纳瓦尔最新访谈双语实录 | 人生的44个残酷真相①

纳瓦尔（Naval Ravikant）大家应该很熟悉了，硅谷知名天使投资人，《纳瓦尔宝典》常年在“成功学”畅销书榜单上霸榜。前几天刷到他接受Youtube知名博主Chris Williamson访谈的最新视频“44 Harsh Truths About The Game Of Life”（人生的44个残酷真相），本来想整理成要点笔记，听着听着感觉信息量确实很大，也很值得分享。

搜了一下网上现有的一些双语视频，中英文都有明显的错误，很多地方没翻译出原意。于是一拍脑门，干脆我自己一边学习，一边整理一个双语实录给大家吧！（声明：这个视频有3小时16分钟，我会分成几篇慢慢更新，诸位莫急。）

以下是访谈文本以及我的简单翻译，如有错误欢迎指出。

Chris: Happiness is being satisfied with what you have. Success comes from dissatisfaction. Is success worth it then?

Chris: 幸福就是对自己所拥有的感到满意，而不满意则是成功之源。那，追寻成功是否值得？

Naval: I'm not sure that statement is true anymore. I made that statement a long time ago and a lot of these things are just notes to myself. They're highly contextual. They come in the moment, they leave in the moment.

Naval: 如今我已经不确定这话是否还正确了。那是我很久以前说的，其实很多不过是我随手记录给自己的感想。它们往往仅适用于当时的有限情境，当时的念头来了就写，写了也就过了。

Happiness is a very complicatd topic. I always like the Socrates story where he goes into the marketplace and they show him all these luxuries and fineries. He says:"How many things there are in this world that I don't want?" That's a form of freedom. Not wanting something is as good as having it.

幸福是个非常复杂的话题。我一直很喜欢苏格拉底的那个故事：他走进集市，人们向他炫耀各种奢华精美的物品。他感叹道：“这世上竟有那么多东西是我不想要的！” 这是一种自由的境界——不渴求某样东西，是如同渴望拥有一样可贵的。

In the old story with Alexander and Diogenes, while Alexander goes out and conquers the world, he meets Diogenes who's living in a barrel. Diogenes says:"Get out of the way. You're blocking my sun." Alexander says:"How I wish I could be like Diogenes the next life." Diogenes says:"That's the difference. I don't wish to be Alexander."

在古代亚历山大大帝与第欧根尼（古希腊哲学家）的故事里，亚历山大外出征战时，遇见了住在木桶里的第欧根尼。第欧根尼对他说：“别挡道，你碍着我晒太阳了。”亚历山大说：“我真希望来世能像第欧根尼这样活着啊！”第欧根尼回应道：“区别就在于此。我可从未想过要成为亚历山大。”

So, two paths to happiness. One path is success. You get what you want, you satisfy your material needs. Or like Diogenes, you just don't want in the first place. I'm not sure which one is more valid. It also depends on what you define as success. If the end goal is happiness, then why not cut to the chase and just go straight for it? Does being happy make you less successful? That is a conventional wisdom. That may even be the practical earned experience of your reality. You find that when you're happy, you don't want anything, so you don't get up and do anything.

通向幸福有两条路。一条是追求成功：满足物欲，得偿所愿。或者像第欧根尼那样，打心底里就不起欲念。我不确定哪条路更有道理，这也取决于你对成功的定义。如果终极目标是幸福，那何必舍近求远？不如直奔主题。快乐会让人变得不够成功吗？这是传统的看法。甚至在现实中你可能会亲身体会到：当你心满意足时，就再无他求，于是干脆躺平不动了。

On the other hand, you still got to do something. You're an animal. You're here to survive. You're here to replicate. You're driven. You're motivated. You're going to do something. You're not just going to sit there all day. Unlikely, some people do. Maybe it's in their nature. But I think most people still want to act. They want to live in the arena. I found for myself as I've become (happier is a big word) more peaceful, more calm, more present, more satisfied with what I have. I still want to do things. I just want to do bigger things. I want to do things that are more pure, more aligned with what I think needs to be done and what I can uniquely do. So in that sense, I think that being happier can actually make you more successful, but your definition of success will likely change along the way.

