又一篇好文来啦，请阁下细细品尝。你是不是总是逃避该做的事，但这件事却像幽灵一样，一直萦绕在你的内心，焦虑感也一直伴随着你，侵害你对生活的整体感受，让你无法专心享受一部电影，难以尽情地和朋友一起逛街，从而导致生活质量降低。因为你知道自己该做的事情还没做，并且倾向于不断往后拖延该做的事情，你的内心就会觉得自己是一个应该做的事情还没做的人，觉得自己还不够好，觉得还有其他应该要做的事情。如果你一直逃避，你应该怎么办呢？你应该如何让大脑停止找借口，让自己处于已经完成了你该做的事情的心理状态中？So I was watching this Woody Allen film called "Hannah and Her Sisters," and in the movie, there's this scene where Michael Kane's character, Elliot, is sitting at the dinner table with his wife, Hannah. Elliot is completely emotionally detached, he is disturbed, and that's because he's been having an affair with his wife's sister. Shocking stuff, I know. But this scene really got me thinking about the way in which a lot of us live our entire lives, hopefully not by having affairs with our wife's sisters, but what I mean is that we do certain things or leave certain things undone in the past that continue to eat away at us subconsciously in the present. And a lot of the time, we do this so compulsively that we don't even know that we're doing it. We just see it as normal, we don't know anything else, yet we're living a lower quality of life because of it.最近我看了一部伍迪·艾伦的电影，叫做《汉娜姐妹》，在这部电影里有一个场景，迈克尔·凯恩饰演的艾略特与他的妻子汉娜坐在餐桌前。艾略特魂不守舍，他很不安，因为他一直在和妻子的妹妹有染。真是毁三观，我知道。但这一幕让我联想到了很多人糟糕的生活方式，但愿不是因为与妻子的妹妹有染。我的意思是，我们在过去做了的事或没有做的事，直到现在都在潜移默化地侵害着我们。很多时候，我们都不受控制地陷入其中，以至于我们甚至不知道自己深受其害。我们以为这很正常，不知道其中的利害，然而我们的生活质量却因此降低。Every single thing that we do, every single conversation that we have is infected by the things that we've left usually undone in the past. And I think this is the most insidiously toxic thing about escapism and procrastination, and that is because of something I like to call mental air time. When we haven't yet done what we know we're supposed to do and we have a tendency to put these things off every single day, then we exist in a mental framework where we are a person who hasn't yet done the thing that we're supposed to do. And over a long period of time, this really changes how we feel about our entire lives because no matter what we're doing, no matter what kind of conversation we're having, no matter how special the person we're having that conversation with is, we are subconsciously tainted by the fact that we are not where we're supposed to be, we are not being who we're supposed to be. And we live our entire lives like this emotionally disturbed with this feeling of anxiety that's just always there because of our chronic escapism.我们所做的每一件事，我们与他人的每一次交谈，都会被过去没完成的事情所影响。这就是逃避和拖延最隐蔽的危害，其原因我喜欢称之为精神出走时间。当我们知道自己该做的事情还没做，并且我们有一种倾向每天都往后拖延该做的事情，那么我们内心就会觉得自己是一个应该做的事情还没做的人。而长此以往，就会侵害我们对整体生活的感受，因为无论我们在做什么，无论我们在进行什么样的对话，无论与我们对话的人有多么特别，我们的潜意识仍被这样的事实所影响：即我们没有在做我们该做的事，我们没有成为我们该成为的人。而我们的生活整体上就会一直受到情绪上的干扰，焦虑感也会一直伴随自己，因为我们长期逃避该做的事。People don't talk about procrastination this way, it's nuts, because when we procrastinate, it's not just the thing that we're supposed to do that suffers, everything else suffers as well because we're not present with it, we don't have the mental capacity to enjoy it. Anything good in our lives is infected with this feeling like it's not good enough, we're not supposed to be here because there's that other thing that we're supposed to be doing. And the weird thing is, it's not like we're never going to do that thing, we usually end up doing it. Usually, the deadline comes closer, the repercussions for not doing it grows scarier and more acute, so we eventually guilt ourselves into eventually doing it so that we can repeat that cycle every single day for the rest of our lives.