TED演讲:“几乎失败”和“差点成功”(中英文)

I feel so fortunate that my first job was working at the Museum Of Modern Art, on a retrospective of painter Elizabeth Murray. I learned so much from her after the curator, Robert Store, selected all the paintings from her lifetime body of work.

我感到非常幸运，我的第一份工作是在现代艺术博物馆参与画家伊丽莎白·默里的回顾展。在策展人罗伯特·斯托尔从她毕生创作中精选出全部作品后，我从她身上学到了许多。

I loved looking at the paintings from the 1970 s. There were some motifs and elements that would come up again later in her life. I remember asking her what she thought of those early works. If you didn't know they were hers, you might not have been able to guess.

我喜欢看她70年代的画作。有些主题和元素在她后来的人生中会再次出现。我记得曾问她如何看待那些早期作品。若不知道是她的创作，你可能猜不出来。

She told me that a few didn't quite meet her own mark for what she wanted them to be one of the works in fact so didn't meet her mark. She had set it out in the trash in her studio, and her neighbor had taken it because she saw its value.

她告诉我，有几件作品没能达到她预期的标准——事实上，这些作品没能符合她对其中某件作品的期望，因此确实未达她的要求。她原本把那件作品丢弃在工作室的垃圾桶里，但邻居看到它的价值后将其拿走了。

In that moment, my view of success and creativity changed. I realized that success is a moment, but what we're always selling. Celebrating is creativity and mastery. But this is a thing. What gets us to convert success into mastery?

那一刻，我对成功与创造力的认知彻底改变了。我意识到成功只是瞬间的产物，但真正被我们不断宣扬的却是成功本身。庆祝的过程才是创造力与精通的真正体现。但关键在于——我们该如何将转瞬即逝的成功淬炼成持久的精深造诣？

This is a question I've long asked myself. I think it comes when we start to value the gift of a near win. I started to understand this when I went on one cold may day to watch a set of varsity archers.

这是一个我长久以来一直在问自己的问题。我想，答案出现在我们开始重视接近胜利的馈赠时。我是在一个寒冷的五月天去观看一组校队射箭手时开始明白这一点的。

All women as fate would have it at the northern tip of Manhattan at Columbia's Baker athletic complex. I wanted to see what's called Archer's paradox, the idea that in order to actually hit your target, you have to aim at something slightly skew from it.

命运弄人，所有女性都聚集在哥伦比亚大学贝克体育中心——这座位于曼哈顿北端的建筑群。我想见识一下所谓的"弓箭手悖论"，即为了真正击中目标，必须瞄准与目标稍有偏差的位置。

I stood and watched as the coach drove up these women in this gray van, and they exited with this kind of relaxed focus. One held a half eaten ice cream cone in one hand, and arrows in the left with yellow fletching, and they passed me and smiled.

我站在原地，看着教练开着那辆灰色面包车载着这些女性抵达。她们下车时带着一种松弛的专注感：有人单手托着吃剩的甜筒，左手握着箭尾插着金黄翎毛的箭矢，经过时朝我微笑。但她们迈步离开时，目光仍在我身上逡巡打量。

But they sized me up as they made their way to the turf, and spoke to each other, not with words, but with numbers degrees, I thought, positions for how they might plan to hit their target. I stood behind one Archer as her coach stood in between us to maybe assess who might need support, and watched her.

但他们在走向场地时打量着我，彼此之间并非用语言交流，而是用数字、角度——我猜是战术方位——这些他们计划如何攻击目标的位置信息。我站在一名弓箭手身后，她的教练站在我们之间，或许是在评估谁需要支援，而我则观察着她。

And I didn't understand how even one was going to hit the ten rings. The ten ring from the standard 75 yards distance. It looks as small as a match stick tip held out at arm's length, and this is what. While holding 50 pounds of draw weight on each shot, she first hit a seven, I remember, and then a nine, and then two tens.

我当时甚至不明白，她是如何做到哪怕一次命中十环的。在标准的75码距离下，十环看起来就像手臂伸直时火柴棍尖那般大小——而她每支箭都要承受50磅的拉力重量。我记得她第一次射中七环，接着是九环，最后连续两箭正中十环。

And the next arrow didn't even hit the target, and I saw that gave her more tenacity, and she went after it again and again. For three hours this went on at the end of the practice. One of the archers was so taxed that she laid out on the ground, just starfished, her head looking up at the sky, trying to find what T.S.