另一方面，人总归要做点什么。人终究是生灵，在本能驱使下，人要觅食生存、延嗣后代。你如有驱动力，自会有所行动，不会终日枯坐——虽说也有人真能如此，或许是天性使然吧。但我相信，多数人骨子里依然渴望行动，渴望在人生的战场上搏击。我自己体会到，随着内心渐趋（“幸福”这词有点大）平静、泰然，更能安住当下，对已拥有之物更感满足，我依然想做些事情。只是，我想做更宏大的事，更纯粹的事，做那些我认为必须完成、且唯我所能之事。因此，从这个角度看，我认为内心充盈反而能让你更成功，只是你对“成功”的定义很可能会在这个过程中悄然改变。

Chris: Is that a realization you think you could have gotten to had you have not had some success in the first place?

Chris: 你是否觉得，要是当初没有在物质层面先取得一些成就，你是无法体会到这样的领悟的？

Naval: At least for me, I always wanted to take the path of material success first. I was not going to be an aesthetic and sit there and renounce everything. That just seems too unrealistic and too painful. In the story of Buddha, he starts out as a prince. Then he sees that it’s all kind of meaningless because you're still going to get old and die. And then he goes into the woods looking for something more. I'll take the happy route that involves material success, thank you.

Naval: 至少对我而言，我向来倾向于先走物质成功这条路。我不打算效仿苦行者，枯坐一旁弃绝一切。那太不现实，也太痛苦了。佛陀的故事就是如此：他生为王子，后来意识到，拥有再多也不过是幻象，人终不免生老病死。于是他走向林间，去追寻更高的真谛。至于我，还是选那条有物质成功相伴的幸福之路吧。

Chris: I think it's quicker in some ways. One of your insights is far easier to achieve our material desires than it is to renounce them.

Chris: 某种程度上我倒觉得这条路更快。你曾经说过：实现物欲往往比摒弃物欲要容易得多。

Naval: It depends on the person. But I think you have to try that path. If you want something, go get that. The reason to win the game is to be free of it. So you play the games, you win the games, hopefully you get bored of the games. You don't want to just keep looping on the same game over and over. Although a lot of these games are very enticing and have many levels and are relatively open ended. And then you become free of the game in a sense that you're no longer trying to win it. You know you can win it and either you move to a different game or you play the game for the sheer joy of it.

Naval: 这个因人而异。不过我认为，你总得先尝试那条路吧。要是你想要某个东西，就去得到它。赢得游戏的意义，恰恰是为了最终能超脱于游戏之外。你参与游戏，赢得游戏，理想情况下，最终会对游戏心生厌倦。人总不会困在同一个游戏里反复循环吧。虽然很多游戏确实诱人，关卡重重，开放度极高。最终，你便能以某种方式超脱于游戏：你不再执着于求胜，因为你知道自己有赢的实力；此时，你要么转战新游戏，要么就纯粹为了享受乐趣而继续这个游戏了。

Chris: Another one of yours. Most of the gains in life come from suffering in the short term, so you can get paid in the long term. Winning the Marshmallow test on a daily basis. But there's an interesting challenge where I think people need to avoid becoming a suffering addict, sort of using suffering as the proxy for progress as opposed to the outcome of the suffering, right? It's like I was in pain not eating the marshmallow. I was in pain doing this work. I have attached wellbeing and satisfaction to pain, not to what the pain gets me on the other side of it.

