警告年轻人：这是你必须知道的最重要的人生教训

Karl Pillemer of Cornell University interviewed nearly 1500 people age 70 to 100+ for his book “30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans.” He asked them what life lessons they’d pass on. What piece of advice were they more adamant about than any other? More adamant about than lessons regarding marriage, children and happiness?

康奈尔大学的Karl Pillemer在他的著作《30个人生教训》中采访了1500个人，年龄从70岁到100岁不等，询问在他们一生中学习到的人生教训。在那些人生教训中，他们最坚持的是哪一个？是什么样的人生教训甚至比婚姻，孩子和幸福更令他们坚持？

Do not stay in a job you dislike.

不要留在你不喜欢的行业里。

You know those nightmares where you are shouting a warning but no sound comes out? Well, that’s the intensity with which the experts wanted to tell younger people that spending years in a job you dislike is a recipe for regret and a tragic mistake. There was no issue about which the experts were more adamant and forceful. Over and over they prefaced their comments with, “If there’s one thing I want your readers to know it’s . . .” From the vantage point of looking back over long experience, wasting around two thousand hours of irretrievable lifetime each year is pure idiocy.

你知道假如你放声呼号，希望警告别人却毫不起作用会是多么噩梦的一件事情么？专家们正是怀着这样一种紧张的情绪在警告着年轻人：假如你在一个你不喜欢的行业里蹉跎多年，那将会是你终生悔恨的根源和一个悲剧的错误。毫无疑问，专家们对此越来越坚定和具备说服力，他们一次又一次地用这样的辞句开头，“假如有那么一件事是我希望读者能明白的，那就是……”根据他们回顾长期经验所得，在无法挽回的时间里，每年浪费将近2千个钟头，这简直蠢到家了。

What else did they have to say about career?

关于职业生涯，这些过来人还说了什么呢？

1. Choose a career for the intrinsic rewards, not the financial ones. The biggest career mistake people make is selecting a profession based only on potential earnings. A sense of purpose and passion for one’s work beats a bigger paycheck any day.

1.选择一个有内在报酬而非经济报酬的职业。人们犯的最大的职业错误就是完全因为收入而选择职业。然而，对工作的意志和热情终有一天会胜过账面上更高的收入。

2. Don’t give up on looking for a job that makes you happy. According to the experts, persistence is the key to finding a job you love. Don’t give up easily.

2.别放弃寻找一个能让你快乐的工作。专家们认为，坚持不懈是找到热爱的工作的一把钥匙。不要轻言放弃。

3. Make the most of a bad job. If you find yourself in a less-than-ideal work situation, don’t waste the experience; many experts learned invaluable lessons from bad jobs.

3.利用好差的工作。假如你已经处在了一个不尽如人意的工作环境中，不要浪费这段经历。许多专家从那些差的工作中学到了非常宝贵的教训。

4. Emotional intelligence trumps every other kind. Develop your interpersonal skills if you want to succeed in the workplace. Even people in the most technical professions have their careers torpedoed if they lack emotional intelligence.

4.情商大于一切。假如你想在工作中获得成功，必须发展好你的人际沟通能力。即使是那些来自技术性最强的专业的人才也会因为过低的情商而破坏自己的职业生涯。

5. Everyone needs autonomy. Career satisfaction is often dependent on how much autonomy you have on the job. Look for the freedom to make decisions and move in directions that interest you, without too much control from the top.

5.每个人都需要自治权。职业满意度经常和你在工作上拥有多少自治权有关。你希望有做决定的自由，依自己的兴趣行动，不受太多来自上级的控制。

Another point worth making is advice the older folks consistently did not give:

另一个值得一提的重点是那些老人们始终没有提出的建议：

1.No one— not a single person out of a thousand— said that to be happy you should try to work as hard as you can to make money to buy the things you want.

1.没有一个人说，你应该努力工作来换取能买到你想要的东西的钱。

2.No one— not a single person— said it’s important to be at least as wealthy as the people around you, and if you have more than they do it’s real success.

2.没有一个人说，你至少应该和周围的人一样富有，并且当你比他们更富有时，就代表了真正的成功。

3.No one— not a single person— said you should choose your work based on your desired earning power.

3.没有一个人说，你应该根据你渴望得到的赚钱能力来选择工作。

Now it may sound absurdly obvious when worded in this way. But this is in fact how many people operate on a day-to-day basis. The experts did not say these things; indeed almost no one said anything remotely like them. Instead they consistently urged finding a way to earn enough to live on without condemning yourself to a job you dislike.

现在，应该怎么选择工作似乎是很明显的了。但事实上很多人在日常生活中却践行着那几条原则。专家们对此并没有说什么。实际上没有人事不关己地对此说了什么，相反他们不断地强调，你应该在不去做你不喜欢的工作的前提下找到一条能够赚到足够养活自己的钱的方式。

This might be a lot to remember and ask yourself on a daily basis. What’s a quick litmus test to determine if you’re on the path to happiness or regret?

这或许是一件必须牢记并每天质询自己的事情。就如一张检验你是在通往幸福还是悔恨的道路上的石蕊试纸一般。

You should ask yourself this: do I wake up in the morning looking forward to work?

你要问自己这句话：当我在清晨起来时，我是否向往着工作？