勵志文章：不要吞食命運的餅乾

摘錄：你們都面對着那塊多出來的餅乾。你們也將面對更多。隨着時間的推移，你會發現你很容易覺得你本來就配得那塊多出來的餅乾。就我所知，你可以這樣認爲。但你可以更快樂，這個世界也可以變得更美好，如果你能夠至少假裝你不配。

Thank you. President Tilghman. Trustees and Friends. Parents of the Class of 2012. Above all, Members of the Princeton Class of 2012. Give yourself a round of applause. The next time you look around a church and see everyone dressed in black it'll be awkward to cheer. Enjoy the moment.

Thirty years ago I sat where you sat. I must have listened to some older person share his life experience. But I don't remember a word of it. I can't even tell you who spoke. What I do remember, vividly, is graduation. I'm told you're meant to be excited, perhaps even relieved, and maybe all of you are. I wasn't. I was totally outraged. Here I’d gone and given them four of the best years of my life and this is how they thanked me for it. By kicking me out.

感謝Tilghman主席，各位校董和朋友們， 2012年級的家長們，還有最關鍵的，普林斯頓2012年級的同學們。請給自己一個掌聲吧。下一次你在一所教堂裏看到大家都穿成黑色的時候，像這樣歡呼就很尷尬了。享受這一刻吧。

30年前，我坐在你所坐的地方。我一定也聽過某位年長的人分享他的人生經歷。但我已經一點都不記得了。我連是誰發言都沒印象了。而在我記憶中仍栩栩如生的，是畢業。他們告訴我你應該很激動，或者感到輕鬆，也許你們現在就是這樣。我卻不同。我義憤填膺：我來到這裏給了他們我人生中最好的四年，而他們就是這樣報答我的——把我踢走。

At that moment I was sure of only one thing: I was of no possible economic value to the outside world. I'd majored in art history, for a start. Even then this was regarded as an act of insanity. I was almost certainly less prepared for the marketplace than most of you. Yet somehow I have wound up rich and famous. Well, sort of. I'm going to explain, briefly, how that happened. I want you to understand just how mysterious careers can be, before you go out and have one yourself. I graduated from Princeton without ever having published a word of anything, anywhere. I didn't write for the Prince, or for anyone else. But at Princeton, studying art history, I felt the first twinge of literary ambition. It happened while working on my senior thesis. My adviser was a truly gifted professor, an archaeologist named William Childs. The thesis tried to explain how the Italian sculptor Donatello used Greek and Roman sculpture — which is actually totally beside the point, but I've always wanted to tell someone. God knows what Professor Childs actually thought of it, but he helped me to become engrossed. More than engrossed: obsessed. When I handed it in I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life: to write senior theses. Or, to put it differently: to write books.

在那時我只確信一件事：我對外面的世界沒有任何經濟價值。我修的是藝術史，那是我的起點。即使在當時這也被視爲瘋子的行爲。我爲市場做的準備一定差過幾乎在座的每一個人。而現在我竟搖身一變成了富人和名人。對吧，算是吧。我將簡短的描述我是如何飛黃騰達的。我希望你們在走出校門追尋自己的事業前能夠明白，事業發展本身是多麼神祕。我從普林斯頓畢業的時候從來沒有在任何地方任何時間發表任何東西。我沒有爲the Prince刊物或任何人寫過任何文章。然而在普林斯頓大學，作爲藝術史系的學生，我第一次有了在文學界施展抱負的衝動。這是在我寫畢業論文的時候發生的。我的導師是個超有天分的教授，William Childs，一位考古學家。我畢業論文的題目是研究意大利雕塑家Donatello如何借鑑了希臘和羅馬雕塑——其實這跟今天的題目半毛錢關係都沒有，只是我一直喜歡讓別人知道。神知道Childs教授是怎麼看待這個題目的，但他卻幫助我全心投入。不只是全心投入，根本就是癡迷。當我交上論文的那刻我知道了我這一生想要從事的事業：寫高級論文，或者說，寫書。

Then I went to my thesis defense. It was just a few yards from here, in McCormick Hall. I listened and waited for Professor Childs to say how well written my thesis was. He didn't. And so after about 45 minutes I finally said, "So. What did you think of the writing?" "Put it this way" he said. "Never try to make a living at it." And I didn't — not really. I did what everyone does who has no idea what to do with themselves: I went to graduate school. I wrote at nights, without much effect, mainly because I hadn't the first clue what I should write about. One night I was invited to a dinner, where I sat next to the wife of a big shot at a giant Wall Street investment bank, called Salomon Brothers. She more or less forced her husband to give me a job. I knew next to nothing about Salomon Brothers. But Salomon Brothers happened to be where Wall Street was being reinvented—into the place we have all come to know and love. When I got there I was assigned, almost arbitrarily, to the very best job in which to observe the growing madness: they turned me into the house expert on derivatives. A year and a half later Salomon Brothers was handing me a check for hundreds of thousands of dollars to give advice about derivatives to professional investors.

