TED英語演講：我們不該放棄對成功的想象
著名作家Alain檢視我們對成功和失敗的看法，質疑它們所代表的意義。成功都是配得的嗎?失敗呢?聽他機智地解答我們對成功的迷思，幫助我們擺脫勢利，重新尋回對工作的熱情。下面是小編爲大家收集關於TED英語演講：我們不該放棄對成功的想象，歡迎借鑑參考。
演說題目：我們不該放棄對成功的想象!
演講者：Alain de Botton
中英文翻譯：
For me they normally happen, these career crises, often, actually, on a Sunday evening, just as the sun is starting to set,
我經常對事業感到恐慌，週日下午，晚霞灑滿天空，
and the gap between my hopes for myself and the reality of my life starts to diverge so painfully that I normally end up weeping into a pillow.
我的理想和現實的差距卻是這樣殘酷，令我沮喪的只想抱頭痛哭。
I'm mentioning all this -- I'm mentioning all this because I think this is not merely a personal problem; you may think I'm wrong in this, but I think we live in an age when our lives are regularly punctuated by career crises,
我提出這件事是因爲，我認爲不只有我這麼感覺。你可能不這麼認爲，但我感覺我們活在一個充滿事業恐慌的時代，
by moments when what we thought we knew -- about our lives, about our careers -- comes into contact with a threatening sort of reality.
就在我們認爲我們已經理解我們的人生和事業時，真實便來恐嚇我們。
It's perhaps easier now than ever before to make a good living. It's perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety. I want to look now, if I may, at some of the reasons why we might be feeling anxiety about our careers.
現在或許比以前更容易過上好生活，但卻比以前更難保持冷靜，或不爲事業感到焦慮。今天我想要檢視，我們對事業感到焦慮的一些原因，
Why we might be victims of these career crises, as we're weeping softly into our pillows. One of the reasons why we might be suffering is that we are surrounded by snobs.
爲何我們會變成事業焦慮的囚徒。不時抱頭痛哭，折磨人的因素之一是，我們身邊的那些勢利鬼。
In a way, I've got some bad news, particularly to anybody who's come to Oxford from abroad. There's a real problem with snobbery, because sometimes people from outside the U.K. imagine that snobbery is a distinctively U.K. phenomenon, fixated on country houses and titles.
對那些來訪牛津大學的外國友人，我有一個壞消息，這裏的人都很勢利。有時候，英國以外的人會想象，勢利是英國人特有的個性，來自那些鄉間別墅和頭銜爵位。
The bad news is that's not true. Snobbery is a global phenomenon; we area global organization, this is a global phenomenon. What is a snob? A snob is anybody who takes a small part of you, and uses that to come to a complete vision of who you are. That is snobbery.
壞消息是，並不只是這樣，勢利是一個全球性的問題，我們是個全球性的組織，這是個全球性的問題，它確實存在。勢利是什麼?，勢利是以一小部分的你，來判別你的全部價值，那就是勢利。
The dominant kind of snobbery that exists nowadays is job snobbery. You encounter it within minutes at a party, when you get asked that famous iconic question of the early 21st century, "What do you do?"
今日最主要的勢利，就是對職業的勢利。你在派對中不用一分鐘就能體會到，當你被問到這個21世紀初，最有代表性的問題：你是做什麼的?
According to how you answer that question, people are either incredibly delighted to see you, or look at their watch and make their excuses.
你的答案將會決定對方接下來的反應，對方可能對你在場感到榮幸，或是開始看錶，然後想個藉口離開。
Now, the opposite of a snob is your necessarily your mother, or indeed mine, but, as it were, the ideal mother, somebody who doesn't care about your achievements.
勢利鬼的另一個極端，是你的母親。不一定是你我的母親，而是一個理想母親的想象，一個永遠義無反顧的愛你，不在乎你是否功成名就的人。
Unfortunately, most people are not our mothers. Most people make a strict correlation between how much time, and if you like, love -- not romantic love, though that may be something -- but love in general, respect --they are willing to accord us, that will be strictly defined by our position in the social hierarchy.
