英语演讲君按
其实，明确自己想做什么，然后专注地去做，成功就这么简单。正如下面这篇TED演讲里所讲：无所畏惧，学无止境！你的人生也可以过得激动人心。演讲里还提到了关于外语的学习方法，也值得大家借鉴。
很多时候，决定一个人的未来的，并不是你起初的能力，而是你当下的选择。
你可以选择待在自己的舒适圈里，做自己熟悉的事，日复一日，也可以选择改变，跳出舒适圈，接纳学习新事物、新技能，每天都变得比昨天更好更优秀一点，哪怕只是一点点，都好。
人性是有弱点的，在安逸的舒适圈里待久了，人就会畏惧改变，懒得行动。因循守旧是一种强大的惯性，它能把你牢牢地束缚住，滋生出你骨子里最深沉的惰性，消磨你的锐气，让你变成暮气沉沉的“活死人”。
舒适圈，起初是舒适圈，时间长了，就成了猪圈，把你喂养成一头肥头大耳、混吃等死的懒猪，诗和远方成了不存在的东西，你的生活里只看得到猪栏。
每一个清醒的人都不敢待在舒适圈里太久，因为他们深切地知道，舒适圈是披着华丽外衣的囚笼，它囚禁激情，扼杀梦想，是懒惰的温床，是奋斗者的地狱。
当你还在舒适圈里看着外面的广阔天地望洋兴叹的时候，你的同龄人早已奋力一跃，跳出舒适圈，去逼迫自己，为难自己。因为她们知道，让自己当下过得不那么舒服，以后才能拥有更精彩的未来和更充沛的自由。
你只有去做以前从未做过的事，你才有可能成为前所未有的自己。
说真的，别再混吃等死了，舒适圈里除了舒适，一无所有。
《离开自己的舒适圈，去直面恐惧》双语版
When I was sevenI went to summer camp. My parents found it necessary for peace of mind. And atnoon each day the campers would go to a pond, where they had floating docks.You could jump off the end into the deep end. I was born premature. I wasalways very small. My left lung had collapsed when I was born.
七岁的时候，我参加了夏令营。我父母觉得这对他们的内心平静非常必要。 每天中午， 参加夏令营的孩子都会去到湖边 湖边有浮动船坞。 你能从船坞尽头跳进湖的深处。我是早产儿。我一直个子很小。 从出生起，我的左肺就闭合了。
And I've alwayshad buoyancy problems. So water was something that scared me to begin with. ButI would go in on occasion. And on one particular day, the campers were jumpingthrough inner tubes, They were diving through inner tubes. And I thought thiswould be great fun. So I dove through the inner tube, and the bully of the campgrabbed my ankles. And I tried to come up for air, and my lower back hit thebottom of the inner tube. And I went wild eyed and thought I was going to die.A camp counselor fortunately came over and separated us. From that point onwardI was terrified of swimming. That is something that I did not get over. Myinability to swim has been one of my greatest humiliations and embarrassments.That is when I realized that I was not the Incredible Hulk.
因此我身体的浮力一向不好。我开始时很害怕下水， 不过偶尔也会尝试。 有一天， 孩子们玩起了跳救生圈游戏。 他们跳进水上的救生圈，潜到水里。我觉得这很有趣。 于是我穿过救生圈潜进水里，这时夏令营里的一个坏孩子抓住了我的脚踝。 我想出水换气， 但后背被救生圈底部顶住了。 我慌得不行，以为自己要完蛋了。 一个夏令营指导员凑巧经过，拉开了我们。从那时起，我对游泳产生了恐惧。 我一直没能克服它。身为旱鸭子一直是 最令我不堪和尴尬的事情之一。那让我意识到，我并不是绿巨人。
But there is ahappy ending to this story. At age 31 -- that's my age now -- in August I tooktwo weeks to re-examine swimming, and question all the of the obvious aspectsof swimming. And went from swimming one lap -- so 20 yards -- like a drowningmonkey, at about 200 beats per minute heart rate -- I measured it -- to goingto Montauk on Long Island, close to where I grew up, and jumping into the oceanand swimming one kilometer in open water, getting out and feeling better thanwhen I went in. And I came out, in my Speedos, European style, feeling like theIncredible Hulk.
