【翻譯練習】真要「跟隨你的熱情」？請三思而後行
Why 'Follow Your Passion' Is Bizarre Advice
日期：11/29/2013
作者：Cal Newport
來源：http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cal-newport/follow-your-passion-is-bizarre_b_4350869.html
A couple years ago, I launched a simple experiment. I identified a large group of people, from a variety of different professional fields, who all self-reported to love what they do for a living. I then gave them a straightforward prompt: "tell me your story."
幾年前，我做了個簡單的試驗。我注意到，有一大群來自不同專業領域的人，他們都宣稱熱愛著自己賴以為生的工作。我便直截了當的請他們分享各自經歷。
My goal was to better understand how people end up passionate about their work. I succeeded in identifying some common patterns, but perhaps equally interesting is what I didn't find: very few of these happy workers knew in advance what they wanted to do with their life -- their path was more haphazard.
我這麼做的用意是希望能夠更了解人們何以會對他們的工作產生熱情，而也確實從中得出一些快樂工作者的普遍模式；不過同樣發人深省的，是他們之中幾乎沒有人事先就清楚一生的志業方向何在；也就是說，他們走在一條比較隨機、偶然的道路上。
This conclusion is surprising to many in our culture where "follow your passion" has been canonized as unimpeachable advice.
以上的論述，相信會使現今社會上的大多數人感到驚訝，畢竟他們將「跟隨你的熱情」這句話奉為圭臬。
But it wouldn't surprise Mike Rowe.
但我想，麥可．羅並不會對我的論述感到意外。
In his TEDTalk, Rowe explains that the tradespeople he profiled on his show, Dirty Jobs, are surprisingly happy. "Roadkill picker-uppers whistle while they work," he said. "I swear to God -- I did it with them." To Rowe, these experiences began to challenge many of the "sacred cows" he had been taught to believe about work satisfaction. Perhaps foremost of these sanctified ideas he began to doubt was the importance of pre-existing passion.
麥可．羅在他的TED演講中提到，在他主持的節目《幹盡苦差事》之中，所訪問到的各行各業小人物們，真是快樂得不得了。「負責撿拾路上遭撞死的動物屍體的工人們，他們邊工作邊吹口哨。我承認...我也跟著他們一起邊吹口哨邊工作了。」這些經歷開始衝撞著麥可•羅的心靈，畢竟他從前就被灌輸關於「工作滿足感」的神聖不可侵犯觀念；而或許在種種神聖化的觀念當中，最先令他感到質疑的，便是始終高捧在上的「熱情早已存在」重要性。
"Follow your passion... what could possibly be wrong with that?" Rowe joked in his talk. "Probably the worst advice I ever got."
「跟隨你的熱情？這不太對勁吧？我想這是我聽過最糟糕的建議。」麥可．羅在他的演講中如此玩笑說著。
Rowe's rejection of passion attracted a lot of attention, including over 1.3 million views of his talk. But it's worth taking the time to dive deeper into his statements to understand exactly what makes his ideas so transgressive.
麥可．羅對於「跟隨你的熱情」深表不以為然，讓他獲得廣大關注，這段談話影片累積超過130萬次的點閱率，也值得我們花時間深思，究竟為何他的論點能夠如此具有穿透力。
In his talk, Rowe points out that many of the happiest people in the country have jobs that no one would ever identify as a pre-existing passion. He cited a sheep herder, a pig farmer ("smells like hell, but God bless him, he's making a great living"), and a guy who makes flower pots out of cow dung, as examples of unexpected professional contentment. These observations are powerful for a simple reason: They separate career satisfaction from the specifics of the work.
在談話中，麥可．羅提到，有許多住在鄉下的人們過得非常快樂，但他們所從事的工作，恐怕不會讓人覺得這是他們認定早已存在的志向及熱情：牧羊人、養豬人士(麥可．羅說：「味道可難聞得要死，但老天保佑，他過得非常好。」)、還有個人的工作是用牛糞來製作花盆，諸如此類等登不上一般人理想工作內容的大雅之堂。從他們身上，正可看出工作滿意度與工作內容分成兩碼子事的活生生鐵証。
The pig farmer is not happy because he was born with a pig farmer gene, or because he grew up feeling a deep pre-existing passion for pork. He's instead happy because he's making a great living, has tons of autonomy, and does work that's useful to the world (he raises his pigs on food scraps from nearby casinos that would otherwise go to waste). You could replace pig farming with any number of pursuits, but so long as they yielded these same traits, he'd love his work.