不幸地，大部分世人都不懷有這種母愛，大部分世人決定要花費多少時間，給於多少愛，不一定是浪漫的那種愛，雖然那也包括在內，世人所願意給我們的關愛、尊重，取決於我們的社會地位。
And that's a lot of the reason why we care so much about our careers and indeed start caring so much about material goods. You know, we're often told that we live in very materialistic times, that we're all greedy people. I don't think we are particularly materialistic.
這就是爲什麼我們如此在乎事業和成就，以及看重金錢和物質的原因。我們時常被告知我們處在一個物質掛帥的時代，我們都是貪婪的人。
I think we live in a society which has simply pegged certain emotional rewards to the acquisition of material goods. It's not the material goods we want;
我並不認爲我們特別看重物質，而是活在一個物質能帶來大量情感反饋的時代。
It's the rewards we want. It's a new way of looking at luxury goods. The next time you see somebody driving a Ferrari, don't think, "This is somebody who's greedy."
我們想要的不是物質，而是背後的情感反饋，這賦予奢侈品一個嶄新的意義。下次你看到那些開着法拉利跑車的人，你不要想“這個人很貪婪”，
Think, "This is somebody who is incredibly vulnerable and in need of love." Feel sympathy, rather than contempt.
而是“這是一個無比脆弱、急需愛的人”，也就是說，同情他們，不要鄙視他們。
There are other reasons --There are other reasons why it's perhaps harder now to feel calm than ever before. One of these, and it's paradoxical, because it's linked to something that's rather nice, is the hope we all have for our careers.
還有一些其他的理由，使得我們更難獲得平靜。這有些矛盾，因爲擁有自己的事業，是一件不錯的事，
Never before have expectations been so high about what human beings can achieve with their life 're told, from many sources, that any onecan achieve anything.
但同時，人們也從未對自己的短暫一生有過這麼高的期待。這個世界用許多方法告訴我們，我們無所不能。
We've done away with the caste system, we are now in a system where anyone can rise to any position they please. And it's a beautiful idea. Along with that is a kind of spirit of equality;
我們不再受限於階級，而是隻要靠着努力就能攀上我們想到的高度。這是個美麗的理想，出於一種生而平等的精神，
we're all basically equal. There are no strictly defined hierarchies. There is one really big problem with this, and that problem is envy.
我們基本上是平等的，沒有任何明顯的階級存在。這造成了一個嚴重的問題，這個問題是嫉妒。
Envy, it's a real taboo to mention envy, but if there's one dominant emotion in modern society, that is envy. And it's linked to the spirit of equality.
嫉妒在今日是一種禁忌話題，但這個社會上最普遍的感受，便是嫉妒。嫉妒來自生而平等的精神。
Let me explain. I think it would be very unusual for anyone here, or anyone watching, to be envious of the Queen of England. Even though she is much richer than any of you are, and she's got a very large house, the reason why we don't envy her is because she's too weird.
這麼說吧，我想在場的各位，或是觀看這個影片的衆位，很少有人會嫉妒英國女皇。雖然她比我們都更加富有，住在一個巨大的房子裏，我們不會嫉妒她的原因是她太怪異了。
She's simply too strange. We can't relate to her, she speaks in a funny way, she comes from an odd place. So we can't relate to her, and when you can't relate to somebody, you don't envy them.
她太怪了，我們無法想象自己與她扯上關係，她的語調令人發噱，來自一個奇怪的地方，我們與她毫無關聯。當你認爲你與這個人毫無關聯時，你便不會嫉妒。
The closer two people are -- in age, in background, in the process of identification -- the more there's a danger of envy, which is incidentally why none of you should ever go to a school reunion, because there is no stronger reference point than people one was at school with.
越是兩個年齡、背景相近的人，越容易陷入嫉妒的苦海，所以千萬避免去參加同學會。因爲沒有比同學，更強烈的參照點了。
The problem of modern society is it turns the whole world into a school. Everybody's wearing jeans, everybody's the same. And yet, they're not. So there's a spirit of equality combined with deep inequality, which can make for a very stressful situation.