但这个故事有了一个好结局。 31岁时，就是我现在的年龄去年八月，我用了两周时间重新审视游泳， 并对关于游泳的所有 “显而易见” 的方面提出了质疑。 从只能像一头落水狗一样 游一泳道，大概18米， 每分钟心跳 200 下， 我量过， 到从长岛的蒙淘克我长大的地方附近， 跃入海里，游上一公里公开水域， 出水时感觉比入水时还好。 我出水时穿着欧式的泳衣， 自我感觉像极了绿巨人。
And that's whatI want everyone in here to feel like, the Incredible Hulk, at the end of thispresentation. More specifically, I want you to feel like you're capable ofbecoming an excellent long-distance swimmer, a world-class language learner,and a tango champion. And I would like to share my art. If I have an art, it'sdeconstructing things that really scare the living hell out of me. So, movingonward.
我希望当这个演讲结束时， 在场的各位都能感觉像绿巨人。 具体来说，我希望你能觉得 你有能力成为一个优秀的长距离游泳健将， 一个世界级的语言学者， 和一个探戈冠军。 我还想分享我的艺术。 如果说我擅长一门艺术，那就是解构那些 能把我吓个半死的东西。 好，言归正传。
Swimming ……
游泳……（省略）
Languages.Material versus method. I, like many people, came to the conclusion that I wasterrible at languages. I suffered through Spanish for junior high, first yearof high school, and the sum total of my knowledge was pretty much, "Dondeesta el bano?" And I wouldn't even catch the response. A sad state ofaffairs. Then I transferred to a different school sophomore year, and I had achoice of other languages. Most of my friends were taking Japanese. So Ithought why not punish myself? I'll do Japanese. Six months later I had thechance to go to Japan. My teachers assured me, they said, "Don't worry. You'llhave Japanese language classes every day to help you cope. It will be anamazing experience." My first overseas experience in fact. So my parentsencouraged me to do it. I left.
语言。教材对方法。 我和许多人一样认为 我没有学语言的天分。 我初中和高一时，西班牙语学得痛苦极了。 我最后记得的就只有一句 "Donde esta el bano"（厕所在哪里？） 而且我连回答都听不懂。凄凉得很。 然后，我高二时转了校。 我可以选一门别的语言课。我的大多数朋友都选了日语。 我想：我为什么不也折腾我自己一下呢？于是我选了日语。半年后，我有一个去日本的机会。 我的老师们鼓励我说：“别担心。你每天都会上日语课，帮你适应。 这会是一次难忘的经历。”事实上这也是我的第一次海外生活。 我的父母也鼓励我去。于是我上路了。
I arrived inTokyo. Amazing. I couldn't believe I was on the other side of the world. I metmy host family. Things went quite well I think, all things considered. My firstevening, before my first day of school, I said to my mother, very politely,"Please wake me up at eight a.m." So, (Japanese) But I didn't say(Japanese). I said, (Japanese). Pretty close. But I said, "Please rape meat eight a.m." (Laughter) You've never seen a more confused Japanesewoman. (Laughter)
我来到了东京。难忘啊。 我不敢相信我来到了世界的另一端。 我和我的寄宿家庭会面了。我觉得总体来说，一切进展得很顺利 第一个晚上，我开学前的一天，我很有礼貌地对寄宿妈妈说： “请在早上八点叫醒我。”也就是（日语） 但是我没有说（日语）。我说成了（日语）。很接近。但是我说的是：“请在早上八点强奸我。” （笑声） 你找不到比她更一头雾水的日本女人了。 （笑声）
I walked in toschool. And a teacher came up to me and handed me a piece of paper. I couldn'tread any of it -- hieroglyphics, it could have been -- because it was Kanji,Chinese characters adapted into the Japanese language. Asked him what thissaid. And he goes, "Ahh, okay okay, eehto, World History, ehh, Calculus,Traditional Japanese." And so on. And so it came to me in waves. There hadbeen something lost in translation. The Japanese classes were not Japaneseinstruction classes, per se. They were the normal high school curriculum forJapanese students -- the other 4,999 students in the school, who were Japanese,besides the American. And that's pretty much my response. (Laughter)
我走进学校。 一位老师走过来，递给我一张纸。 我一个字也不认识 ── 那都是象形文字 那是汉字，日语中使用的中国文字。 我问他这上面说的是什么。 他说：“啊，没问题， 嗯…世界历史…嗯…微积分 传统日语…” 依此类推。 一波波地向我涌来。事实上翻译中出了错。 日语课不是教日语的课 而且为一般日本高中生开设的日常课程。 也就是学校里另外4999名日本学生，除了我这个美国人。 我的反应大概就像这样。 （笑声）
And that set meon this panic driven search for the perfect language method. I triedeverything. I went to Kinokuniya. I tried every possible book, every possibleCD. Nothing worked until I found this. This is the Joyo Kanji. This is a Tabletrather, or a poster of the 1,945 common-use characters as determined by theMinistry of Education in 1981. Many of the publications in Japan limitthemselves to these characters, to facilitate literacy -- some are required to.And this became my Holy Grail, my Rosetta Stone.
