How to stop languishing and start finding flow
推荐一篇演讲，演讲者是：Adam Grant ，发布于2021年的TED。
最近「躺平」几乎刷屏，简单来说躺平就是：降低欲望，不长期工作，低成本生活。这个现象也在当代年轻人里面逐渐形成了一个圈子，这到底是为什么
TED演讲稿资源
How to stop languishing and start finding flow
Adam Grant
I know you all have long to-do lists, but I hate wasting time so much that I have a to-don't list. Don't scroll on social media, don't check my phone in bed and don't turn on the TV unless I already know what I want to watch.
我知道大家都有个长长的待办事项列表，但是我讨厌浪费时间做这些。所以我有个“不办”事项列表。不要流连社交网站，不要在床上看手机，不要打开电视，除非我知道要看什么节目。
But last year I found myself breaking all of those rules.I was staying up way past midnight, doom scrolling, playing endless games of online Scrabble and bingeing entire seasons of TV shows that weren't even good.
但是去年，我发现自己打破了全部的规则。半夜了我还醒着，滚动浏览负面新闻，不停地玩线上拼字游戏，无节制地追整季电视剧，然而并不怎么好看。
The next morning I'd wake up in a daze and swear, "Tonight in bed by 10:00." But it kept happening night after night for weeks. What was I thinking?
第二天早上我整个人迷迷糊糊地醒来，然后发誓，“今晚10点钟要睡觉。”但是这一幕不断上演，持续好久。我当时在想什么？
As an organizational psychologist, I have spent my whole career studying motivation, so it really bothers me when I can't explain my own behavior. I wasn't depressed. I still had hope. Wasn't burned out, had energy.
身为一名组织心理学家，我的整个职业生涯都在研究激励问题。所以我很困扰，我无法解释我自己的行为。我不是抑郁，我还怀抱希望。我也不倦怠，我还有能量。
Wasn't lonely, I was with my family. I just felt a little bit aimless and a little bit joyless. Eventually, I remembered there's a name for that feeling: languishing. Languishing as a sense of emptiness, stagnation and ennui.
我并不觉得孤独，因为我有家庭。我只是感觉少了点目标，少了点快乐。最后，我终于想到有一个词可以形容这种感觉：颓靡。一种空虚、停滞、无趣的感觉。
It was coined by a sociologist Corey Keyes and immortalized by a philosopher, Mariah Carey.
这个词最早由社会学家科里·凯斯（CoreyKeye）提出，并由“哲学家”玛丽亚·凯莉（Mariah Carey）发扬光大。
When you're languishing, it just feels like you're muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield. So I'm curious how many of you have felt like that over the past few months.
当你颓靡时，你会感觉到就像你在浑浑噩噩地度日，看着自己的人生笼罩于层层迷雾。那么我想问问，你们当中有谁在过去几个月里经历过这种感觉。
OK, those of you who didn't have the energy to raise your hands --you might be languishing right now. And you over here who didn't laugh, you're definitely languishing. Strangely enough --[How are you feeling today? Meh. Meh. Meh.]
好的，你们当中没有力气举手的 --现在可能正处于这个状态。而那边那位听到这还没有笑的，百分百就是了。很奇怪的是——【你今天感觉如何？呃...呃…呃…】
Some of you passed the quiz. Strangely enough, what rescued me from that feeling was playing Mario Kart. But let's back up for a second.
你们中有些人通过了这个测试。奇怪的是，把我从这种感觉里解救出来的是马里奥赛车游戏。我们先回头看看，
In the early days of covid, a lot of us were struggling with fear, grief and isolation. But as the pandemic dragged on with no end in sight, our acute anguish gave way to chronic languish. We were all living in “Groundhog Day.” It felt like the whole world was stagnating. So I wrote an article to put languishing on the map. I called it "the neglected middle child of mental health" and I suggested it might be the dominant emotion of our time. And soon it was everywhere. I was seeing it all over the media, being discussed by celebrities, by royalty. I've never seen people so excited to talk about their utter lack of excitement.