然後我去了論文答辯。地方離這不遠，就在McCormick廳。我等待着希望聽到Childs教授告訴我我的論文寫得多麼好。但他沒有。於是等了45分鐘後，我終於問，“那你怎麼評價我的寫作呢?”“這麼說吧，”他說。 “千萬不要靠這個謀生。”所以我放棄了——其實不是。我做了所有人不知道該做什麼時做的那件事：去讀研究生。我在晚上寫作，沒有造成什麼影響，主要是因爲我不知道該寫哪些東西。一天晚上，我被邀請參加一個晚宴，我身旁的女士是一個華爾街投資銀行的大佬的太太，那家銀行叫做所羅門兄弟公司。她基本上迫使她的丈夫給了我一份工作。我那時對所羅門兄弟公司根本一無所知。但所羅門兄弟公司恰好處在華爾街轉型的前線——轉成那個如今我們都知道並愛的樣子。當我到了那家公司，我被幾乎隨機的分配到了一份最好的工作，使我有機會觀察這滋長中的瘋狂：他們把我變成一個衍生產品的內部專家。一年半以後，所羅門兄弟開給我數十萬美元的支票讓我給專業投資者提供有關衍生產品的諮詢。

Now I had something to write about: Salomon Brothers. Wall Street had become so unhinged that it was paying recent Princeton graduates who knew nothing about money small fortunes to pretend to be experts about money. I'd stumbled into my next senior thesis. I called up my father. I told him I was going to quit this job that now promised me millions of dollars to write a book for an advance of 40 grand. There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "You might just want to think about that," he said."Why?" "Stay at Salomon Brothers 10 years, make your fortune, and then write your books," he said. I didn't need to think about it. I knew what intellectual passion felt like — because I'd felt it here, at Princeton — and I wanted to feel it again. I was 26 years old. Had I waited until I was 36, I would never have done it. I would have forgotten the feeling.

現在，我有東西可寫了：所羅門兄弟公司。華爾街已經變得如此的精神錯亂，它會給普林斯頓一個對金錢一竅不通的新畢業生一大筆錢來假扮理財專家。我誤打誤撞找到了自己的下一部高級論文。我打給我爸爸。我告訴他我要辭掉這個百萬美元的工作來寫一本只有4萬美元預付款的書。電話那邊沉默了很久。 “也許你該再考慮一下，”他說。“爲什麼?”在所羅門兄弟公司再幹10年，賺一大筆錢，然後再寫你的書，”他說。我根本不需要考慮。我知道知性表達的激情是什麼感覺——因爲在這裏，普林斯頓，我曾感受過——而我想重燃那份激情。我那時26歲。如果我真的等到36歲，我將永遠無法寫成那本書。我會已經忘記了那種感覺。

The book I wrote was called "Liar’s Poker." It sold a million copies. I was 28 years old. I had a career, a little fame, a small fortune and a new life narrative. All of a sudden people were telling me I was born to be a writer. This was absurd. Even I could see there was another, truer narrative, with luck as its theme. What were the odds of being seated at that dinner next to that Salomon Brothers lady? Of landing inside the best Wall Street firm from which to write the story of an age? Of landing in the seat with the best view of the business? Of having parents who didn't disinherit me but instead sighed and said "do it if you must?" Of having had that sense of must kindled inside me by a professor of art history at Princeton? Of having been let into Princeton in the first place? This isn't just false humility. It's false humility with a point. My case illustrates how success is always rationalized. People really don’t like to hear success explained away as luck — especially successful people. As they age, and succeed, people feel their success was somehow inevitable. They don't want to acknowledge the role played by accident in their lives. There is a reason for this: the world does not want to acknowledge it either.

我的這本書名叫《說謊者的撲克牌》。賣了100萬冊。我那時28歲。我有了一項事業，一點名氣，一筆財富，和一個新的生命傳奇。突然間所有的人都告訴我我天生就是作家的料。這太扯淡了。即使我都能看的明白，有另一種更真實的傳奇，它的主題是運氣。那頓晚宴剛好坐在所羅門兄弟女士身旁的機率有多大呢?空降在一個最好的華爾街公司，從而有機會寫這個時代的故事的機率有多大呢?正好坐在一個可以俯瞰行業全景的職位上的機率又有多大呢?碰巧遇到這樣父母，沒有與我斷絕關係，而只是嘆了口氣，說：“如果你非要這樣就去做吧”，這樣的機率又是多大呢?有幸心中有被普林斯頓藝術史教授點燃的那種“非做不可”的激情的機率又有多大呢?而最初能夠入讀普林斯頓的機率又是多大呢?我不是在裝謙虛。我是在有目的的裝謙虛。我的經歷表明了成功一直是如何被世人理解的。人們真的不喜歡聽到的成功被歸結到運氣上面—— 尤其是成功人士。當他們年齡增長，當他們步向成功，他們覺得自己的成功根本是歷史的必然。他們不願承認機會事件在他們生命中所扮演的角色。他們這麼認爲是有原因的：這個世界也不願意承認運氣的角色。