这恐慌使我开始寻找完美的学语言方法。我试遍了所有方法。我跑到纪伊国屋书店、 试遍了每一本书，每一套CD。什么都没有用，直到我发现了这个。 这是《常用汉字表》。这张表上有1945个最常用的汉字 是由教育部在1981年修订的。 日本的许多出版社限定只使用这些字 以方便人们认读。 这成了我的圣杯，我的罗塞塔石碑
As soon as Ifocused on this material, I took off. I ended up being able to read AsahiShinbu, Asahi newspaper, about six months later -- so a total of 11 monthslater -- and went from Japanese I to Japanese VI. Ended up doing translationwork at age 16 when I returned to the U.S., and have continued to apply thismaterial over method approach to close to a dozen languages now. Someone whowas terrible at languages, and at any given time, speak, read and write five orsix. This brings us to the point, which is, it's oftentimes what you do, nothow you do it, that is the determining factor. This is the difference betweenbeing effective -- doing the right things -- and being efficient -- doingthings well whether or not they're important.
当我专注学习这份材料后， 我进步飞速。 6个月之后，也就是一共11个月之后， 我已经能够看懂《朝日新闻》了从日语1级进步到日语4级。 我回到美国后，从16岁就开始从事翻译工作， 并不断地使用这种 “材料优于方法”的方式 学习了近12种语言。 从一个学不好语言的人， 到同时说、读、写五六种语言。这告诉我们： 往往你做什么， 而不是你怎么做，是关键所在。 这是有效能（做正确的事情）和有效率（做好事情，不管它们是否重要）之间的区别。
You can also dothis with grammar. I came up with these six sentences after much experimentation.Having a native speaker allow you to deconstruct their grammar, by translatingthese sentences into past, present, future, will show you subject, object,verb, placement of indirect, direct objects, gender and so forth. From thatpoint, you can then, if you want to, acquire multiple languages, alternate themso there is no interference. We can talk about that if anyone in interested.And now I love languages.
你能够将这个原则应用在语法上。我在实验之后得出这六个句子。 让一个本地人将这些句子翻译成过去，现在，和将来式，就能使你解析他们的语法 找到主语、宾语、动词、 间接和直接宾语的位置、语法性别，等等。 从那里起，如果你愿意，你就能学习多种语言灵活转换而不相互影响。 如果有人感兴趣，我们可以深入谈。现在，我爱极了语言。
So ballroomdancing……
然后，交谊舞（省略……）
So fear is yourfriend. Fear is an indicator. Sometimes it shows you what you shouldn't do.More often than not it shows you exactly what you should do. And the bestresults that I've had in life, the most enjoyable times, have all been fromasking a simple question: what's the worst that can happen? Especially withfears you gained when you were a child. Take the analytical frameworks, the capabilitiesyou have, apply them to old fears. Apply them to very big dreams.