接下来的那支箭甚至都没射中靶子，但我看到这反而激起了她的韧劲，她一次又一次地继续尝试。在练习的最后阶段，这样的情况持续了三个小时。其中一位射手精疲力竭到摊开四肢仰面躺倒在地，头颅仰望着天空，试图寻找T.S......

Elliot might call that still point of the turning world. It's so rare in American culture. There's so little that's vocational about it anymore to look at what doggedness looks like with this level of exactitude.

埃利奥特或许会称其为“转动世界的静止点”。在美国文化中，这种特质极为罕见。如今已很难得见职业精神，更遑论以如此精确的严苛尺度，去见证这种百折不挠的精神样貌。

What it means to align your body posture for three hours in order to hit a target, pursuing a kind of excellence in obscurity. But I stayed because I realized I was witnessing what's so rare to glimpse that different between success and mastery.

坚持三个小时保持正确的身体姿势，只为击中目标，追求一种在默默无闻中的卓越。但我留了下来，因为我意识到自己正在见证那种难得一见的、成功与精通之间的区别。

So success is hitting that ten ring, but mastery is knowing that it means nothing. If you can't do it again and again. Mastery is not just the same as excellence, though it's not the same as success, which I see as an event, a moment in time, and a label that the world confers upon you.

所以，成功是射中十环，但精通是明白这毫无意义——如果无法一次又一次地复现。精通不等同于卓越，虽然它也不同于成功。在我看来，成功是一个事件，是时间轴上的某个瞬间，是外界赋予你的标签。

Mastery is not a commitment to a goal, but to a constant pursuit. What gets us to do this? What gets us to forward thrust more is to value the near win. How many times have we designated something a classic, a masterpiece, even while its creator considers it hopelessly unfinished, riddled with difficulties and flaws?

精通并非对目标的承诺，而是对持续精进的执着。是什么驱使我们如此？推动我们不断向前的，是珍视那些近在咫尺的胜利。多少次，我们已将某些作品奉为经典、誉为杰作，而创作者却认为它永远无法完成，充斥着难以逾越的困境与瑕疵？

In other words, a near win? Elizabeth Murray surprised me with her admission about her earlier paintings. Painter Paul so often thought his works were incomplete, that he would deliberately lead them aside with the intention of picking them back up again.

换句话说，就是险胜？伊丽莎白·默里对自己早期画作的坦白让我惊讶。画家保罗时常认为自己的作品尚未完成，以至于他会刻意将画作搁置一旁，留待日后重新拾起。

But at the end of his life, the result was that he had only signed 10% of his paintings. His favorite novel was the unfinished masterpiece by Honorre Balzac, and he felt that the protagonist was the painter himself.

但在他去世时，结果却是他只签署了自己10%的画作。他最钟爱的小说是奥诺雷·巴尔扎克未完成的杰作，他总觉得小说主人公就是画家的化身。

Franz Kafka saw incompletion what others would find only works to praise, so much so that he wanted all of his diaries, manuscripts, letters, and even sketches burned upon. On his death, his friend refused to honor the request.

弗朗茨·卡夫卡在他人眼中的完美杰作中，看到的尽是未完成之物。这种执念如此强烈，以至于他要求所有日记、手稿、书信乃至素描都应在死后付之一炬。然而当这位作家离世时，他的挚友却违背遗愿，保留了这些文字遗产。

Because of that, we now have all the works we now do by Kaska America, the trial and the castle, a work so incomplete it even stops mid sentence. The pursuit of mastery, in other words, is an ever onward, almost lord.

正因如此，我们现在所拥有的卡斯科·阿梅里卡（Kaska America）的所有作品——包括《审判》与《城堡》——都处于未完成状态，甚至存在语句中途戛然而止的情况。换言之，对卓越的追求，本质上是一场永无止境、近乎主宰的永恒征程。

Grant that I desire more than I can accomplish, Michelangelo implored, as if to that Old Testament God and the Sistine Chapel. And he himself was that Adam with his finger outstretched and not quite touching.