I wrote a book about this, called "Moneyball." It was ostensibly about baseball but was in fact about something else. There are poor teams and rich teams in professional baseball, and they spend radically different sums of money on their players. When I wrote my book the richest team in professional baseball, the New York Yankees, was then spending about $120 million on its 25 players. The poorest team, the Oakland A's, was spending about $30 million. And yet the Oakland team was winning as many games as the Yankees — and more than all the other richer teams.

爲這我寫了一本書，叫《錢球》。這表面上是寫棒球，其實是在寫別的東西。在職棒裏有窮的球隊和富的球隊，他們用在球員身上的錢有鉅額的差異。當我寫這本書的時候，職棒裏最富的球隊，紐約洋基隊，在它的25名球員身上花費約1.2億美元。而最窮的隊，奧克蘭A隊的花費大約是3000萬美元。然而奧克蘭隊卻贏了和洋基一樣多的比賽——超過其他那些富有的球隊。

This isn't supposed to happen. In theory, the rich teams should buy the best players and win all the time. But the Oakland team had figured something out: the rich teams didn't really understand who the best baseball players were. The players were misvalued. And the biggest single reason they were misvalued was that the experts did not pay sufficient attention to the role of luck in baseball success. Players got given credit for things they did that depended on the performance of others: pitchers got paid for winning games, hitters got paid for knocking in runners on base. Players got blamed and credited for events beyond their control. Where balls that got hit happened to land on the field, for example.

這本是不應發生的。理論上講，有錢的球隊應該買最好的球員，並贏得所有比賽。但奧克蘭隊發現了一個祕密：有錢的球隊並不真正明白誰是最好的球員。球員們被錯估了。而他們被錯估的根本原因在於專家們沒有在棒球成功中給予運氣足夠的重視。球員們因他們基於其他人的好表現上做的事情而得到稱讚：投手的身價由勝場決定，擊球手的身價由送壘上跑者得分決定。球員們因他們無法控制的事件而受到批評或稱讚。比如說他們擊中的球恰好落在場地的哪個位置。

Forget baseball, forget sports. Here you had these corporate employees, paid millions of dollars a year. They were doing exactly the same job that people in their business had been doing forever. In front of millions of people, who evaluate their every move. They had statistics attached to everything they did. And yet they were misvalued — because the wider world was blind to their luck.

放下棒球和體育不談。現在你有一批企業員工，年薪幾百萬美刀。他們做的事和他們行業裏其他人一直以來做的事沒有任何差別。有幾百萬人評價他們的一舉一動。他們做的每一件事都有數據統計。但他們卻被錯估了——因爲這個世界忽視了他們的運氣成分。

This had been going on for a century. Right under all of our noses. And no one noticed — until it paid a poor team so well to notice that they could not afford not to notice. And you have to ask: if a professional athlete paid millions of dollars can be misvalued who can't be? If the supposedly pure meritocracy of professional sports can't distinguish between lucky and good, who can?

就在我們的眼皮子底下，這樣的事已經持續上演了一個世紀。卻沒有人能夠注意到——直到當一個窮球隊發現這裏實在有利可圖，不得不去留意的時候。所以你不得不問：如果一個百萬美元身價的職業球員可以被錯估，那誰不會被錯估呢?如果完全奉行精英主義的職業體壇無法區分好運和優異，誰又能夠區分呢?

The "Moneyball" story has practical implications. If you use better data, you can find better values; there are always market inefficiencies to exploit, and so on. But it has a broader and less practical message: don't be deceived by life's outcomes. Life's outcomes, while not entirely random, have a huge amount of luck baked into them. Above all, recognize that if you have had success, you have also had luck — and with luck comes obligation. You owe a debt, and not just to your Gods. You owe a debt to the unlucky.

《錢球》這個故事具有實際意義。如果你使用更好的數據，你可以找到更好的價值;總會存在價值有待挖掘的市場低效配置，等等。但它有一個更廣泛而不那麼實際的信息：不要被生活的結果矇騙。生活的結果，雖不是完全隨機的，卻摻雜了很多運氣成分在其中。最重要的，是要認識到，如果你獲得成功，你也同時曾獲得好運——而運氣帶來義務。你欠了一筆債，不只是欠你的神。你也欠那些沒你那麼好運的人的債。

I make this point because — along with this speech — it is something that will be easy for you to forget.

