Alain de Botton

What I think Ive been talking about， really， is success and failure. And one of the interesting things about success is that we think we know what it means. If I said to you that theres somebody behind the screen， whos very， very successful， certain ideas would immediately come to mind. You would think that person might have made a lot of money， achieved renown in some field. My own theory of success—and Im somebody whos very interested in success， I really want to be successful. Im always thinking， “How can I be more successful，” but as I get older Im also very 1）nuanced about what that word “success” might mean.

Heres some insight that Ive had about success； you cant be successful at everything. We hear a lot about talk about work-life balance. Nonsense！ You cant have it all. You cant. So any vision of success has to admit what its losing out on， where the element of loss is. And I think any wise life will accept， as I say， that theres gonna be an element where were not succeeding.

And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. Theyre sucked in from other people， chiefly， if youre a man， your father， and if youre a woman， your mother. 2）Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No ones quite listening hard enough， but I very much believe that thats true. And we also suck in messages from everything from the television to advertising to marketing， etc. This is， these are hugely powerful forces that define what we want and how we view ourselves. When were told that banking is a very respectable profession， a lot of us want to go into banking. When bankings no longer so respectable， we lose interest in banking. We are highly open to suggestion.

So what I want to argue for is not that we should give up on our ideas of success， but we should make sure that they are our own. We should focus in on our ideas and make sure that we own them， that we are truly the authors of our own ambitions， because its bad enough not getting what you want， but its even worse to have an idea of what it is you want and find out at the end of the journey that it isnt， in fact， what you wanted all along.

So Im going to end it there， but what I really want to stress is， by all means success， yes， but lets accept the strangeness of some of our ideas. Lets 3）probe away at our notions of success. Lets make sure our ideas of success are truly our own.

Thank you very much.

我想我一直在談?wù)摰闹黝}其實是成功與失敗。關(guān)于成功很有趣的一點是，我們都自認為知道成功代表什么。如果我告訴你這個屏幕（譯者注：指演講者身后的屏幕）后面有個成功非凡的人，你馬上就會有一些特定的想法。你會認為這個人可能腰纏萬貫，在某個領(lǐng)域功成名就。我有自己的成功哲學——我本人對成功非常感興趣，我也確實渴望成功。我總是在想，“我怎樣才能更成功呢”，但隨著年歲漸長，我對“成功”這個詞的解讀也有了微妙的變化。

以下是我對成功的一些看法：你不可能每件事都獲得成功。我們聽到很多人談?wù)撊绾卧诠ぷ髋c生活之間取得平衡，這簡直就是天方夜譚！你不能樣樣都得到，不可能。因此每個關(guān)于成功的觀念都必須承認在成功的同時失去了什么，是在哪個方面失去的。我想每一位智者都會接受我的看法，即肯定有某一方面是我們沒有取得成功的。

關(guān)于成功的人生，很重要的一點是，很多時候我們對成功人生的概念不是來自自己，而是來自別人，一般而言，男性的成功概念來自父親，女性的來自母親。精神分析學80年來反復(fù)提及這一點。沒有人真正當回事，但我相信這是真的。我們還從別的很多地方吸收信息，電視、廣告、市場營銷等等。這些都是很強大的力量，它們定義了我們的需求和我們對自身的看法。當我們聽說銀行業(yè)相當體面，很多人就想進銀行工作；當銀行業(yè)不再體面時，我們就對它失去了興趣。我們極容易被外界意見所影響。

因此我要說的不是我們應(yīng)該放棄自己對于成功的看法，而是我們應(yīng)該確定這些看法是屬于自己的。我們要仔細審視自己的觀念，確保這些觀念為自己所有，確保我們的追求是由自己定義的。因為，得不到你想要的已經(jīng)很糟糕了，更糟糕的是，你以為知道你要追求什么，但是到了生命的盡頭你才發(fā)現(xiàn)原來這一直都不是自己真正想要的。

我的演講就到這里，但我真正要強調(diào)的是，肯定是成功，這當然，不過我們要承認自己的一些奇怪想法，要深入探究自己對于成功的觀念，保證這些觀念確實是我們自己的。

感謝各位。