警告年輕人：這是你必須知道的最重要的人生教訓
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?
康奈爾大學的Karl Pillemer在他的著作《30個人生教訓》中採訪了1500個人，年齡從70歲到100歲不等，詢問在他們一生中學習到的人生教訓。在那些人生教訓中，他們最堅持的是哪一個？是什麼樣的人生教訓甚至比婚姻，孩子和幸福更令他們堅持？
Do not stay in a job you dislike.
不要留在你不喜歡的行業裏。
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.
你知道假如你放聲呼號，希望警告別人卻毫不起作用會是多麼噩夢的一件事情麼？專家們正是懷着這樣一種緊張的情緒在警告着年輕人：假如你在一個你不喜歡的行業裏蹉跎多年，那將會是你終生悔恨的根源和一個悲劇的錯誤。毫無疑問，專家們對此越來越堅定和具備說服力，他們一次又一次地用這樣的辭句開頭，“假如有那麼一件事是我希望讀者能明白的，那就是……”根據他們回顧長期經驗所得，在無法挽回的時間裏，每年浪費將近2千個鐘頭，這簡直蠢到家了。
What else did they have to say about career?
關於職業生涯，這些過來人還說了什麼呢？
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.選擇一個有內在報酬而非經濟報酬的職業。人們犯的最大的職業錯誤就是完全因爲收入而選擇職業。然而，對工作的意志和熱情終有一天會勝過賬面上更高的收入。
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.別放棄尋找一個能讓你快樂的工作。專家們認爲，堅持不懈是找到熱愛的工作的一把鑰匙。不要輕言放棄。
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。假如你已經處在了一個不盡如人意的工作環境中，不要浪費這段經歷。許多專家從那些差的工作中學到了非常寶貴的教訓。
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.情商大於一切。假如你想在工作中獲得成功，必須發展好你的人際溝通能力。即使是那些來自技術性最強的專業的人才也會因爲過低的情商而破壞自己的職業生涯。
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.每個人都需要自治權。職業滿意度經常和你在工作上擁有多少自治權有關。你希望有做決定的自由，依自己的興趣行動，不受太多來自上級的控制。Another point worth making is advice the older folks consistently did not give:
另一個值得一提的重點是那些老人們始終沒有提出的建議：
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.沒有一個人說，你應該努力工作來換取能買到你想要的東西的錢。
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.沒有一個人說，你至少應該和周圍的人一樣富有，並且當你比他們更富有時，就代表了真正的成功。
one— not a single person— said you should choose your work based on your desired earning power.
3.沒有一個人說，你應該根據你渴望得到的賺錢能力來選擇工作。
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.
現在，應該怎麼選擇工作似乎是很明顯的了。但事實上很多人在日常生活中卻踐行着那幾條原則。專家們對此並沒有說什麼。實際上沒有人事不關己地對此說了什麼，相反他們不斷地強調，你應該在不去做你不喜歡的工作的前提下找到一條能夠賺到足夠養活自己的錢的方式。
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?
這或許是一件必須牢記並每天質詢自己的事情。就如一張檢驗你是在通往幸福還是悔恨的道路上的石蕊試紙一般。
You should ask yourself this: do I wake up in the morning looking forward to work?
你要問自己這句話：當我在清晨起來時，我是否嚮往着工作？