Chris: 你还说过：生活中多数收获，都靠短期忍一时之痛来换取长期回报。相当于每天都在赢一场“棉花糖实验”*，但这是个有趣挑战：人要避免沦为“痛苦成瘾者”——错把煎熬本身当成进步的象征，而非煎熬之后应得的结果，对吧？就像我把忍受不吃棉花糖当做煎熬，把做这工作当做煎熬。我把安适和满足与痛苦绑定，而非将它与它带来的后续好处相联系。

*棉花糖实验：经典心理学实验，让儿童单独待在房间里，面对一颗棉花糖，若能等待一段时间不食用，就能获得第二颗棉花糖。该实验主要用于研究儿童的延迟满足能力

Naval: If you define pain as physical pain, then it's a real thing, It happens, and you can't ignore it. But that's not what we mean by suffering. Suffering is mostly mental anguish and mental pain. It just means you don't want to do the task at hand. If you are fine doing the task at hand, then you wouldn't be suffering. Then the question is, what's more effective to suffer along the way or just to interpret it in a way that it's not suffering?

Naval: 如果你指的痛苦是生理上的痛感，那确实是真实存在、难以忽视的。但这并非我们所讨论的“煎熬（suffering）”的原意。煎熬主要指精神上的折磨与苦楚，通常意味着你对当下所做之事充满抗拒。如果你能自在地处理这些任务，是不会感到煎熬的。那么问题来了：是让自己在做事时忍受煎熬更有效，还是换种理解方式来消解这种煎熬？

You hear from a lot of successful people, they look back and they say:"Oh, the journey was a fun part, right? That was actually the entertaining part and I should have enjoyed it more." It's a common regret. There's a little thought exercise I like to do, which is, you can go back into your own life, try to put yourself in the exact position you were in five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 20 years ago. You try to remember, okay, who was I with, what was I doing, what was I feeling, what were my emotions, what were my objectives? Really try to transport yourself back and see if there's any advice you'd give yourself, anything you'd do differently.

我们常会听成功人士回首往事时说：“哎呀，那段旅程其实很有趣啊，对吧？那个过程本身充满意趣，我真后悔当初少享受了几分。”这种遗憾也很常见。我有个自己很喜欢的思想实验：尝试让心绪回到过去——五年前、十年前、十五年前、二十年前的自己。尽力回想：当时谁在你身边？正在做什么？感受如何？情绪怎样？目标何在？真切地将自己置身于彼时彼地，然后思考：你会给过去的自己什么建议？有什么要改变的做法？

Now you don't have new information. Don't pretend you could have gone back in, bought a stock or bought Bitcoin or whatever. But just knowing what you know now in terms of your temperament and a little bit of age related experience. How would you have done things differently? And I think it's a worthwhile exercise to do. So don't let me rob you of the conclusion. But I'll tell you, for me, I would have done everything the same, except I would have done it with less anger, less emotion, less internal suffering. Because that was optional. It wasn't necessary. And I would argue that someone who can do the job at least peacefully, but maybe happily. It's going to be more effective than someone who has unnecessary emotional term.

记得你现在是没有新的信息的，别假装能回到过去买股票或比特币之类的。真正有价值的，是带着如今的心智成熟度、处事经验和岁月带来的体悟，问自己：若重来一遍，我的处事方式会不会不同？我觉得这个练习很有价值。（我不该替你给出结论）不过实话说，对我而言，我所有的选择与路径都不会变，只是我会以更少的怒意、更平缓的情绪、更少的内耗去做每一件事，因为当初那些精神内耗实属多余，并非必然。甚至可以说，一个能内心平稳、乃至乐在其中做事的人，其成效必然远超陷于无谓情绪耗损之中的人。

Chris: Well, you end up with a series of miserable successes, right? The outcome may have been the same, but the entire experience of getting there.

Chris: 到头来就会收获一连串“苦涩的成功”，对吧？虽说结果可能一样，但整个奋斗的过程却截然不同了。

Naval: And the journey is not only the reward. The journey is the only thing there is. Even success is human nature to back it very, very quickly, right? Because the normal loop that we run through is, you sit around, you bored, then you want something. Then when you want something, you decide you're not going to be happy until you get that thing. Then you start your bout of suffering or anticipation while you strive to get that thing. If you get that thing, then you get used to it, and then you get bored again. Then a few months later, you want something else. And if you don't get it, then you're unhappy for a bit, then you get over it. Then you want something else, right? That's the normal cycle.