今日社會的問題是，它把全世界變成了一個學校，每個人都穿着牛仔褲，每個人都一樣。但並非如此，當生而平等的概念遇上現實中懸殊的不平等，巨大的壓力就出現了。
It's probably as unlikely that you would nowadays become as rich and famous as Bill Gates, as it was unlikely in the17th century that you would accede to the ranks of the French aristocracy.
今日你變得像比爾-蓋茨一樣，有錢又出名的機會，大概就跟你在十七世紀，成爲法國貴族一樣困難。
But the point is, it doesn't feel that way. It's made to feel, by magazines and other media outlets, that if you've got energy, a few bright ideas about technology, a garage -- you, too, could start a major thing.
但重點是，感覺卻差別很大。今日的雜誌和其它媒體讓我們感覺，只要你有衝勁、對科技有一些新穎的想法，再加上一個車庫，你就可以踏上比爾的道路。
The consequences of this problem make themselves felt in bookshops. When you go to a large bookshop and look at the self-help sections, as I sometimes do -- if you analyze self-help book sproduced in the world today, there are basically two kinds.
我們可以從書店中感受到這些問題所造成的後果，當你像我一樣到大型書店裏的，自我幫助書籍類。如果你分析現在出版的這些自我幫助類書籍，它們基本上分成兩種，
The first kind tells you, "You can do it! You can make it! Anything's possible!" The other kind tells you how to cope with what we politely call "low self-esteem," or impolitely call, "feeling very bad about yourself."
第一種告訴你“你做得到!你能成功!沒有不可能!”另外一種則教導你如何處理，我們婉轉地稱呼爲“缺乏自信”，或是直接了當地稱爲“自我感覺極差”。
There's a real correlation between a society that tells people that they can do anything, and the existence of low self-esteem. So that's another way in which something quite positive can have a nasty kickback.
這兩者中間有着絕對的關聯，一個告訴人們他們無所不能的社會，和缺乏自信有着絕對的關聯。另一件好事也會帶來壞影響的例子，
There is another reason why we might be feeling more anxious --about our careers, about our status in the world today, than ever before. And it's, again, linked to something nice. And that nice thing is called meritocracy.
還有一些其它原因造成我們對事業，對我們在世上的地位感到前所未有的焦慮，再一次地，它也和好的概念有關，這個好概念叫做“功績主義”。
Everybody, all politicians on Left and Right, agree that meritocracy is a great thing, and we should all be trying to make our societies really, really meritocratic. In other words -- what is a meritocratic society?
現在，無論是左傾還是右傾的政治人物，都同意“功績主義”是個好事。我們應該盡力讓我們的社會崇尚“功績主義”，換句話說，一個崇尚“功績主義”的社會是什麼樣的呢?
A meritocratic society is one in which, if you've got talent and energy and skill, you will get to the top, nothing should hold you back. It's a beautiful idea.
一個崇尚功績主義的社會相信，如果你有才能、精力和技術，你就會飛黃騰達，沒有什麼能阻止你，這是個美好的想法。
The problem is, if you really believe in a society where those who merit to get to the top, get to the top, you'll also, by implication, and in a far more nasty way, believe in a society where those who deserve to get to the bottom also get to the bottom and stay there.
問題是，如果你打從心裏相信，那些在社會頂層的人都是精英，同時你也暗示着，以一種殘忍的方法，相信那些在社會底層的人，天生就該在社會底層，
I nother words, your position in life comes to seem not accidental, but merited and deserved. And that makes failure seem much more crushing.
換句話說，你在社會的地位不是偶然，而都是你配得的，這種想法讓失敗變得更殘忍。
You know, in the Middle Ages, in England, when you met a very poor person, that person would be described as an "unfortunate" -- literally, somebody who had not been blessed by fortune, an unfortunate.