在新冠疫情早期，我们中的很多人都在恐惧、悲伤和孤独中挣扎。但是当疫情拖得足够久，看不到尽头的时候，短暂而剧烈的痛苦让位给了长期的萎靡不振。我们像活在“土拨鼠之日”（电影中每天重复的生活）感觉就是整个世界停滞了。所以我写了一篇文章提出“颓靡”这个现象。我称之为：“心理健康领域中，被忽略的家中老二”，而我觉得这可能是目前这个时代主导的情绪。它无所不在，在媒体上，哪都能看到它被名流们，被皇室成员们讨论，我从来没有见过人们那么兴趣盎然地讲述自己如何完全丧失兴趣。
And -- I think -- I think that naming languishing helped people make sense of some puzzling experiences. Why even after getting vaccinated people were having trouble looking forward to the rest of the year. Why when "National Treasure" came on TV, my wife already knew all the words by heart. And why I was staying up way too late, falling victim to what's known as revenge bedtime procrastination.
然而——我觉得——我觉得正式认识“颓靡”这种情绪有助于人们理解自己的困惑。为什么即使是打了疫苗人们还是无法对接下来的半年有任何期待。为什么当《国家宝藏》在电视上播出时，我的妻子已将每一句台词烂熟于心。为什么我总熬夜，成为“报复性熬夜”的受害者？
We were looking for bliss in a blah day and purpose in a perpetual pandemic. But languishing is not unique to a pandemic. It's part of the human condition. Two decades of research show that languishing can disrupt your focus and dampen your motivation. It's also a risk factor for depression because languishing often lurks below the surface.
我们在无聊的一天里找幸福，在没有尽头的疫情里找目标。但是“颓靡”不是疫情独有的。它是人类生活的一部分。近二十年的研究发现：“颓靡”可以扰乱你的专注力，并且消磨你的意志。颓靡还是导致抑郁症的风险因素之一，因为颓靡总是潜伏在表面之下。
You might not notice when your drive is dwindling or your delight is dulling You’re indifferent to your own indifference, which means you don't seek help and you might not even do anything to help yourself. Meh. Languishing isn't just hard to spot, though. In many cultures, it's hard to talk about, too. When people ask, "How are you?," you're expected to say, "Great!" or "Living my best life." That's called toxic positivity.
你可能都没注意到你的驱动力在减弱，或者你的快乐变得黯淡。你无所谓自己的兴趣丧失，也就是说，你不会去专门寻求帮助，也不做任何事情来帮助自己。呃，就这样吧。颓靡不止是难以被察觉而已，在很多的文化里，人们觉得难以启齿谈论它。当别人问你：“你好吗？”你应该说，“非常好！”“不能更好了！”这叫做“有毒的正能量”。
It's the pressure that we face to be optimistic and upbeat at all times. If you say, "You know, I'm just OK," then people might encourage you to look on the bright side or count your blessings, which isn't just annoying. It can actually be bad advice.
这是一种压力 让我们时时都保持乐观向上。如果你说，“你知道的，我觉得还好。” 那人们就会鼓励你要多看光明的一面，或者是要学会感恩，这可不仅仅是惹人烦，还可能是坏的建议。
Can I get two volunteers? I will cold-call if I have to, don't all jump at once. OK, right over here. You can come up to a mic and can I get another volunteer right over there, up to this mic, please. A round of applause for our two volunteers.
我这边能邀请两位志愿者吗？没有的话，我就随机叫两个。不要一下子都跳上来。好的，这边你可以走到麦克风那边，好的。另一个志愿者到这边麦克风。请给两位志愿者掌声。
Hi, what's your name?
Martin: Martin.
Adam Grant: Thank you. Can you tell us three good things about your life, please?
Martin: I’m married and I’m healthy and I’m happy.