Naval: 不仅是回报，这段努力的旅程本身就是一切。人性使然，即便是成功，那份快感也转瞬即逝。我们通常的循环大概是：闲坐无事→心生厌倦→渴望某物→认定“要得到才能幸福”→为了得到而忍受煎熬→得偿所愿→迅速习惯→再度厌倦→过几个月又想要新的事物。如果没有得偿所愿，你在消沉一阵之后还会重启渴望，如此循环往复。

So whether you're happy or unhappy at the end, it tends not to last. Now, I don't want to be glib and say that:"oh, there's no point in making money or being successful." There absolutely is. Money solves all your money problems. So it is good to have money. That said, there are those stories. I don't know if you've seen those studies, I don't know how real these are. A lot of these side studies don't replicate, but it's a fun little study that shows that people who break their back and people who win the lottery are back to their baseline happiness two years later. Again, I don't know if that's entirely true.

无论成功的那一刻你是喜是忧，这情绪都难以持久。当然，我不想轻飘飘地说：“赚钱或着成功毫无意义”。当然有意义了！钱能解决所有跟钱有关的问题，拥有金钱是很好的。不过，想必你也听过一些说法（我不确定真实性如何，毕竟很多边缘研究都难以复现），其中一个很有意思的研究表明，那些拼命奋斗的人和突然中大奖的人，两年后基本都回到了原先的幸福基线水平。重申一下，我不确定这个结论是否完全准确。

I think money can buy you happiness if you earned it, because then along the way you have both pride and confidence in yourself. You have a sense of accomplishment. You're set out to do something and you were right. So I'll bet that lingers. And then as I said, money solves your money problems. So I don't want to be too glib about it, but I would say in general, this loop that we run through of desire, dopamine, fulfillment, unfulfillment. You have to enjoy the journey. The journey is all there is, right? 99% of your time is spent on the journey. So what kind of a journey is it if you're not going to enjoy it?

我认为，靠自己赚来的钱，确实能提升幸福感。因为你在这个过程中积累了自豪感与自信心，获得了成就感——你设定了目标并达成，证明了自己的能力。我相信这份感受会持续更久。同时，如我所言，钱能解决所有跟钱有关的问题。我不想轻率地下定论，但大体来说：我们困在“渴望→多巴胺→满足→落空”的循环里，我们需要去享受过程本身。因为努力的这段过程即是一切。你人生中99%的时间都用在这段旅程上了。若连这过程都不去享受，这样的一生，岂不太可惜了？

Chris: How do you shortcut that desire contract?

Chris: 如何才能跳过这套欲望驱动的循环呢？

Naval: You could focus, you could decide that I don't want most things. I think we have a lot of unnecessary desires that we just pick up everywhere. We have opinions, judgments and everything. So I think just knowing that those are the source of unhappiness will make you be choosy about your desires. And frankly, if you want to be successful, you have to be choosy about your desires, you have to focus. You can't be great at everything. You're just going to waste your energy and waste your time.

Naval: 你可以专注，你可以决定自己根本不需要那么多东西。我认为，我们有着太多随处沾染来的、根本不必要的欲望，充斥着各种评判与成见。人只需意识到欲望本身即是不快的源头，自然就会对自己的欲望精挑细选。坦白说，如果想要成功，你必须甄选欲望，必须专注发力。人不可能事事顶尖，贪多只会耗尽精力、虚掷光阴。

Chris: Is fame a worthwhile goal?

Chris: 成名值得追求吗？

Naval: It gets you invited to better parties. It gets you into better restaurants. Fame is this funny thing where a lot of people know you, but you don't know them. And it does get you put on a pedestal. It can get you what you want at a distance. So I wouldn't say it's worthless. Obviously, people want it for a reason. It's high status, so it attracts the opposite sex, especially for men, it attracts women. That said, it is high cost. It means you have no privacy. You do have weirdos and lunatics. You do get hit up a lot for weird things. You're on a stage, so you're forced to perform. You're forced to be consistent with your past proclamations and actions. You're going to have haters and all that nonsense.

