做好，你必须喜欢它。

That idea is not exactly novel.

这个想法并不完全新颖。

We've got it down to four words: "Do what you love." But it's not enough just to tell people that.

我们把它归结为四个字：“做你喜欢的事”。但仅仅告诉人们这一点还不够。

Doing what you love is complicated.

做你喜欢的事是很复杂的。

The very idea is foreign to what most of us learn as kids.

这个想法对于我们大多数人小时候学到的东西来说是陌生的。

When I

当我

was a kid, it seemed as if work and fun were opposites by definition.

当我还是个孩子的时候，工作和娱乐似乎从定义上来说是对立的。

Life had two states: some of the time adults were making you do things, and that was called work; the rest of the time you could do what you wanted, and that was called playing.

生活有两种状态：有时是大人让你做事，这就是工作；有时是大人让你做事，这就是工作；有时是大人让你做事，这就是工作。剩下的时间你可以做你想做的事，那就是玩。

Occasionally the things adults made you do were fun, just as, occasionally, playing wasn't — for example, if you fell and hurt yourself.

有时候，大人让你做的事情很有趣，就像有时候，玩耍并不有趣——例如，如果你摔倒并受伤了。

But except for these few anomalous cases, work was pretty much defined as

但除了这几个异常情况外，工作几乎被定义为

not-fun.

不好玩。

And it did not seem to be an accident.

这似乎并不是一场意外。

School, it was implied, was tedious because it was preparation for grownup work.

有人暗示，学校很乏味，因为它是为成人工作做准备。

The world then was divided into two groups, grownups and kids.

然后世界被分为两类：成人和儿童。

Grownups, like some kind of cursed race, had to work.

成年人，就像某种被诅咒的种族一样，必须工作。

Kids didn't, but they did have to go to school, which was a dilute version of work meant to prepare us for the real thing.

孩子们不需要，但他们确实必须去上学，这是工作的稀释版本，旨在让我们为真正的事情做好准备。

Much as we disliked school, the grownups all agreed that grownup work was worse, and

尽管我们不喜欢上学，但大人们都认为成年人的工作更糟糕，而且

that we had it easy.

我们过得很轻松。

Teachers in particular all seemed to believe implicitly that work was not fun.

尤其是老师们，似乎都隐含地认为工作并不有趣。

Which is not surprising: work wasn't fun for most of them.

这并不奇怪：对他们中的大多数人来说，工作并不有趣。

Why did we have to memorize state capitals instead of playing dodgeball?

为什么我们必须记住州首府而不是玩躲避球？

For the same reason they had to watch over a bunch of kids instead of lying on a beach.

出于同样的原因，他们必须照顾一群孩子，而不是躺在海滩上。

You couldn't just do what you wanted.

你不能只做你想做的事。

I'm not saying we should let little kids do whatever they want.

我并不是说我们应该让小孩子做他们想做的事。

They may have to be made to work on certain things.

他们可能必须被迫从事某些事情。

But if we make kids work on dull stuff, it might be wise to tell them that tediousness is not the defining quality of work, and indeed that the reason they have to work on dull stuff now is so they can work on more interesting stuff later.

但是，如果我们让孩子们做枯燥的事情，明智的做法可能是告诉他们，乏味并不是工作的定义质量，事实上，他们现在必须做枯燥的事情的原因是为了以后可以做更有趣的事情。

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