Why You Should Stop Caring What

作者|Tim Urban

分享|John

翻译|张俊豪

原文：

Why You Should Stop Caring What Other People Think

By Tim Urban

The first day I was in second grade, I came to school and noticed that there was a new, very pretty girl in the class—someone who hadn’t been there the previous two years. Her name was Alana and within an hour, she was everything to me.

When you’re seven, there aren’t really any actionable steps you can take when you’re in love with someone. You’re not even sure what you want from the situation. There’s just this amorphous yearning that’s a part of your life, and that’s that.

But for me, it became suddenly relevant a few months later, when during recess one day, one of the girls in the class started asking each of the boys, “Who do youuu want to marry?” When she asked me, it was a no-brainer. “Alana.”

Disaster.

I was still new to being a human and didn’t realize that the only socially acceptable answer was, “No one.”

The second I answered, the heinous girl ran toward other students, telling each one, “Tim said he wants to marry Alana!” Each person she told covered their mouth with uncontrollable laughter. I was finished. Life was over.

The news quickly got back to Alana herself, who stayed as far away from me as possible for days after. If she knew what a restraining order was, she’d have taken one out.

This horrifying experience taught me a critical life lesson—it can be mortally dangerous to be yourself, and you should exercise extreme social caution at all times.

Now this sounds like something only a traumatized second grader would think, but the weird thing, and the topic of this post, is that this lesson isn’t just limited to me and my debacle of a childhood—it’s a defining paranoia of the human species. We share a collective insanity that pervades human cultures throughout the world:

An irrational and unproductive obsession with what other people think of us.

译文：

当我上二年级的第一天，我到学校注意到班上的一个新生并且无比美丽的女孩，她是在前两年并没有在这里的。她的名字叫做Alana并且在这一个小时之内，她对于我来说就是所有。

当你在七岁的时候，当你喜欢上一个人的时候并没有你可以知道的任何可采取行动的步骤。甚至你并不确定你在这样一个环境中究竟想要的是什么。在你的生命中有的仅仅是一些不规则的向往，并且就只有这些。

但是对于我来说，在几个月之后的一个课间休息时间里，它变成了突然来到的与我相关的事件，在教室里的一个女孩开始去问每一个男孩一个问题：“你想娶谁？”当她问到我的时候，我就是那一个很无脑的人。

“Alana.”

毁灭者。

我作为一个不懂事的人并且没有意识到唯一一个可接受的答案是“没有”。

我回答的那一秒，这个讨厌的女孩跑到其他学生那里，告诉了每一个人，“Tim说他想娶Alana!”每一个听到这句话的人都成了无法抑制住的那个嘲笑的人。我玩完了。生活结束了。

这个消息很快传到了Alana那里，在之后的很多天里她都尽可能的远离我。如果不是不能离开那样一个地方的话，她早就走了。

这样一个糟糕经历给了我一个很重要的教训--做自己是一件非常致命的事情，并且你应该在任何时候小心那些社交活动。

现在来看这件事情仅仅是一个上二年级的人想的事情，但是不可思议的是，并且我们的主题是这样一个教训并不只是限制住了我和我那崩溃的童年--它是一个所有人类物种中被定义的妄想症。我们都在整体的疯狂于在这个世界上贯穿了人类文化的事情：

一个不合理并且毫无建设性的痴迷于他人是怎样看我们的这件事。

启示：

毫无疑问，我们每一个人天生就是一个进取型人，我们做事从不怕别人怎么想，我们不会在意别人怎么看待我们。但是随着年龄的增长，大部分人越来越在乎自己在他人眼中的印象，甚至很多的行为就是为了取悦他人，更严重一点就是很多人一生就是为了别人而活。

  这是一个大多数人一辈子都没有逃离的困境，我们自古有一句话：人活一张脸，树活一张皮。这就反应了这件事情是从古至今的事情。我们只是在实现自己人生价值的路上走错了方向。自从我读了Heidi 博士的《Succeed ,How We Can Reach Our Goals》之后，我就一直相信这句话：

All human beings seek relatedness,competence,and autonomy.

又如这句话说的那样：

  Goals to avoid are those that we pursue to recieve validation from others,like seeking fame,prestige,or great wealth.Anytime you're allowing someone or something else to determine your own sense of self-worth,that's a bad idea.Even if you achieve these goals,your happiness will be fleeting because your ture needs will remain unmet. In fact,they tend to make us even more miserable because they keep us too preoccupled to pursue the goals we really ought to be pursuing.

 

我尊敬的乐乐老师（对，就是那个童颜巨脑乐乐老师！）在自己的一篇文章《2017我们开始不要脸吧》和她的《给19岁自己的一封信》里都深刻提到不要在乎别人怎样看自己的重要性，这些年因为太要脸导致的不快乐，她阐释的非常清楚。