Naval: 名气能让你收到更多顶级派对的邀约，能带你去更好的餐厅。名气的有趣之处在于：许多人都知道你，但你却未必认识他们。它能将你“供上神坛”，能让你远距离实现某些心愿。因此我们不能说它毫无价值——人们追逐它显然有其道理。它是高地位的象征，能吸引异性，尤其对男性而言，能吸引女性关注。但是它的代价也很高昂：毫无隐私可言，你难免会遭遇怪人和疯子，经常被各种离谱要求纠缠。你身处在一个舞台智商，被迫“表演”，被迫保持言行一致。你还会引来“黑粉”和各种无谓的是非。

But the fact that we do it, the fact that we all seem to want it means that it would be disingenuous to say:"Oh, no, I'm famous, but you don't want to be famous." That's said, I think, fame, like anything else, is best produced as, or pursued as a byproduct of something potentially more worthwhile. Wanting to be famous and craving to be famous and being famous for being famous. These are sort of traps.

既然我们如此行事，既然人人似乎都想成名，若摆出姿态说：“哦，不，我是出名了，但你可别追这名气”，就显得不够坦诚了。所以我认为，名气如同其他事物一样，最好是作为更有价值的事业的副产品而自然获得。沉溺于成名本身、沉迷名气游戏、为了出名而出名——这些都是陷阱。

So it's better that it's earned fame. So for example, earn respect in the tribe is you do things that are good for the tribe, who are the most famous people in human history. There are people who transcended the self, the Buddhas and the Jesus, and the Muhammads of the world. Who else is famous? The artists are famous. Art lasts for a long time. The scientists are famous, they discover things. The conquerors are famous, presumably because they conquered for their tribe. There was someone that they were fighting for.

因此，凭本事赢得的名气更值得。例如，做有益于人类群体的事，贡献卓著的人自然会声名远播，比如那些在人类历史上最负盛名的人：那些超脱自我的圣者，佛陀、耶稣、穆罕默德...那些流芳百世的艺术家，他们的艺术作品有着恒久的生命力；那些彪炳史册的科学家，他们洞悉了世间真理；那些威震四方的征服者，他们为了自己的族人而征伐。

So generally, the higher up you rise by doing things for greater and greater groups of people, even though it may be considered tyrannical or negative, like Genghis Khan is famous, but to the Mongols, he was doing good, to the rest of them, not so much. The higher level you're operating at, the more people you're taking care of, the more you earn respect and fame. And I think those are good reasons to be famous.

大体而言，一个人惠及的群体越庞大，他的地位就越高，即使他的所作所为可能会被视为专制或负面的。比如成吉思汗，于蒙古人而言他是荣光，对他人来说则未必。你的地位越高，照顾的人越多，所获敬仰与声名也越盛。我认为这些是成名的正途。

If fame is empty, if you're famous just because your name showed up in a lot of places or your face showed up in a lot of places, then that's a hollow fame. And I think deep down, you will know that. And so it'll be fragile and you'll always be afraid of losing it, and then you'll be forced to perform. So the kind of fame that pure actors and celebrities have, I wouldn't want. But the kind of fame that's earned because you did something useful, why dodge that? Now you can't.

反之，若你的名气空无一物，只是因为你的名字经常出现在各种平台和媒体上，那只是空壳名气。我相信在内心深处，你也自知。这种名气脆弱无比，你会终日惶惶不安，害怕其消散，也将被迫持续表演。这种堆砌出的明星名气，我不想要。不过，如果是因为你切实的贡献而赢得的赞誉，何必躲闪？其实你也无处躲闪。

（其实到这里才翻了10分钟左右的内容，但我觉得写太长读起来体验也不够好，容我一点点慢慢更新给大家吧！）