恐惧是你的朋友。恐惧是一个指标。有时候它告诉你不该做什么。 但更多时候，它恰恰告诉你该做什么我生命中获得的最好成就， 最美好的时光，都源于问一个简单的问题：“最坏的可能是什么？” 尤其是对于你从小时候就有的恐惧。用理性思维，将你的能力 运用在克服陈年的恐惧上。 借助它们实现伟大的梦想。
And when I thinkof what I fear now, it's very simple. When I imagine my life, what my lifewould have been like without the educational opportunities that I had, it makesme wonder. I've spent the last two years trying to deconstruct the Americanpublic school system, to either fix it or replace it. And have done experimentswith about 50,000 students thus far -- built, I'd say, about a half dozenschools, my readers, at this point. And if any of you are interested in that, Iwould love to speak with you. I know nothing. I'm a beginner. But I ask a lotof questions, and I would love your advice. Thank you very much. (Applause)
我思考现在我害怕什么，答案很简单。当我想象我的人生如果我没有机会接受教育， 会是如何地不同。 这令我深思。 我在过去的两年中尝试解构美国公共教育系统， 以将其修复或取代。 至今，我已经用五万名学生做了试验， 建立了六所学校， 我的读者们，现在。 如果你们对此感兴趣， 我希望能和你们交流。 我一无所知。我是个初学者。但我会问许多问题，也欢迎你们的建议。 谢谢。
其实这位演讲者 Tim Ferris曾在TED舞台上还做过另外一个演讲《你该认清你的恐惧而不是目标》。
通常我们最害怕做的、最困难的选择，却恰恰是我们必须做的。我们如何才能克服自我麻痹并采取行动？蒂姆·法瑞斯鼓励我们充分地预想和写下恐惧的细节，这是一种简单但强有力的练习，他称之为“恐惧设定”。通过这个练习，可以帮助你在高压环境中获得成功以及如何控制你无法掌控的事物。
现在的你是否处在定义你的恐惧比定义你的目标更重要的人生阶段，请将塞內卡的话铭记在心：“折磨我们的往往是想像， 而不是真实”。
《你该认清你的恐惧而不是目标》演讲稿双语版
So, this happy pic of me was taken in 1999. I was a senior in college, and it was right after a dance practice. I was really, really happy. And I remember exactly where I was about a week and a half later. I was sitting in the back of my used minivan in a campus parking lot, when I decided I was going to commit suicide. I went from deciding to full-blown planning very quickly. And I came this close to the edge of the precipice. It's the closest I've ever come. And the only reason I took my finger off the trigger was thanks to a few lucky coincidences. And after the fact, that's what scared me the most: the element of chance.
我这张快乐的照片拍摄于1999年。当年我大四，拍摄于舞蹈练习之后。我当时非常开心。我清楚地记得在一周半之后，我坐在我旧的小货车后座，在校园停车场，当时我决定我要自杀。我很快下定决心并有了周全的计划。死亡近在咫尺，然而最终我悬崖勒马。我未扣动扳机的唯一原因是一些幸运的巧合。在此之后，我意识到真正让我恐惧的是机会。
You might not think of the ultimate competitor, say, Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots, who has the all-time NFL record for Super Bowl titles. And stoicism has spread like wildfire in the top of the NFL ranks as a means of mental toughness training in the last few years. You might not think of the Founding Fathers -- Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, George Washington to name but three students of stoicism. George Washington actually had a play about a Stoic -- this was "Cato, a Tragedy" -- performed for his troops at Valley Forge to keep them motivated.
你也许不会想到与其相反的人，比如比尔·贝利奇克，新英格兰爱国者队主教练，他有 NFL 历史上最多的超级碗冠军。斯多葛学派在 NFL 排行榜榜首中像野火一样蔓延，作为近几年来训练心智的手段。你也许想不到我们国家的奠基人，托马斯·杰斐逊、约翰·亚当斯、 乔治·华盛顿他们都是斯多葛学派的信奉者。事实上，乔治·华盛顿有一部有关于斯多葛学派的戏剧，《卡托，一个悲剧》， 曾鼓励他部队在福吉谷时的军心。
So why would people of action focus so much on an ancient philosophy? This seems very academic. I would encourage you to think about stoicism a little bit differently, as an operating system for thriving in high-stress environments, for making better decisions. And it all started here, kind of, on a porch.