AG；嗨，请问你叫什么名字？
M：马丁（Martin）。
AG：谢谢。你可以告诉我们你生活中的三件好事情吗？
M：我结婚了，我很健康，我很快乐。
AG: All right, I’m glad the marriage came in first. Well done. OK, over here. What’s your name?
Lee: Lee.
AG: Lee, can you tell us 42 good things about your life?
Lee: My cat Titchypoo, my dog Enzo. And so my wife, Jazz.
AG: Third behind the dog and the cat. Well played.
AG：真好，很开心你把婚姻放在第一位。好，这边。
L：李（Lee）。
AG：你能告诉我们你生活中的 42 件好事情吗？
L：我的猫 Titchypoo, 我的狗 Enzo，还有我的妻子Jazz。
AG: 排在猫和狗之后第三位。干得漂亮。
Lee: My children, Indio and Walter, Manchester United Football Club, my friends, TED.
AG: TED coming in at ringing eighth.
Lee: TED is very high, TED is very high. The poetry of C.S. Lewis, E.E. Cummings, Dylan Thomas.
AG: You want to name all the poets you’ve ever heard of? Alright, Lee, thank you. We’re going to pause you there. Round of applause. Thank you both.
Lee：我的孩子们，Indio 和 Walter 曼联足球俱乐部，我的朋友们，TED。
AG：TED 荣登第八位！
L：TED 排名很高！还有诗，C.S.路易斯（C.S. Lewis）, E.E.卡明斯（E.E. Cummings）, 狄兰·托马斯（Dylan Thomas）的诗。
AG：你是打算念完所有你听说过的诗人名字吗？好的，李，谢谢你。我们得让你在这暂停。掌声献给两位志愿者。
So for a long time, I assumed that people in Lee's position were going to be happier than Martin. But when I ran the experiment, I found the exact opposite. That people who are randomly assigned to count more blessings, are actually, on average, less happy because you start to run out of things to be optimistic about. And if you don't know that many poets ... The harder it is to find good things about your life, the more you feel like, well, maybe my life isn't that good.
很长一段时间里我都认为李这样的人，会比马丁更快乐，但是当我做了实验发现恰恰相反。那些被随机安排列出更多好事情的人。实际上，平均而言，不那么快乐，因为你数着数着发现值得乐观的事情快没了，如果你不知道更多的诗人名字的话......当你发现越难列出生活中的好事情，你也会觉得也许我的生活就是没那么好。
In the early days of the pandemic, researchers found that the best predictor of well-being was not optimism. It was flow. Flow is that feeling of being in the zone, coined by the psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi. It's that state of total absorption in an activity. For you, it might be cooking or running or gardening where you lose track of time and you might even lose your sense of self.
在疫情早期，研究者们发现身心健康最大的影响因素不是乐观主义。而是心流（flow）。心流最早由心理学家米哈里·齐克森米哈里（MihályCsíkszentmihályi）提出，是一种全身心投入某种活动的状态，一种置身于某个区域里的感觉。对你们来说，可能是下厨、跑步或者园艺，忘记了时间流逝，甚至忘记了自己的存在。
Flow is the appeal of a Netflix binge because you get transported into a different world and immersed in a story. But bingeing is a temporary escape from languishing, not a cure. At best, it leaves you with a bunch of asymmetric relationships. You might love hanging out with your friends: Chandler, Arya, Dwight, Buffy -- Buffy, anyone? --
心流也是网飞（Netflix）狂欢式刷剧的魅力所在，因为它让你进入一个不同的世界，沉浸在故事中。但是狂欢式刷剧只能让你短暂地逃离颓靡并不能治愈它。充其量，给你留下一堆不对称的关系。你可能喜欢和你的朋友们玩，Chandler,Arya,Dwight,Buffy——Buffy,有吗？
Joe Exotic, Peppa Pig. (Whispers) But they don't know you exist. Bingeing is passive engagement in a fictional world, peak flow depends on active participation in the real world, which is why I was so surprised to find my flow while driving a cartoon car in a Nintendo game.