你知道，在中世紀的英國，但你遇見一個非常窮苦的人，你會認爲他“不走運”，直接地說，那些不被幸運之神眷顧的人。
Nowadays, particularly in the United States, if you meet someone at the bottom of society, they may unkindly be described as a "loser." There's a real difference between an unfortunate and a loser,
不幸的人，尤其在美國，如果人們遇見一些社會底層的人，他們被刻薄地形容成“失敗者”，“不走運”和“失敗者”中間有很大的差別，
and that shows 400 years of evolution in society and our belief in who is responsible for our lives. It's no longer the gods, it's us. We're in the driving seat.
這表現了四百年的社會演變，我們對誰該爲人生負責看法的改變，神不再掌握我們的命運，我們掌握自己的人生。
That's exhilarating if you're doing well, and very crushing if you're not. It leads, in the worst cases -- in the analysis of a sociologist like Emil Durkheim -- it leads to increased rates of suicide.
如果你做的很好，這是件令人愉快的事。相反的情況，就很令人沮喪。社會學家Emil，Durkheim分析發現，這提高了自殺率，
There are more suicides in developed, individualistic countries than in any other part of the world. And some of the reason for that is that people take what happens to them extremely personally -- they own their success, but they also own their failure.
追求個人主義的發達國家的自殺率，高過於世界上其它地方，原因是人們把發生在自己身上的事情，全當作自己的責任，人們擁有成功，也擁有失敗。
Is there any relief from some of thesepressures that I've been outlining? I think there is. I just want to turn to afew of them. Let's take meritocracy. This idea that everybody deserves to getwhere they get to, I think it's a crazy idea, completely crazy.
有什麼方法可以解決剛纔提到的這些焦慮呢?是有的。我想提出幾項，先說“功績主義”，也就是相信每個人的地位忠實呈現他的能力，我認爲這種想法太瘋狂了，
I will support any politician of Left and Right, with any halfway-decent meritocratic idea; I am a meritocrat in that sense. But I think it's insane to believe that we will ever make a society that is genuinely meritocratic; it's an impossible dream.
我可以支持所有相信這個想法的，無論是左傾還是右傾的政治家，我同樣相信功績主義，但我認爲一個完全徹底以能力取決地位的社會，是個不可能的夢想。
The idea that we will make a society where literally everybody is graded, the good at the top, bad at the bottom, exactly done as it should be, is impossible. There are simply too many random factors:
這種我們能創造一個每個人的能力都忠實地被分級，好的就到頂端，壞的就到底部，而且保證過程毫無差錯，這是不可能的。這世上有太多偶然的契機，
accidents, accidents of birth, accidents of things dropping on people's heads, illnesses, etc. We will never get to grade them, never get to grade people as they should.
不同的機運，出身，疾病，從天而降的意外等等，我們卻無法將這些因素分級，無法完全忠實的將人分級。
I'm drawn to a lovely quote by St. Augustine in "The City of God," where he says, "It's a sin to judge any man by his post." In modern English that would mean it's a sinto come to any view of who you should talk to, dependent on their business card. It's not the post that should count.
我很喜歡聖奧古斯丁在“上帝之城”裏的一句話，他說“以社會地位評價人是一種罪”。用現在的口吻說，看一個人的名片來決定你是否要和他交談是罪。
According to St. Augustine, only God can really put everybody in their place; he's going to do that on the Day of Judgment, with angels and trumpets, and the skies will open. Insane idea, if you're a secularist person, like me.
對聖奧古斯丁來說，人的價值不在他的社會地位，只有神可以決定一個人的價值，他將在天使圍繞、小號奏鳴，天空破開的世界末日給於最後審判，如果你是像我一樣的世俗論者，這想法太瘋狂了，
But something very valuable in that idea, other words, hold your horses when you're coming to judge people. You don't necessarily know what someone's truevalue is.
但這想法有它的價值。換句話說，最好在你開口評論他人之前懸崖勒馬，你很有可能不知道他人的真正價值，這是不可測的。
That is an unknown part of them, and we shouldn't behave as though it is known. There is another source of solace and comfort for all this. When we think about failing in life, when we think about failure, one of the reasons why we fear failing is not just a loss of income, a loss of status.