我特別提出這一點，是因爲和這個演講一樣，這將是你很容易遺忘的東西。

I now live in Berkeley, California. A few years ago, just a few blocks from my home, a pair of researchers in the Cal psychology department staged an experiment. They began by grabbing students, as lab rats. Then they broke the students into teams, segregated by sex. Three men, or three women, per team. Then they put these teams of three into a room, and arbitrarily assigned one of the three to act as leader. Then they gave them some complicated moral problem to solve: say what should be done about academic cheating, or how to regulate drinking on campus.

我現在住在加州伯克利。幾年前，就在離我家幾個街區遠的地方，加大心理系的幾個研究人員搞了一個實驗。他們像抓小白鼠一樣找來了一批學生。然後他們給學生分組，按性別分開。每組三個男生或者三個女生。然後他們讓這樣的小組進到房間裏，然後隨機選取三人中的一個作爲組長。然後他們讓他們處理各種複雜的道德問題：比如說應該如何對待學術造假，或者如何控制校園酗酒問題。

Exactly 30 minutes into the problem-solving the researchers interrupted each group. They entered the room bearing a plate of cookies. Four cookies. The team consisted of three people, but there were these four cookies. Every team member obviously got one cookie, but that left a fourth cookie, just sitting there. It should have been awkward. But it wasn't. With incredible consistency the person arbitrarily appointed leader of the group grabbed the fourth cookie, and ate it. Not only ate it, but ate it with gusto: lips smacking, mouth open, drool at the corners of their mouths. In the end all that was left of the extra cookie were crumbs on the leader's shirt.

在他們開始解決問題30分鐘時，研究人員們會打斷各組。他們會拿着一盤餅乾進入房間。總共四塊，小組裏有三個人，但卻有四塊餅乾。顯然每個成員分到了一塊，但還剩下第四塊放在那兒。這本應該是個尷尬的處境。但事實並非如此。每個組的表現難以置信的一致，那個被隨機任命做組長的人拿了第四塊餅乾，並把它吃了。不僅吃了，而且吃的津津有味：咂咂做響，大嚼特嚼，口水橫流。最後那塊餅乾剩下的只有組長衣領上的餅乾渣了。

This leader had performed no special task. He had no special virtue. He'd been chosen at random, 30 minutes earlier. His status was nothing but luck. But it still left him with the sense that the cookie should be his.

這位組長沒有任何豐功偉績，也沒有過人的美德。他只是30分鐘前隨機被選的。他的身份除了運氣什麼都沒有。但他仍然覺得餅乾應該是他的。

This experiment helps to explain Wall Street bonuses and CEO pay, and I'm sure lots of other human behavior. But it also is relevant to new graduates of Princeton University. In a general sort of way you have been appointed the leader of the group. Your appointment may not be entirely arbitrary. But you must sense its arbitrary aspect: you are the lucky few. Lucky in your parents, lucky in your country, lucky that a place like Princeton exists that can take in lucky people, introduce them to other lucky people, and increase their chances of becoming even luckier. Lucky that you live in the richest society the world has ever seen, in a time when no one actually expects you to sacrifice your interests to anything.

這個實驗有助於解釋華爾街的獎金和CEO薪酬，我也確信它還可以解釋很多人類行爲。但它同時也和普林斯頓大學的新畢業生有關。通過某種一般性的方式，你已被任命爲小組領袖。你的任命不一定是完全隨機的。但你必須意識到它的隨機的那一面：你們是少數的幸運兒。幸運在於你有這樣的父母，幸運在於你有這樣的國家，幸運在於有普林斯頓這樣的地方，專門吸引幸運的人，把他們介紹給其他幸運的人，並增加他們更加幸運的機會。幸運在於你正處於世界歷史上最富饒的社會，處於一個沒有人會要求你爲任何事犧牲自己的意思的時代。

All of you have been faced with the extra cookie. All of you will be faced with many more of them. In time you will find it easy to assume that you deserve the extra cookie. For all I know, you may. But you'll be happier, and the world will be better off, if you at least pretend that you don't.

你們都面對着那塊多出來的餅乾。你們也將面對更多。隨着時間的推移，你會發現你很容易覺得你本來就配得那塊多出來的餅乾。就我所知，你可以這樣認爲。但你可以更快樂，這個世界也可以變得更美好，如果你能夠至少假裝你不配。

Never forget: In the nation's service. In the service of all nations. Thank you. And good luck.

永遠不要忘記：爲國效力，爲萬國效力。謝謝。祝你們好運。