JoeExotic（《虎王》主人公），小猪佩奇。但他们并不知道你的存在。狂欢式刷剧是一种在虚拟世界里被动的投入，更高层次的心流来自于主动地参与真实世界。当我在任天堂游戏里驾驶一辆卡通汽车时，我很惊讶地发现了我的心流。
When the pandemic first started, all three of our kids were at home in online school, and that lasted for a full year. It was not easy. One day we found this on our six-year-old's report card.
[can independently mute and unmute himself when requested to do so]
疫情刚开始时，我的三个孩子在家网课，然后持续了一整年，这太难了。有一天，我发现我六岁孩子的报告单上写着。
【能按规定独立地打打开话筒与静音]】
You know, I know some adults who still haven't figured that out yet, not just online, but in real life, too. So I guess we had that to celebrate. But like many of you, we were isolated from extended family. My sister was halfway across the country. And one day we were reminiscing about how much we love playing Mario Kart as we were kids.
要知道，我知道有些成年人还没搞明白这个。不只是在线上，生活中也是。所以我想我们应该庆祝一下。但是跟大家一样，我们与家人分离，我的姐姐在这个国家的另一边。有一天，我们回忆起，我们小时候有多喜欢玩马里奥赛车。
And she said, "Well, we could all play together online now." Why don't we start a family game? And soon we were playing every day with a video call running at the same time. And after a couple of weeks I stopped feeling so blah. I was living zen in the art of Mario Kart.
然后她说：“哇，我们现在可以一起在线玩了。”我们为什么不开始一个家庭游戏？很快我们每天都玩这个，同时用视频通话。几周以后，我发现我没那么颓靡了，我生活在马里奥赛车艺术禅意里。
In the morning our kids were waking up, asking what time we would play. They were excited. And they loved it when I would gloat about an impending victory, only to be bombed by a flying blue shell and then just sit there watching all three of our kids drive past me to the finish line in tiny go-carts. We had so much fun that we started a new Saturday night tradition after the kids were asleep. Adult Mario Kart.
每天早上我的孩子们起床，问我什么时候可以开始玩，他们很兴奋。他们热爱这个游戏，特别是当我期待着即将到来的胜利，却被飞来的蓝色炮弹轰炸，然后只能看着我的三个孩子，开着小小赛车超过我冲向终点线。我们太开心了，于是我开始了一个周六晚上新传统，在孩子们睡觉之后，来玩成人马里奥赛车。
So after reflecting on that experience, I'm proud to present to you for the first time my Mario Kart theory of peak flow. It has three conditions: mastery, mindfulness and mattering. Let's start with mastery. Mastery is something a lot of us have been having a hard time finding lately.
通过反思这个经历，我很自豪地在这里向各位首次介绍，我的有关顶级心流的马里奥赛车理论。它有三个条件：掌控力、正念和重要性。我们从掌控力开始。掌控力是一种，我们中的很多人要通过艰难地寻找得到的东西。
Psychologists find that at work the strongest factor in daily motivation and joy is a sense of progress. We find that our happiness depends in Western cultures more on how our projects are going today than how they went yesterday. That's why Nike says, "Just do it." I guess if Nike had been started in a more past-focused country like China, their slogan would be, "Just did it." If languishing is stagnation, flow involves momentum.
心理学家发现，给我们带来日常动力和快乐的最重要因素，是一种进步感。在西方文化中，我们的快乐更多来自于我们的项目今天进行的怎么样，而不是昨天做了些什么。这就是为什么耐克宣传，“只管去做”。如果耐克创立于一个更注重过去的国家，比如中国。他们的口号会变成，“刚做完了。”如果颓靡是停滞，那么心流中包含着动量。
But mastery does not have to be a big accomplishment, it can be small wins. Small wins explain why I was drawn to online Scrabble for the rush of playing a seven-letter word. Small wins makes sense of why so many people were thrilled to bake their first loaf of sourdough bread. And small wins explain why one engineer spent an entire afternoon mastering the art of stacking M&M's on top of each other. Take a look.