“愿我所渴望的超乎我能完成，”米开朗基罗仿佛对着旧约中的上帝与西斯廷教堂如是祈求。而他自身正是那个指尖伸出却未能触及的亚当。

That god's hand. Mastery is in the reaching not the arriving. It's in constantly wanting to close that gap between where you are and where you want to be. Mastery is about sacrificing for your craft, and not for the sake of crafting your career.

那是神之手。精通在于追求而非抵达，永不停歇地渴望弥合当下与理想境界的鸿沟。真正的精进是为技艺献祭，而非精心雕琢功名利禄。

How many inventors and untold entrepreneurs live out this phenomenon. We see it even in the life of the indomitable Arctic explorer Ben Saunders, who tells me that his triumphs are not merely the result of a grand achievement, but at the propulsion of a lineage of near winds.

有多少发明家和无数企业家在践行这种现象。我们甚至在坚韧不拔的北极探险家本·桑德斯的人生中也能看到这一点。他告诉我，他的成功不仅仅是伟大成就的结果，更是受到一连串接踵而至的逆风的推动。

We thrive when we stay at our own leading edge. It's a wisdom understood by duty. Ellington, who said that his favorite song out of his repertoire was always the next one, always the one he had yet to compose.

唯有身处自身前沿，我们方能蓬勃发展。这是责任所领悟的智慧。正如艾灵顿公爵所言，在他的曲目库中，最钟爱的旋律永远是下一首——永远是那个尚未谱写完成的乐章。

Part of the reason that the nearwin is inbuilt to mastery is because the greater our proficiency, the more clearly we might see that we don't know all that we thought. We did it's called the dunning Kruger effect.

精通中内嵌"近赢"的部分原因在于，我们的熟练程度越高，就越能清晰地意识到自己并非全知全能。这种现象被称为邓宁-克鲁格效应。

The Paris review got it. Adddo James Baldwin when they asked him, what do you think increases what the knowledge? And he said, you learn how little you know. Success motivates us, but a near wind can propel us in an ongoing quest.

《巴黎评论》问对了人。当被问及“你认为什么能增进我们的认知”时，詹姆斯·鲍德温回答：“你学会意识到自己所知何其有限。成功激励我们前行，但逆风却能推动我们在求知路上永不止步。”

One of the most vivid examples of this comes when we look at the difference between Olympic silver medalist and bronze Meddalist after competition. Thomas Gillovi and his team from Cornell studied this difference and found that the frustration silver medalist feel compared to bronze, who are typically a bit more happy to have just not received fourth and not meddled at all, gives silver medalist a focus on follow up competition.

最生动的例子之一出现在我们观察奥运会银牌得主与铜牌得主赛后的心理差异时。康奈尔大学的托马斯·吉洛维奇（Thomas Gilovich）及其团队通过研究发现，与铜牌得主相比，银牌得主会因更深切的挫败感而产生心理落差——铜牌得主通常因"仅获第四名就会被彻底埋没"而庆幸自己至少赢得了奖牌，这种心理状态使得银牌得主往往会对后续赛事投入更强烈的关注。

We see it even in the gambling industry that once picked up on this phenomenon of the near wind, created these scratch off tickets that had a higher than average rate of near winds, and so compel people to buy more tickets that they were called heart toppers, and were set on a gambling industry set of abuses in Britain in the 1970 s.

我们甚至在博彩业中也看到了这种现象——一旦发现"近赢"（near wind）效应，他们就设计出中奖率高于平均水平的刮刮乐彩票，并将其称为"诱心卡"（heart toppers）。这种手法在1970年代英国博彩业的滥用现象中尤为突出。

The reason the near win has a propulsion is because it changes our view of the landscape and puts our goals, which we tend to put at a distance, into more approximate vicinity to where we stand. If I ask you to envision what a great day looks like next week, you might describe it in more general terms.

接近胜利之所以具有推动力，是因为它改变了我们对格局的认知，将我们倾向于设定在远方目标，拉近到与我们当前所处位置更为接近的范畴。如果我让你设想下周的某个美好一天，你可能会用更宽泛的表述来描述它。

But if I ask you to describe a great day at Ted tomorrow, you might describe it with granular, practical clarity. And this is what a near wind does. It gets us to focus on what right now we've plan to do to address that mountain in our sights.

