職場知心解惑:人生終歸一場空?
The problem
I am a successful businessman approaching the end of my career but haunted by a sense of failure and unfulfilled potential. About five years ago, I was in the running to be CEO of my company, a well-known, mid-ranking multinational. I missed out but stayed on and worked with the new man. Now, as I get closer to retirement, I can feel myself getting sidelined. I fear that nobody pays much attention to me any more and nobody will remember me when I’m retired – certainly nobody outside the company. I once read that “all political careers end in failure”. Do you think is true of all business careers as well? Director, male, 57 Lucy's Answer Yes, nearly all business careers end in failure. They can end in big, spectacular failure – like, say, the career of Tony Hayward – or they can end in little anonymous failure – like yours. Even if you had become CEO things might not have ended much better for you. In fact they might have ended a lot worse. If your company had started doing badly, as so often happens, your failure would have been public and bruising, and would have eclipsed any previous successes that you had had along the way. Even if the company had flourished, your successor would have claimed all of your success as his own. At best you might have got a sterile suite of meeting rooms named after you. But as you never made it to the top, the failure is all inside your own head – no one else will care one way or another. Given that the problem is thus entirely of your own making, most readers seem to think you’re pathetic to be entertaining such self-indulgent thoughts. But I’m rather more sympathetic. The more ambitious one is, the more painful failure seems, because the gap between what you hoped for and what you got is unmanageably large. You have worked for the best part of 40 years at something that you thought was important at the time. But now you find that none of it matters because no one remembers and it doesn’t amount to anything anyway. That hurts. You could deploy various mental tricks to help you feel better. Compare yourself to really unsuccessful people. Think of how much money you’ve earned. But I doubt you’ll succeed in fooling yourself. Instead I suggest you force yourself to stop thinking about success altogether. Asking yourself if you are a success or a failure is as bad as asking yourself whether you are happy or miserable. Such thinking always ends in tears. The only way to deal with these horrid truths is denial – to distract yourself with other thoughts. I imagine this will be hard: if every day you are being shunted further into a siding, your feeling of failure will only grow. I’m aware this isn’t what you were asking, but I think you should retire now, if you can afford it. That way you prevent yourself from spending your last years in this company in increasing obscurity. And you may well find that starting doing something new at 57 is easier than it will be five years later。
Your Advice