養豬人士之所以過得快樂，並非由於他生而具有養豬人士天份，或是他在成長過程中發掘出自身對於豬肉的熱情；他是因為生活過得好而快樂，因為擁有極大的自主權而快樂，以及因為所從事的工作能夠給世界帶來幫助而快樂(他收集附近賭場的廚餘來餵豬，不然那些廚餘可能也被當成垃圾丟掉)。當然，除了養豬之外，他還可以選擇其他許多種工作，但只要所做的事能夠帶來這些快樂，他就會熱愛這份工作。
If we return to my own study of passion, which focused more on white collar work -- programmers, writers, doctors -- than the trades, I found similar conclusions. Few of my subjects followed a pre-existing passion into the careers that they now love. Their contentment instead grew over time as they got better at what they did, and then leveraged this skill to gain traits like competence, autonomy, and impact -- exactly the same types of traits that made Rowe's pig farmer so happy.
剛才所談的是農村工作性質，現在回到我所討論的熱情話題，我主要針對白領階級方面的工作，像是工程師、作家、醫生等，仍能得出類似的結論。我的訪問對象幾乎都不是在一開始就認定並跟隨他們現在所熱愛的工作；相反的，他們因為工作技能隨著時間駕輕就熟，對於工作的滿足感也與日俱增，並且由此精進的技能而滿足稱職感、自主權、以及影響力等因素，這些也是同樣讓麥可．羅訪問的養豬人士感到快樂的成分。
When you hear about my experiment, or Mike Rowe's experiences with dirty jobs, our society's obsession with "follow your passion" begins to seem bizarre. Why, we might ask, do we so easily accept the assumption that we're hard-wired for a specific economic pursuit? The alternative explanation -- that it's what you get out of your job, not the specifics of the work, that matters -- begins to seem a lot more reasonable.
聽了我的調查試驗，或是麥可．羅的苦差事節目內容，相信你會開始對社會上充斥的「跟隨你的熱情」這個號召感到匪夷所思。不禁要問，為什麼人們這麼容易就接受了什麼人該做什麼特定工作的假設情況呢？工作重要之處在於你從工作中得到什麼，而不是看重這份工作的詳情細節。這應是個更合理的解釋。
We are, of course, a sound bite culture. So if we hope to discard "follow your passion" as a trope, we need to summarize the Roweian view of the world with something similarly pithy. In recognition of this reality, I'll end my discussion here with an attempt to satisfy this demand…
處在這麼一個斷章取義的時代，如果我們想要把「跟隨你的熱情」單純看成一個比喻而不予採用的話，也必須將麥可．羅的觀點精簡濃縮作成結論。為了突顯事實，我將以一段話作為此次討論的總結：
Don't follow your passion, let it follow you in your quest to become useful to the world.
別再跟隨你的熱情。讓熱情跟隨著你一齊前進，走在對世界有貢獻的道路上。
日期：11/29/2013
作者：Cal Newport
來源：http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cal-newport/follow-your-passion-is-bizarre_b_4350869.html
A couple years ago, I launched a simple experiment. I identified a large group of people, from a variety of different professional fields, who all self-reported to love what they do for a living. I then gave them a straightforward prompt: "tell me your story."
幾年前，我做了個簡單的試驗。我注意到，有一大群來自不同專業領域的人，他們都宣稱熱愛著自己賴以為生的工作。我便直截了當的請他們分享各自經歷。
My goal was to better understand how people end up passionate about their work. I succeeded in identifying some common patterns, but perhaps equally interesting is what I didn't find: very few of these happy workers knew in advance what they wanted to do with their life -- their path was more haphazard.
我這麼做的用意是希望能夠更了解人們何以會對他們的工作產生熱情，而也確實從中得出一些快樂工作者的普遍模式；不過同樣發人深省的，是他們之中幾乎沒有人事先就清楚一生的志業方向何在；也就是說，他們走在一條比較隨機、偶然的道路上。
This conclusion is surprising to many in our culture where "follow your passion" has been canonized as unimpeachable advice.
以上的論述，相信會使現今社會上的大多數人感到驚訝，畢竟他們將「跟隨你的熱情」這句話奉為圭臬。
But it wouldn't surprise Mike Rowe.
但我想，麥可．羅並不會對我的論述感到意外。
In his TEDTalk, Rowe explains that the tradespeople he profiled on his show, Dirty Jobs, are surprisingly happy. "Roadkill picker-uppers whistle while they work," he said. "I swear to God -- I did it with them." To Rowe, these experiences began to challenge many of the "sacred cows" he had been taught to believe about work satisfaction. Perhaps foremost of these sanctified ideas he began to doubt was the importance of pre-existing passion.
麥可．羅在他的TED演講中提到，在他主持的節目《幹盡苦差事》之中，所訪問到的各行各業小人物們，真是快樂得不得了。「負責撿拾路上遭撞死的動物屍體的工人們，他們邊工作邊吹口哨。我承認...我也跟著他們一起邊吹口哨邊工作了。」這些經歷開始衝撞著麥可•羅的心靈，畢竟他從前就被灌輸關於「工作滿足感」的神聖不可侵犯觀念；而或許在種種神聖化的觀念當中，最先令他感到質疑的，便是始終高捧在上的「熱情早已存在」重要性。
"Follow your passion... what could possibly be wrong with that?" Rowe joked in his talk. "Probably the worst advice I ever got."