於是，我們不該爲人下定論，還有另一種慰藉，當我們想象人生中的失敗，我們恐懼的原因並不只是失去收入，失去地位，
What we fear is the judgment and ridicule of others. And it number one organ of ridicule, nowadays, is the newspaper. If you open the newspaper any day of the week,
我們害怕的是他人的評論和嘲笑，它的確存在。今日世界上最會嘲笑人的便是報紙。每天我們打開報紙，
it's full of people who've messed up their lives. They've slept with the wrong person, taken the wrong substance, passed the wrong piece of legislation -- whatever it is, and then are fit for ridicule. In other words, they have failed.
都能看到那些把生活搞砸的人，他們與錯誤對象共枕，使用錯誤藥物，通過錯誤法案種種，讓人在茶餘飯後拿來挖苦的新聞，這些人失敗了，
And they are described as "losers." Now, is there any alternative to this? I think the Western tradition shows us one glorious alternative, which is tragedy.
我們稱他們爲“失敗者”，還有其它做法嗎?西方傳統給了我們一個光榮的選擇，就是“悲劇”。
Tragic art, as it developed in the theaters of ancient Greece, in the fifth century B.C., was essentially an art form devoted to tracing how people fail, and also according them a level of sympathy, which ordinary life would not necessarily accord them.
悲劇的藝術來自古希臘。西元前五世紀，這是一個專屬於描繪人類失敗過程的藝術，同時也加入某種程度的同情。在現代生活並不常給於同情時。
A few years ago, I was thinking about this, and I went to "The Sunday Sport," a tabloid newspaper I don't recommend you start reading if you're not familiar with it already.
幾年前我思考着這件事，我去見“週日運動期刊”，如果你還不認識這個小報，我建議你也別去讀。
And I went to talk to them about certain of the great tragedies of Western art. I wanted to see how they would seize the bare bones of certain stories, if they came in as a news item at the news desk on a Saturday afternoon.
我去找他們聊聊，西方藝術中最偉大的幾個悲劇故事，我想知道他們會如何露骨地以新聞的方式，在週日下午的新聞臺上，呈現這些經典悲劇故事。
I mentioned Othello; they'd not heard of it but were fascinated.I asked them to write a headline for the story. They came up with "Love-Crazed Immigrant Kills Senator's Daughter." Splashed across the headline.
我談到他們從未耳聞的《奧賽羅》，他們嘖嘖稱奇。我要求他們以奧賽羅的故事寫一句頭條，他們寫道“移民因愛生恨，刺殺參議員之女”大頭條。
I gave them the plotline of Madame Bovary. Again, a book they were enchanted to discover. And they wrote "Shopaholic Adulteress Swallows Arsenic After Credit Fraud."
我告訴他們《包法利夫人》的故事，他們再一次感到驚異萬分，寫道“不倫購物狂信用欺詐，出牆婦女吞砒霜”。
And then my favorite -- they really do have a kind of genius of their own, these guys -- my favorite is Sophocles' Oedipus the King: "Sex With Mum Was Blinding."
我最喜歡的是，這些記者真的很有才，我最喜歡的是索福克勒斯的《俄狄浦斯王》，“與母親的盲目性愛”。(掌聲)
In a way, if you like, at one end of the spectrum of sympathy, you've got the tabloid newspaper. At the other end of the spectrum, you've got tragedy and tragic art.
如果同情心的一個極端，是這些八卦小報。另一個極端便是悲劇和悲劇藝術，
And I suppose I'm arguing that we should learn a little bit about what's happening in tragic art. It would be insane to call Hamlet a loser. He is not a loser, though he has lost.
我想說的是或許我們該從悲劇藝術中學習，你不會說漢姆雷特是個失敗者，雖然他失敗了，他卻不是一個失敗者。
And I think that is the message of tragedy to us, and why it's so very, very important, I think.