为什么人们会如此在乎一个古老的哲学？这似乎非常学术。我建议从另一个角度看待斯多葛学派，这是一个在高压环境中成功的机制，做出更好的选择。所有的一切似乎都源于一个门廊。
So around 300 BC in Athens, someone named Zeno of Citium taught many lectures walking around a painted porch, a "stoa." That later became "stoicism." And in the Greco-Roman world, people used stoicism as a comprehensive system for doing many, many things. But for our purposes, chief among them was training yourself to separate what you can control from what you cannot control, and then doing exercises to focus exclusively on the former. This decreases emotional reactivity, which can be a superpower.
在公元前300年左右的雅典，一位叫“季蒂昂的芝诺”的导师，他经常游走在涂满绘画的门廊，教授很多课程，即“拱柱”。 这之后就成为“斯多葛学派”。而在希腊罗马世界，人们把斯多葛学派作为一个全面的系统，能解决很多事情。于我们而言，最主要的目的是训练我们自己，将可控和不可控的事情分开，然后训练如何专注于于前者。这将降低情绪的反应力，并将成为一种超能力。
Conversely, let's say you're a quarterback. You miss a pass. You get furious with yourself. That could cost you a game. If you're a CEO, and you fly off the handle at a very valued employee because of a minor infraction, that could cost you the employee. If you're a college student who, say, is in a downward spiral, and you feel helpless and hopeless, unabated, that could cost you your life. So the stakes are very, very high.
相反，假设你是四分卫，你因为没有接到一个传球而对自己生气， 这会让你输掉比赛。如果你是一个 CEO，仅因为一个小错误，而对一位极有价值的员工大发雷霆，你可能会失去一个员工。如果你是一个大学生，你处在低潮期，觉得无助和无望，这可能让你失去生命。所以赌注还是非常高的。
And there are many tools in the toolkit to get you there. I'm going to focus on one that completely changed my life in 2004. It found me then because of two things: a very close friend, young guy, my age, died of pancreatic cancer unexpectedly, and then my girlfriend, who I thought I was going to marry, walked out. She'd had enough, and she didn't give me a Dear John letter, but she did give me this, a Dear John plaque.
工具箱里有很多工具能帮到你。我会着重分享一个在2004年完全改变我人生的工具。两件事情让我深受触动：一个与我年龄相仿的男性挚友意外死于胰腺癌，之后我以为是真命天女的女朋友离我而去。她受够了，她没有给我一封分手信，但她却送我了一个“分手板牌”。
I'm not making this up. I've kept it. "Business hours are over at five o'clock." She gave this to me to put on my desk for personal health, because at the time, I was working on my first real business. I had no idea what I was doing. I was working 14-plus hour days, seven days a week. I was using stimulants to get going. I was using depressants to wind down and go to sleep. It was a disaster. I felt completely trapped. I bought a book on simplicity to try to find answers.
这不是我编的，我还留着它。“工作时间在5点结束。”出于对我健康的关心，她把这个放在我的桌上，因为当时我正投入于我的第一个事业。我不明白当时我在干嘛，只知道每天工作14个小时以上，每周7天。我用兴奋剂来刺激自己工作，用镇抑剂来放松和助眠。这是一场灾难，我彻底沦陷了。于是我买了关于简朴生活的书来寻找答案。
And I did find a quote that made a big difference in my life, which was, "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality," by Seneca the Younger, who was a famous Stoic writer. That took me to his letters, which took me to the exercise, "premeditatio malorum," which means the pre-meditation of evils. In simple terms, this is visualizing the worst-case scenarios, in detail, that you fear, preventing you from taking action, so that you can take action to overcome that paralysis. My problem was monkey mind -- super loud, very incessant. Just thinking my way through problems doesn't work. I needed to capture my thoughts on paper. So I created a written exercise that I called "fear-setting," like goal-setting, for myself. It consists of three pages. Super simple.