「跟隨你的熱情？這不太對勁吧？我想這是我聽過最糟糕的建議。」麥可．羅在他的演講中如此玩笑說著。
Rowe's rejection of passion attracted a lot of attention, including over 1.3 million views of his talk. But it's worth taking the time to dive deeper into his statements to understand exactly what makes his ideas so transgressive.
麥可．羅對於「跟隨你的熱情」深表不以為然，讓他獲得廣大關注，這段談話影片累積超過130萬次的點閱率，也值得我們花時間深思，究竟為何他的論點能夠如此具有穿透力。
In his talk, Rowe points out that many of the happiest people in the country have jobs that no one would ever identify as a pre-existing passion. He cited a sheep herder, a pig farmer ("smells like hell, but God bless him, he's making a great living"), and a guy who makes flower pots out of cow dung, as examples of unexpected professional contentment. These observations are powerful for a simple reason: They separate career satisfaction from the specifics of the work.
在談話中，麥可．羅提到，有許多住在鄉下的人們過得非常快樂，但他們所從事的工作，恐怕不會讓人覺得這是他們認定早已存在的志向及熱情：牧羊人、養豬人士(麥可．羅說：「味道可難聞得要死，但老天保佑，他過得非常好。」)、還有個人的工作是用牛糞來製作花盆，諸如此類等登不上一般人理想工作內容的大雅之堂。從他們身上，正可看出工作滿意度與工作內容分成兩碼子事的活生生鐵証。
The pig farmer is not happy because he was born with a pig farmer gene, or because he grew up feeling a deep pre-existing passion for pork. He's instead happy because he's making a great living, has tons of autonomy, and does work that's useful to the world (he raises his pigs on food scraps from nearby casinos that would otherwise go to waste). You could replace pig farming with any number of pursuits, but so long as they yielded these same traits, he'd love his work.
養豬人士之所以過得快樂，並非由於他生而具有養豬人士天份，或是他在成長過程中發掘出自身對於豬肉的熱情；他是因為生活過得好而快樂，因為擁有極大的自主權而快樂，以及因為所從事的工作能夠給世界帶來幫助而快樂(他收集附近賭場的廚餘來餵豬，不然那些廚餘可能也被當成垃圾丟掉)。當然，除了養豬之外，他還可以選擇其他許多種工作，但只要所做的事能夠帶來這些快樂，他就會熱愛這份工作。
If we return to my own study of passion, which focused more on white collar work -- programmers, writers, doctors -- than the trades, I found similar conclusions. Few of my subjects followed a pre-existing passion into the careers that they now love. Their contentment instead grew over time as they got better at what they did, and then leveraged this skill to gain traits like competence, autonomy, and impact -- exactly the same types of traits that made Rowe's pig farmer so happy.
剛才所談的是農村工作性質，現在回到我所討論的熱情話題，我主要針對白領階級方面的工作，像是工程師、作家、醫生等，仍能得出類似的結論。我的訪問對象幾乎都不是在一開始就認定並跟隨他們現在所熱愛的工作；相反的，他們因為工作技能隨著時間駕輕就熟，對於工作的滿足感也與日俱增，並且由此精進的技能而滿足稱職感、自主權、以及影響力等因素，這些也是同樣讓麥可．羅訪問的養豬人士感到快樂的成分。
When you hear about my experiment, or Mike Rowe's experiences with dirty jobs, our society's obsession with "follow your passion" begins to seem bizarre. Why, we might ask, do we so easily accept the assumption that we're hard-wired for a specific economic pursuit? The alternative explanation -- that it's what you get out of your job, not the specifics of the work, that matters -- begins to seem a lot more reasonable.
聽了我的調查試驗，或是麥可．羅的苦差事節目內容，相信你會開始對社會上充斥的「跟隨你的熱情」這個號召感到匪夷所思。不禁要問，為什麼人們這麼容易就接受了什麼人該做什麼特定工作的假設情況呢？工作重要之處在於你從工作中得到什麼，而不是看重這份工作的詳情細節。這應是個更合理的解釋。
We are, of course, a sound bite culture. So if we hope to discard "follow your passion" as a trope, we need to summarize the Roweian view of the world with something similarly pithy. In recognition of this reality, I'll end my discussion here with an attempt to satisfy this demand…
處在這麼一個斷章取義的時代，如果我們想要把「跟隨你的熱情」單純看成一個比喻而不予採用的話，也必須將麥可．羅的觀點精簡濃縮作成結論。為了突顯事實，我將以一段話作為此次討論的總結：
Don't follow your passion, let it follow you in your quest to become useful to the world.
別再跟隨你的熱情。讓熱情跟隨著你一齊前進，走在對世界有貢獻的道路上。