人们往往不会像个疯子一样谈论拖延，因为当我们拖延的时候，受影响的不仅仅是我们应该做的事情，其他的事情也会受到影响，因为我们无法专心，我们的心理状态不足以去享受当下。我们生活中的所有美好都被这种感觉所侵蚀，我们会觉得自己还不够好，不应该出现在这里，因为还有其他我们应该要做的事情。而奇怪的是，我们并不是永远不会做拖延的事，通常我们最终还是要去做的。通常情况下，当最后期限越来越近，不做的后果越来越可怕，越来越严重，我们变得内疚不安，最终去做了这件事，于是我们在往后余生的每一天都还可以继续重复这个循环。But what's crazy is since we end up doing it anyways, there's great utility to just changing the order in which we do things. We can escape and do all of the other bullshit later, but if we could find a way to do the most important thing that we need to do earlier in the day, then we could change the entire narrative of our lives. We could change the way we feel about ourselves, about our capability to solve problems. And the theme of our lives that's echoing through our subconscious becomes, oh yes, I can play video games, I can watch this movie, I can enjoy this conversation because I've already done the thing that I'm supposed to do.但让人欣喜若狂的是，既然我们最终还是要做，那么只要改变我们做事的优先顺序，就有很大的效用。我们可以逃避，把不想做的事推到后面，但如果我们能想办法在一天的早些时候完成我们要做的最重要的事情，那么我们就可以改善整体的生活。我们可以改变我们对自己的感知，对我们解决问题的能力的感知。而回荡在我们潜意识中的生活的主旋律变成了：太棒了，我可以打游戏，我可以看这部电影，我可以尽情投入这次聊天，因为我已经做完了我应该做的事情。So how do we do it? That's the golden question. Well, knowing what it's doing to us is great and I think this will help you get some motivation to just do the damn thing, but when push comes to shove, this is an irrational problem. I can give you all the rationality in the world, but when you're faced with the crossroads of watching this funny little YouTube video versus writing a research paper, something other than logic takes over. Your monkey brain kind of bullies your rational brain into coming up with a rationalization to justify some suboptimal behavior. So the answer can't be logical. It has to be an emotional tactic and I think that tactic is submission.那么，我们如何做到这一点？这才是价值千金的问题。首先要知道分清事情的轻重缓急对我们有好处，我认为这起码能帮助你获得一些动力来做这些你不太愿意做的事，但真到了紧要关头，人就会变得非常不理性。我可以让你变成世上最理性的人，但当你真正面临着是看眼前这个有趣的网络视频还是写论文的十字路口时，非理性的东西就会占据上风。你的原始冲动就会压制你的理性思维，强迫你想出合理化的借口来为一些不良的行为辩护。所以解决办法并不关乎理性。你必须采用一种情感策略，这种策略就是臣服。You know, that's a bit of a problem. Nobody talks about this word submission in a productivity context. They talk about it in other contexts, but we're not gonna get into those other contexts. That's not what this channel's about. What I mean by submission, it is a feeling of melting into what you're supposed to be doing. It's not increasing the tension in your body to try to fight and bully your monkey brain into doing what your more logical side of your brain wants it to do. No, it's acknowledging that doing what you're supposed to do feels difficult, it's feeling that tension that's stopping you from doing that thing, and letting go of it and doing the thing anyways. We need to get good at shutting the brain off, stopping the chatter of rationalization and escapism, reducing the tension in our body, taking a deep breath, and just do the thing. We can think about all the rationalizations afterwards. But submitting to what you already know you're supposed to be doing is less of a psychological feeling, it's more of a physiological feeling.