掌控力并不一定需要来自于大的成就，它可以是小的进步。小小的胜利带来的掌控感可以解释为什么我会被在线拼字游戏所吸引。拼出一个7个字母的单词也能帮助我们理解为什么这么多人，在烤出他们的第一条酸面包之后如此兴奋。为什么这个工程师会花一整个下午，掌握搭M&M’s豆的技能。大家看下。
AG: Turns out that was a world record. That kind of mastery depends on a second condition for flow, mindfulness. Focusing your full attention on a single task, not something a lot of us are doing that much these days.
[Are you OK? You’re barely paying attention to your book, phone, show ... ]
[ ... laptop and the crossword you started ten minutes ago.]
AG：结果这成了世界纪录。这种掌控感也取决于心流的第二个条件，正念。在一件事情上全神贯注，不是我们经常做的这些。
【你还好吗？其实你几乎没在看你的书、电话、节目......】
【......电脑，十分钟开始前的填字游戏。】
There's evidence that on average, people are checking emails 74 times a day, switching tasks every 10 minutes, and that creates what's been called time confetti, where we take what could be meaningful moments of our lives and we shred them into increasingly tiny, useless pieces. Time confetti is an enemy of both energy and of excellence. If we want to find flow, we need better boundaries.
有统计表明，人们平均一天查74次邮件，每10分钟切换一次自己做的事情，这样的方式导致了所谓“时间的碎片”，那些本该让我们的生命更有意义的时刻，被我们撕碎，变成一些越来越小、用的碎屑。时间的碎片是活力和优秀的敌人，如果我们想要找到我们的心流我们需要建立边界，
When I think about boundaries, I think of an experiment by organizational scholar Leslie Perlow. She went to a Fortune 500 company and she tested a quiet time policy. No interruptions three mornings a week before noon. On average, engineers spiked in productivity. 47 percent of them were more productive than usual.
当我思考边界的问题时，我想到组织学者莱斯利·珀洛（LesliePerlow）的一个实验。她去一家财富500强的公司测试了一个“安静时间政策”，每周三次在中午之前不被打断，实验发现，工程师们的平均工作效率大增，47%的工程师比平时更有效率。
But the best part is that when the company made quiet time official policy, they had 65 percent above average productivity. I don't think there's anything magical about Tuesday, Thursday, Friday before noon. The lesson here is that we need to treat uninterrupted blocks of time as treasures to guard.
更妙的是，当公司把这个安静时间政策正式化，65%的工程师的效率高过了平均水平。我认为在周二周四周五中午之前也没有发生什么奇迹。我们应该学到我们把不被打断的时间段当成宝贵的财产来守护。
Now, mastery and mindfulness will get you to flow, but there's a third condition that turns it into a peak experience. Mattering. Knowing that you make a difference to other people. Early in my career, I was studying fundraising callers who were trying to bring in alumni donations to a university, and I knew they were languishing when I saw this sign posted on their wall.
现在，我们知道了心流的两个条件掌控力和正念。还有第三个条件，使心流成为一种顶级的体验。重要性，知道你对别人产生的影响。在我的职业生涯早期，我研究过电话筹款员，他们的工作是给校友们打电话请他们给大学捐款。当我在他们的墙上看到这个贴纸，我知道他们应该处在颓靡的状态。
I wanted to study how to show them that their work mattered. So I designed a series of experiments and over the next month, one group of callers on average more than doubled in weekly time on the phone and nearly tripled in weekly revenue. What moved the needle was randomly assigning them to meet one student whose scholarship had been funded by their work.