我想這就是悲劇所要告訴我們的，也是我認爲非常重要的一點。
The other thing about modern society and why it causes this anxiety, is that we have nothing at its center that is non-human. We are the first society to be living in a world where we don't worship anything other than ourselves.
現代社會讓我們焦慮的另一個緣故是，我們除了人類以外沒有其它重心。我們是從古至今的第一個無神社會，除了我們自己以外，
We think very highly of ourselves, and so we should; we've put people on the Moon, done all sorts of extraordinary things. And so we tend to worship ourselves.
我們不膜拜任何事物，我們對自己評價極高，爲什麼不呢，我們把人送上月球，達成了許多不可思議的事，我們習慣崇拜自己。
Our heroes are human heroes. That's a very new situation. Most other societies have had, right at their center, the worship of something transcendent: a god, a spirit, a natural force, the universe, whatever it is --
我們的英雄是人類，這是一個嶄新的情況。歷史中大部分的社會重心都是敬拜一位人類以外的靈體，神，自然力、宇宙，總之是人類以外的什麼。
something else that is being worshiped. We've slightly lost the habit of doing that, which is, I think, why we're particularly drawn to nature.
我們逐漸失去了這種習慣，我想這也是我們越來越被大自然吸引的原因。
Not for the sake of our health, though it's often presented that way, but because it's an escape from the human anthill. It's an escape from our own competition, and our own dramas.
雖然我們時常顯示是爲了健康，但我不這麼認爲，我認爲是爲了逃避人羣的蟻丘，逃避人們的瘋狂競爭，我們的戲劇化，
And that's why ween joy looking at glaciers and oceans, and contemplating the Earth from outside its perimeters, etc. We like to feel in contact with something that is non-human, and that is so deeply important to us.
這便是爲什麼我們如此喜歡看海、觀賞冰山，從外太空觀賞地球等等，我們希望重新和那些“非人類”的事物有所連接，那對我們來說很重要。
What I think I've been talking about really is success and failure. And one of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. If I said that there's somebody behind the screen who's very successful, certain ideas would immediately come to mind.
我一直在談論成功和失敗。成功的有趣之處是，我們時常以爲我們知道成功是什麼，如果我現在說，這個屏幕後面站着一個非常成功的人，你心裏馬上就會產生一些想法。
You'd think that person might have made a lot of money, achieved renown in some field. My own theory of success -- I'm somebody who's very interested in success, I really want to be successful, always thinking, how can I be more successful?
你會想，這個人可能很有錢，在某些領域赫赫有名，我對成功的理解是。首先，我是一個對成功非常有興趣的人，我想要成功，我總是想着“要怎樣我才能更成功?”，
But as I get older, I'm also very nuanced about what that word "success" might 's an insight that I've had about success: You can't be successful at everything.
但當我漸漸長大，我越來越疑惑，究竟什麼是“成功”的真正意義。我對成功有一些觀察，你不可能在所有事情上成功。
We hear a lot of talk about work-life balance. Nonsense. You can't have it all. You can't. So any vision of success has to admit what it's losing out on, where the element of loss is.
我們常聽到有關工作和休閒的平衡，鬼話。你不可能全部擁有。你就是不能。所有對成功的想象，必須承認他們同時也失去了一些東西，放棄了一些東西。
And I think any wise life will accept, as I say, that there is going to be an element where we're not succeeding.
我想一個智者能接受，如我所說，總是有什麼是我們得不到的。
And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They're sucked in from other people; chiefly, if you're a man, your father,
常常，我們對一個成功人生的想象，不是來自我們自己，而是來自他人。如果你是個男人，你會以父親做榜樣，
and if you're a woman, your mother. Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No one's quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe it's true.
如果你是個女人，你會以母親做榜樣，精神分析已經重複說了80年，但很少有人真正聽進去。但我的確相信這件事。
And we also suck in messages from everything from the television, to advertising, to marketing, etc. These are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves.
我們也會從電視、廣告，各樣的市場宣傳中得到我們對成功的想象。這些東西影響了我們，對我們自己的看法、我們想要什麼。
When we're told that banking is a very respectable profession, a lot of us want to go into banking. When banking is no longer so respectable, we lose interest in banking. We are highly open to suggestion.