臣服。这就有点麻烦了。没有人会在谈生产力时谈论臣服这个词。他们只会在一些其他情境下谈论它，但我们不会去讨论其他情境。其他情况与这个频道的内容没有关系。我所说的臣服，是一种融入进你应该做的事情的感觉。它不是增加你身体的紧张感，试图对抗和压制你的原始冲动去做你的理性大脑想要做的事。不是这样的，而是要承认做你应该做的事会很难受，要感觉到阻碍你去做那件事的那种紧张感，然后放下它，去做你该做的事。我们需要善于停止思考，停止不断地找借口以及逃避，减少身体的紧张感，深呼吸，动手做这件事。我们可以做完事后再考虑所有理性上的东西。但臣服于你已经知道你应该做的事情不是一种心理上的感觉，更像是一种生理上的感觉。And again, this might sound very woo-woo, but if you've ever tried to take cold showers or go cliff jumping with your friends, it's the same feeling. You almost submit to the discomfort. If you're standing there at the edge of the cliff and you don't want to jump, even though you know it's perfectly safe, it's a very steep drop off, very deep water, nothing could happen to you. You almost need to just submit to the gravity. Same thing with cold showers. If you already know you're going to enter into the cold shower and feel very uncomfortable, the only way that you're gonna get in there is if you just walk in. You stop the chatter, you stop thinking. The mind is corrosive. It'll try to figure out all these different little ways to weasel out of it and you don't end up doing it. It's like if you already know this is what you must do, relax your body and submit to it.这可能听上去虚无缥缈，但如果你曾尝试过洗冷水澡或和朋友一起去悬崖跳水，这些都是同样的感觉。你要臣服于这种不适感。如果你站在悬崖边上你不想跳下去，即使你知道这是完全安全的，悬崖非常陡，水也非常深，你不会有危险。这时你需要做的就是顺从重力。洗冷水澡也是如此。如果你已经知道你将洗冷水澡，并因此感到非常不舒服，那么你要实现这件事的唯一方法就是走进淋浴间。你停止害怕，停止犹豫。大脑具有破坏性。大脑会想尽借口来逃避，使你最终做不成这件事。如果你已经知道这是你必须做的，那么就放松你的身体，臣服要做的事。And while you're in the cold shower, it feels so much colder if you maintain this resistance, if you try to fight the cold, if you tense up your body and you try to convince yourself to power through it. It's so much better if you just concentrate on the cold, you fully submit to it, you fully focus on it, and you accept the fact that it's cold, and then it ceases to be so cold. You're allowing yourself to relax into this discomfort, and it actually feels quite euphoric when you do that. I think this is the key to stop procrastinating. I think this is the key to make better decisions in the moment. You've already heard the logical reasons as to why you should do the thing that you're supposed to do.而当你在洗冷水澡时，如果你继续抵抗，如果你试图对抗寒冷，如果你绷紧身体，试图说服自己克服这种寒冷，那么你就会愈发感觉冷。而如果你只是专注于冷，你完全臣服这种感觉，你完全专注于它，你接受很冷这一事实，就会感觉不那么冷了。你允许自己在这种不舒服的状态中放松下来，当你这样做时，实际上会令你很愉快。这就是克服拖延的关键。这就是在当下做出更好决定的关键。You know that your life will be dramatically better if the majority of the time you spend here on this Earth, you exist in a head space where you have already done the most important thing that you need to do. You already know that this is so good for you. The only step now is when you're confronted with the crossroads is to just turn the brain off, to submit to what you're supposed to do. It's like submitting to the highest version of yourself and you start to develop trust that that highest version of yourself has your best interest in mind.你已经知道了为什么你需要做你应该做的事情的理性上的原因。如果你人生的大部分时间都处于知道你已经完成了你该做的事情的心理状态中，你的生活将大大改善。你已经知道这对你有好处。现在唯一要做的就是当你面对十字路口的时候，什么都不要想，臣服于你应该做的事情。这就约等于臣服于一个更好的自己，你开始建立信任，相信那个更好的你知道什么才是对你最好的。 By Better Ideas翻译：Ahnam Law校对：良哥