我想研究怎样可以让他们知道他们的工作很重要，所以在接下来的一个月里，我做了一系列实验，平均每组呼叫者每周在电话上增加了一倍多的时间，每周收到的捐款几乎翻了三倍。导致这些改变的只是随机地让这些员工去会见学生，这些学生获得的奖学金多亏他们的工作筹款。
Now, instead of focusing on the monotonous process of making calls, they were absorbed in a meaningful purpose of helping to fund tuition. So think about the people who would be worse off if your job didn't exist. Those are the people who make your work matter. You need to know their names, their faces and their stories, and you can find flow in projects that benefit them.
现在他们不仅仅专注于单调地打电话，他们全身心投入一个更有意义的目标，帮助学生们筹集奖学金。想想如果没有你的贡献那些人的情况会变得多糟。正因为这些人，你的工作才有了价值。你需要知道他们的名字、样子和故事。你能在那些让帮到他们的工作上找到你的心流。
This all explains why Mario Kart was such a great experience for me. It gave me a feeling of mastery, the sweet satisfaction of a perfectly placed banana peel for my sister to slip on. It required mindfulness too. My brother-in-law was the best player. Beating him demanded total concentration, especially when my kids were ganging up with him against me. And it wasn't just a game. It mattered. Over the past year, we've all felt helpless in one way or another.
这也能解释为什么马里奥赛车能给我这么棒的体验，它给我掌控感，那种甜蜜的满足，好似当我放块香蕉皮成功地让我姐姐滑倒。它也需要全神贯注，我的姐夫是最佳车手，要打败他需要百分百集中精力，特别是当我的孩子们联合起来跟他一起对付我。这不仅仅是个游戏，它很重要。在过去的一年里，我们都曾或多或少觉得无助。
I felt helpless to fix covid. I couldn't even do that much to make online school better. And I'm a teacher. But in Mario Kart, I felt helpful. I was able to give my kids something to look forward to when we couldn't go anywhere. I was able to keep my family close when we were far apart. We normally think of flow as an individual experience. But playing Nintendo, we were all immersed together.
我对消灭新冠感到无助，我也没法做什么让我的网课变得更好，我是个老师。但是在马里奥赛车里，我觉得很有帮助。当我们哪里都去不了时，我能给予我的孩子们一些可以期待的东西，当家人们相距甚远时，我能让我们保持亲密。我们通常认为心流是一种个人的体验，但是当我们一起玩游戏时，我们都沉浸在里面。
And although we don't play daily anymore, I feel closer to my sister and my brother-in-law than I ever had before. I learned that love is not the frequency of communication, it's the depth of connections. I also realized that the antidote to languishing does not have to be something productive, it can be something joyful. Our peak moments of flow are having fun with the people we love, which is now a daily task on my to-do list.
虽然后来我们并没有每天玩，但比起以往任何时候，我觉得跟姐姐一家更亲密了。我感觉到爱不仅仅在于交流的频率，而是联系的深度。我也意识到颓靡的解药不一定得是什么有丰厚产出的事情，也可以是开心的事情。我们心流到达巅峰的时刻是跟我们爱的人一起玩，现在，这是在我待办事项列表上的日常任务。
So what's your version of Mario Kart? Where do you find mastery and mindfulness with the people who matter to you? I think we need to rethink our understanding of mental health and well-being. Not depressed doesn't mean you're not struggling. Not burned out doesn't mean you're fired up. When someone says, "How are you?," it's OK to say, "Honestly, I'm languishing." Or if you can only muster one syllable, "Meh." And when you're ready, you can start finding the flow that lights a path out of the void. Thank you.
你的马里奥赛车是什么？和那些对你重要的人一起，你该在哪找到掌控感和正念？我想我们应该重新思考我们对身心健康的理解，不抑郁并不意味着你没有挣扎、没有倦怠，也不意味着火力全开。当别人问你，“你好吗？”或者如果你只能回以一个音节，“呃。”当你准备好了，你可以开始寻找你的心流，那会成为照亮你走出虚无的道路。谢谢！
Remark：TED演讲视频、演讲稿均来源于TED官网，一切权益归TED所有，更多TED相关信息可至官网www.ted.com查询！