我的确找到一个改变我人生的警句，“折磨我们的往往是想像， 而不是真实” 出自塞内卡，他是著名的斯多葛学派作家。这句话引领我读他的书信，让我开始练习，"premeditatio malorum," 意思是在最坏情况来临前提前预想。简而言之，预想最坏的情景及你所恐惧的细节，防止你采取任何行动，因此你可以采取行动，来摆脱恐惧。我当时头脑一片混乱，充满着连续不断嘈杂的声音。通过思考我的问题没有什么用处，我需要把想法都写在纸上。因此我设计了一个写作练习，我称之为“恐惧设置”，就像目标设置一样。 它由3页纸组成，非常简单。
And when I did this, it painted a terrifying picture. I was self-medicating, my business was going to implode at any moment at all times, if I didn't step away. My relationships were fraying or failing. And I realized that inaction was no longer an option for me.
当我这样做的时候，它展示一幅可怕的画面。我当时是自我疗愈， 如果我不离开，我的生意随时都将结束。我的人际关系也在日益递减。我意识到不采取行动不再是我的一个选择。
Those are the three pages. That's it. That's fear-setting. And after this, I realized that on a scale of one to 10, one being minimal impact, 10 being maximal impact, if I took the trip, I was risking a one to three of temporary and reversible pain for an eight to 10 of positive, life-changing impact that could be a semi-permanent. So I took the trip. None of the disasters came to pass. There were some hiccups, sure. I was able to extricate myself from the business. I ended up extending that trip for a year and a half around the world, and that became the basis for my first book, that leads me here today.
这就是恐惧设置的三页纸。之后，我意识到用1到10来评测，1是最小的影响，10是最大的影响，如果我踏上旅途，我将面对1到3个短暂的可解决的苦恼，还有8到10个能深刻改变我生活的积极影响。 因此我选择了旅程。然而我预想的灾难一个也没发生。当然会有一些小问题。我能将自己从生意中抽离出来。最后我延长了那个环球旅行，花了一年半的时间。这也是我第一本书的素材来源，最后它也让我今天站在了这里。
And I can trace all of my biggest wins and all of my biggest disasters averted back to doing fear-setting at least once a quarter. It's not a panacea. You'll find that some of your fears are very well-founded.
回顾我取得赢得的最大成就和避免的巨大灾难，都是因为我至少每一季度都会做一次恐惧设置。它并非灵丹妙药，你会发现有些恐惧是有根据的。
But you shouldn't conclude that without first putting them under a microscope. And it doesn't make all the hard times, the hard choices, easy, but it can make a lot of them easier.
但是你要先仔细检视，然后做出结论。它不会让每一次困难时期 和艰难的选择轻而易举，但是确实会简单很多。
I'd like to close with a profile of one of my favorite modern-day Stoics. This is Jerzy Gregorek. He is a four-time world champion in Olympic weightlifting, political refugee, published poet, 62 years old. He can still kick my ass and probably most asses in this room. He's an impressive guy.
我想以一位我所钟爱的当代斯多葛学派人物来结束。他是杰克西·格雷戈里克，他4次荣获奥林匹克举重项目冠军，是政治难民， 也是出版诗人，他已经62岁了。但他能让我甚至在座的大部分人都甘拜下风，他是那么令人折服。
And not only was he familiar with stoicism, but he pointed out, for all of his most important decisions, his inflection points, when he stood up for his principles and ethics, how he had used stoicism and something akin to fear-setting, which blew my mind.
他不仅熟知斯多葛学派，他还指出，他所有重要的决定，他的人生转折点，当他捍卫自己的原则和遵循道德时，他是如何运用斯多葛学派以及类似恐惧设定的方法，这令我感到震惊。
And he closed with two things. Number one: he couldn't imagine any life more beautiful than that of a Stoic. And the last was his mantra, which he applies to everything, and you can apply to everything:
他总结了两点。第一点，他无法想象生活中会有比拥有斯多葛学派更美好的生活。 第二点是他可以应用于任何事情的格言，你同样也可以用于任何事物：
"Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life."
“简单选择，痛苦生活。 痛苦选择，简单生活。”
The hard choices -- what we most fear doing, asking, saying -- these are very often exactly what we most need to do. And the biggest challenges and problems we face will never be solved with comfortable conversations, whether it's in your own head or with other people.