但是如果我现在让你描述明天在TED度过美好一天会是什么样子，你可能会用细致、实际的清晰度来描绘。这正是"近风"效应的作用——它让我们聚焦于当下已制定的行动计划，去应对眼前这座矗立在视野中的"大山"。

It's Jackie Joiner Kercy, who in 1984 missed taking the golden hepathlon by 1/3 of a second, and her husband predicted that would give her the tenacity she needed. In the follow up competition in 1988, she won the golden hepathlon and second, a record of 7291 points, a score that no athlete has come very close to since we thrive.

杰基·乔伊纳·克西（Jackie Joiner Kercy）在1984年以三分之一秒之差与七项全能金牌失之交臂，她的丈夫曾预言这段经历将赋予她所需的坚韧品质。在1988年的后续赛事中，她不仅摘得七项全能金牌，还以7291分的总成绩创下纪录——这是迄今为止无人能企及的得分高度。

Not when we've done it all, but when we still have more to do. I stand here thinking and wondering about all the different ways that we might even manufacture a near win in this room, how your lives might play this out.

不是在我们已经完成一切的时候，而是在我们仍有更多事情要做的时候。我站在这里思考和想象——在这个房间里，我们或许能通过各种不同的方式促成一场近乎胜利的局面，而这些可能性又将在你们的生活中如何展开。

Because I think on some gut level, we do know this. We know that we thrive when we stay at our own leading edge. And it's why the deliberate incomplete is inbuilt into creation myths. In navajo culture.

因为我认为，在某种直觉层面，我们确实知晓这一点。我们明白，当我们停留在自己的前沿领域时就能蓬勃发展。这也解释了为何创世神话中会深植刻意的不完整性——以纳瓦霍文化为例。

Some craftsmen and women would deliberately put an imperfection in textiles and ceramics. It's what's called a spirit line and deliberate flaw, and the pattern to give the weaver or maker a way out, but also a reason to continue making work.

一些男女工匠会刻意在纺织品和陶瓷制品中保留一处不完美。这种设计被称为"灵线"或"刻意缺陷"，其图案既为编织者或制作者提供了心理退路，也赋予了他们持续创作的正当理由。

Masters are not excellent for it's because they take a subject to its conceptual end. They're masters because they realize that there isn't one. Now it occurred to me, as I thought about this, why the archery coach told me at the end of that practice, out of earshot of his archers, that he and his colleagues never feel they can do enough for their team never feel.

大师之所以卓越，并非因为他们将某一领域推向概念的尽头。他们成为大师，是因为他们意识到根本不存在所谓的尽头。此刻当我思索这个问题时，突然明白了为何那位射箭教练会在训练结束时——避开所有队员的听力范围——告诉我，他和同事们始终觉得自己为团队做的还不够，永远都不够。

There are enough visualization techniques and posture drills to help them overcome those constant nearway ends. It didn't sound like a complaint exactly, but just a way to let me know. Kind of tender admission, to remind me that he knew he was giving himself over to a voracious, unfinished path that always required more.

有足够多的视觉化技巧和体态训练方法，可以帮助他们克服那些不断出现的接近终点却功亏一篑的时刻。这听起来倒不像是抱怨，只是他让我知晓的一种方式——更像是种温柔的坦白，提醒着我他深知自己正投身于一条永不知餍足的未竟之路，这条道路永远在索取更多。

We build out of the unfinished idea, even if that idea is our former self. This is the dynamic of mastery. Coming close to what you thought you wanted can help you attain more than you ever dreamed you could.

我们是从未完成的构想中构建，即便那构想是我们曾经的自我。这正是精通之道。因为接近你曾以为的目标，反而能让你超越曾梦想的一切。

It's what I have to imagine, Elizabeth Murray was thinking when I saw her smiling at those early paintings one day in the galleries, even if we created utopias, I believe we would still have the incomplete. Completion is a goal, but we hope it is never the end. Thank you.

这就是我不得不想象的——当我在画廊里某天看到伊丽莎白·默里对那些早期画作展露微笑时，她或许在思考：即便我们创造了乌托邦，我相信人类依然会保有未完成性。圆满是目标，但我们希望它永非终点。谢谢。