當我們聽說銀行業是個受人尊敬的行業，許多人便加入銀行業，當銀行業不再受人尊敬，我們便對銀行業失去興趣，我們很能接受建議。
So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success, but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas, and make sure that we own them; that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions.
我想說的是，我們不該放棄，我們對成功的想象，但必須確定那些都是我們自己想要的，我們應該專注於我們自己的目標，確定這目標是我們真正想要的，確定這個夢想藍圖出自自己筆下。
Because it's bad enough not getting what you want, but it's even worse to have an idea of what it is you want, and find out, at the end of the journey, that it isn't, in fact, what you wanted all along.
因爲得不到自己想要的已經夠糟糕了，更糟糕的是，在人生旅程的終點，發覺你所追求的從來就不是你真正想要的。
So, I'm going to end it there. But what I really want to stress is: by all means, success, yes. But let's accept the strangeness of some of our ideas.
我必須在這裏做個總結，但我真正想說的是，成功是必要的，但請接受自己怪異的想法，
Let's probe away at our notions of success. Let's make sure our ideas of success are truly our k you very much.
朝着自己對成功的定義出發，確定我們對成功的定義都是出於自己的真心。非常感謝各位。
Chris Anderson: That was fascinating. But how do you reconcile this idea of it being bad to think of someone as a "loser," with the idea that a lot of people like, of seizing control of your life, and that a society that encourages that, perhaps has to have some winners and losers?
主持人：說的真好。你要如何與自己和解，把一個人稱爲失敗者是糟糕的，但許多人都想掌握自己的生活，一個追求這些的社會難免要有贏家和輸家。
Alain De Botton: Yes, I think it's merely the randomness of the winning and losing process that I want to stress, because the emphasis nowadays is so much on the justice of everything, and politicians always talk about justice. Now I'm a firm believer in justice, I just think that it's impossible.
阿蘭?德波頓：是的，我只是想提出，在輸贏的過程中有太多偶然，今日我們太講求所有事情的正義和公平，政治人物總是在談論正義，我非常支持正義，我只是覺得那不可能，
So we should do everything we can to pursue it, but we should always remember that whoever is facing us, whatever has happened in their lives, there will be a strong element of the haphazard.
我們應該盡力，盡力去追求正義，但我們也應該記得，我們所面對的，無論在他們人生中發生過什麼，偶然總是一個強烈的因素，
That's what I'm trying to leave room for; otherwise, it can get quite claustrophobic.
我希望大家留一點空間這麼想，不然真令人有一種幽閉恐怖症的感覺。
CA: I mean, do you believe that you can combine your kind of kinder, gentler philosophy of work with a successful economy?
主持人：我是說，你是否相信，在這種溫和的哲學下，可以產生一個發達的經濟?
Or do you think that you can't, but it doesn't matter that much that we're putting too much emphasis on that?
還是你認爲那不可行?還是我們這樣反覆提醒人們也不甚重要?
AB: The nightmare thought is that frightening people is the best way to get work out of them, and that somehow the crueler the environment, the more people will rise to the challenge.
阿蘭?德波頓：夢魘是相信恐嚇人們是刺激他們發奮的最好辦法，或是環境越殘酷，就會有越多人接受挑戰。
You want to think, who would you like as your ideal dad? And your ideal dad is somebody who is tough but gentle. And it's a very hard line to make. We need fathers, as it were, the exemplary father figures in society, avoiding the two extremes, which is the authoritarian disciplinarian on the one hand, and on the other, the lax, no-rules option.
你必須想，你的理想父親是怎樣的?你的理想父親往往是嚴厲又溫和的，雖然這界限很難畫定，我們社會需要的模範性人物是像一個理想父親，不要走極端，不要完全集權、純粹紀律，也不要模糊馬虎，亂無規章。
CA: Alain De Botton.
AB: Thank you very much.
非常感謝.