You’re immature You should have realised by your 30th birthday that: a) failing to achieve all your goals is part of the human experience; b) only Brunels and Churchills are remembered once they leave their place of work; c) being a member of the ‘C suite’ gives you status but does not make your work inherently significant. Anon
Write memoirs You have a self-esteem issue. Do not think of yourself as a failure. If you fear getting sidelined, go into consulting. As a once potential CEO, you certainly have the credentials. Will you be remembered in retirement? If this is important to you, publish your memoirs. Retired, male, 61
Help those below Not everything important happens at the top. If you want to be remembered, try working bottom-up. Try influencing the “simpler”， “less important” people in your organisation. If you have anything worth saying, say it to them. Make a difference to their lives and they WILL remember you. Male, anon
Look outside Set yourself a new goal outside your company. Charities, start-ups and – Lord help us – the Big Society need leaders with your drive. Go get ‘em tiger. Director, male, 41
Stop whining I can’t fathom someone retiring as a “Director” considering himself a failure! What about the factory hand, the cleaner or, worse still, the jobless worker? No comfortable retirement awaits them. Anon
An old problem The writer of Ecclesiastes recognised this three millennia ago and the cry “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?” rings as true today as it did in the ancient world. Male, anon問題：
我是個成功的商人，職業生涯即將走到盡頭，可失敗和才能沒有得到充分發揮的感覺上場縈繞在我心頭。我在一家知名的中等跨國公司工作，大約五年前，我很有希望晉升爲首席執行官。我沒有成功，但我依然留在公司，和那個新來的人一起工作。現在，在臨近退休之際，我能感到自己已經開始靠邊站了。我害怕再也不會有人關注我，退休後也沒人會記得我——公司以外自然是沒有人的。我曾經讀到過這樣的句子：“所有政治生涯都以失敗告終。”是否所有的商業生涯也都是如此？
董事，男，57歲
露西的回答：
是的，幾乎所有的商業生涯都以失敗而告終，只不過有人遭遇的是“盛大、引人矚目”的失敗，比如唐熙華(Tony Hayward)，有的人是小小的、不爲人知的挫敗，比如你。
就算你當上了首席執行官，結局也未必會好多少。事實上沒準兒會更糟糕。假如你的公司開始走上了下坡路(這是常有的事)，你的失敗就會盡人皆知，把你弄得遍體鱗傷，你以前的成就都會被抹殺。就算公司繁榮興旺，你的功勞也會被繼任者統統據爲己有。有一套乏味的會議室用你的名字命名就算了不起了。
但因爲你從來沒當過一把手，失敗完全只是你自己內心的想法——總之沒有其他人會在意。所以這完全是你自尋煩惱，因此似乎大多數讀者都認爲，你居然有如此自高自大的想法，真是可悲。不過我還是比較有同情心的。一個人野心越大，失敗就顯得越痛苦，因爲現實和理想之間橫亙着一道難以逾越的鴻溝。
你把40年中最美好的時光花在了當時你認爲重要的事情上，但現在你認爲一切都不重要，因爲沒有人會記得。總之一切都沒有意義。這讓人很受傷。
你大可以採用各種五花八門的心理招數，讓自己好過一點。比如說，拿你自己和真正不成功的人相比較，想想你掙了多少錢。但我懷疑你無法自欺。所以，我建議你強迫自己千萬別再去想什麼成不成功。糾結於自己到底是成功還是失敗，和苦苦思索自己過得幸不幸福一樣，都不是什麼好事兒。思考這樣的問題，每每都會潸然淚下。
要對付這些可怕的事實，唯一的辦法是迴避，把心思放在別的事情上。我估計這很難做到：如果你每天都在一點一點地靠邊站，你的失敗感必然會只增不減。我知道這不是你想要的答案——但我認爲如果可能的話，你應該現在就退休。這樣你就可以避免在被人們日漸遺忘的環境中在公司渡過最後幾年。而且你很可能會發現，57歲時開始嘗試一些新的事物，比5年後再開始要容易得多。
讀者的建議：
太不成熟
30歲的生日前你就應該懂得：1，不能實現所有的目標是人生的必然組成部分；2，只有布魯內爾(Brunel)和邱吉爾(Churchill)之類的人物，才能在離開後還能被人們記住；3，躋身最高管理層，只能給你地位，卻不能讓你的工作從本質上變得重要起來。
匿名
去寫自傳
你面臨一個自尊的問題。千萬別認爲自己是失敗的。如果你不甘心靠邊站，就去當顧問吧。既然曾經有可能當上首席執行官，那麼你肯定夠資格。退休後會有人記得你嗎？如果這對你很重要，就出本自傳吧。
退休，男，61歲
幫助低層員工
不是所有重要的事都發生在最高層。如果你想被人記住，試試自下而上的辦法。試着去影響你們公司裏那些“比較普通”、“比較不重要”的人。如果你有什麼值得說的話，就去講給他們聽。讓他們的人生變得不同，他們就會記住你。
男，匿名
把目光放到公司之外
給自己制定一個跟公司無關的新目標。做慈善，開創新事業，或者——上帝，幫幫我們吧——“大社會”需要你這種富有幹勁的領導者。去大顯身手吧。
董事，男，41歲
別再怨嘆
以“董事”之尊退休的人，居然認爲自己失敗，我真是搞不懂！那些工人、清潔工、還有失業的人，又該怎麼辦？他們可過不上安逸的退休生活。
匿名
這是一個古老的問題
《傳道書》的作者3000年前就意識到了這個問題：“虛空的虛空，凡事都是虛空。人的一切勞碌，就是他在日光之下的勞碌，有甚麼益處呢？”古老的格言，放在今日同樣令人警醒。
男，匿名