困难的选择，我们最害怕去做的、问的、说的，这些有可能正是我们最需要做的。我们面对的最大挑战和困难是永远不能通过一个轻松的谈话来解决的，不管是你自我思考还是和别人探讨。
So I encourage you to ask yourselves: Where in your lives right now might defining your fears be more important than defining your goals? Keeping in mind all the while, the words of Seneca: "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."
因此我鼓励你问自己：你现在是否处在定义你的恐惧比定义你的目标更重要的人生阶段，请将塞內卡的话铭记在心：“折磨我们的往往是想像， 而不是真实”
Suffer More in Imagnination than in Reality
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
SENECA
I believe this quote to be true and it makes me sad. We cause most of our own suffering when we should be happy and being grateful for what we have. We are a world of worriers. At the age of five or so my dad started calling me a “worry wart.” Now at the age of thirty three with much more knowledge and wisdom, I sadly still do worry way too much. I recently read a quote that said: “Worrying is like paying the tax on a debt for a debt you will probably not owe.” Children in grade school are worrying and stressing about grades, sports, friends etc. I am sure I did the same but I also believe schools have in some ways (in our area) gotten to be much more structured, stricter, and are putting way too much pressure on students to do the best and be the best: academics and sports alike. It is no wonder these kids are worrying a third of their days. I know a young girl who is ten and instead of being excited for the weekend she was already in a state of fear for her grades on Monday. That broke my heart. To see that at such a young, impressionable age children are suffering more in their imagination than in reality. Imaginations are supposed to be fun and take us to random adventures. I remember at that age being excited to get home and make forts in our backyard with moving boxes with my little brother. I was not thinking about anything but getting home and using my imagination to make forts. I definitely was not thinking about the future.
The reason I do not use the word pain in my “real world” is that I have learned the more I say or think about pain, the more pain I feel. If I am having a terrible time with pain, I tell my loved ones: “I am having a difficult day.” I try to never think about pain even though it is there. The body hears everything the mind says. This morning when I awoke first thought was a worry thought, second thought was a painful thought. First action was getting up, putting a yoga dvd in and practicing a fun yoga sequence. I do not remember now what my first two thoughts were. Many of my readers have chronic pain or some form of an invisible illness. Many of you are either excited for the up-coming holidays or wishing they would just go away. My favorite holiday is Christmas. For years upon years when chronic pain controlled my life I was literally grieving each year the holidays approached. It made me so sad to be around so much happiness, joy and fun when all I could think about was pain and that I would probably never be able to have a good Christmas again. Talk about suffering. My imagination was totally wrong as years later I am more than excited for this years Christmas and each day my two year old asks daily as we drive: “Mommy what’s that?” She points to Christmas lights on stores or decorations being sold in stores (ALREADY!) and is in an excited yet confused state as I explain Christmas to her. She is still too young to truly understand but this will be the first year that she can appreciate each event and yes, gift that comes with Christmas. I no longer think: “Oh my God what if my pain levels are sky high Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or Christmas.” The fear of pain is worse than the pain itself. Lets say that on Christmas day I am having a “difficult day.” Ok. So what? It is mid November, I am sure as hell not going to lose the next weeks suffering in my thoughts about something that may or may not happen. Not giving my ego the satisfaction and almost everything I worry about never comes to fruition.
Try and not think about the future in any negative way. There is a great reason so many of us say: one day at a time. As Deepak Chopra announces: “There are only two days you can do nothing about your life. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow.” Most of your suffering is truly in your imagination and all the bad things you fear are just taking away your joy of today. Chronic pain is not imagined so please do not take this post the wrong way. We are all on separate journeys in our journey with chronic pain and some of us only know suffering, as I did for ten years. All I ask, is to just try and take one day at a time and remember most of your worries mean nothing. I truly forget what I was worrying about this early morning before I was practicing yoga。
赞赏，让你的“言值”爆表
想第一时间接收英语演讲文章&视频？置顶精彩英语演讲就对了！操作办法就是：进入公众号——点击右上角的●●●——找到“置顶公众号”—— 开启。
热门跟贴