赫芬顿：成功的尺度不只是金钱和权力

    不幸的是，技术正在以前所未有的力度潜入我们的生活、家庭、卧室和大脑。这使得我们越来越难以更新自己，越来越难以产生惊奇感。平均而言，人们现在每6分半钟就会查阅一下自己的设备。也就是说，每天要查阅大约150次。我们的大脑天生就渴望连接，所以脱离这类刺激物并不是一件容易的事。但源自技术的连接往往不能给人带来满足，因为它是一种伪连接。它的警笛呼叫（或嘟嘟声，闪烁灯）往往会挤占我们本可以用来进行人际交往的时间和精力。

    有些自相矛盾的是，就能够帮助我们应对技术的工具而言，最大的增长领域之一恰恰是技术。互联网的第一个阶段侧重于收集数据，更多的数据。但现在，我们拥有足够的数据（实际上，我们正在被数据淹没）和我们能够期盼的所有消遣方式。技术一直非常善于给予我们我们想要的东西，但并不总是给予我们我们所需要的东西。所以，许多科技界人士现在已经意识到，可用来帮助我们保持专注，过滤掉所有数据和纷扰的应用和工具拥有绝佳的增长机会。我在《茁壮成长》一书的附录中列举了一些我个人最喜欢的应用。我们受到的纷扰越少，就越有可能挖掘我们的惊奇感，同时观察我们周围的世界。

    现在请介绍一下“第三尺度”的第四个元素：给予。做一名“给予者”有哪些好处？

    很多时候，我们认为所谓给予就是为某个遥远地方的减灾努力贡献时间或金钱，就是帮助那些一无所有的人。在灾难降临的生死关头，这些善行显然是应急之需。但我们忘了，我们每天都被践行同一种给予本能的机会包围。这些机会总是“在脚下”。正如19世纪的博物学家约翰•巴勒斯所言：“伟大的机会就在你所处的地方。不要轻视你自己的地方和事件。每一个地方都位于群星之下，每一个地方都是世界的中心。”

    每一个地方都充满了各种能够对另一个人的生活产生真正影响的机遇。我们在家中，办公室，地铁上，在我们居住的街道和购买物品的杂货店错失了无数看似微小的机遇。正如大卫•福斯特•华莱士所言，我们“每一天都可以采用无数看似微不足道、不那么性感的方式给予其他人以真正的关爱。”每一天，当我们给予他人以帮助时，我们自己的生活也会随之改变。这是因为，无论我们多么成功，当我们跨进这个世界，希望“获取某种东西”，当我们竭力去实现一个目标时，这些行为都是源自我们感知到的某种“缺乏”。我们专注于自己还缺乏的东西，一心想获得它，直至达成心愿，接着我们又奔着下一个目标去了。但当我们给予他人帮助的时候，无论我们自身是贫穷还是富裕，我们总能获得一种充盈的丰裕感。

    我注意到，《茁壮成长》引用了许多大学问家的观点，比如奥里利乌斯、奥古斯丁和歌德。你最喜欢读哪些书？最青睐哪些知识分子？

    撰写《茁壮成长》期间，我一直沉浸在古希腊和罗马的斯多葛派哲学家的著作之中。斯多葛学派教导我们，不快乐，消极情绪，以及我们今天所称的“压力”，都是我们对外部环境所做判断的结果。斯多葛学派认为，唯有在我们能够掌控自己的内心世界时，我们获得的幸福才最安稳。一切身外之物都可能转瞬即逝，所以我们怎么能够把我们未来的幸福和福祉托付于它们呢？这些见解在我们今天所处的时代仍然非常有意义。

    我最喜欢的一些书皆是出自我最青睐的思想家之手，比如大卫•林奇的《捕获大鱼》(Catching the Big Fish)、卡尔•荣格的《回忆，梦想与思考》(Memories, Dreams, Reflections)，以及马克•威廉姆斯和丹尼•潘曼的《正念：实施一个8周计划在这个疯狂的世界寻找平静》(Mindfulness: An-Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World)。（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Unfortunately the ever-increasing creep of technology -- into our lives, our families, our bedrooms, our brains -- makes it much harder to renew ourselves and connect with our sense of wonder. The average smartphone user checks his or her device every six and a half minutes. That works out to around 150 times a day. Our brains are naturally wired to connect, so it's not easy to turn away from these kinds of stimuli. But the connection that comes from technology is often an unfulfilling, ersatz version of connection. Its siren call (or beep, or blinking light) can crowd out the time and energy we have for real human connection.

    Paradoxically, one of the biggest growth sectors for tools to help us deal with technology is . . . technology. The first stages of the Internet were about data and more data. But now we have plenty of data -- indeed, we're drowning in it -- and all the distraction we could ever hope for. Technology has been very good at giving us what we want, but not always what we need. So now, many in the tech world have realized there's a growth opportunity for applications and tools that help us focus and filter all that data and distraction. I have collected some of my favorites in an appendix at the end of Thrive. The less distracted we are, the more likely we are to tap into our sense of wonder and observe the world around us.

    Tell us about the fourth element of the Third Metric: giving. What are the various benefits of being "a giver?"

    So often we think of giving as donating time or money to relief efforts for catastrophes in faraway places, helping people who have nothing. That's obviously critical to do when disaster strikes. But we forget that every day we are surrounded by opportunities to act on that same instinct for giving. These chances are always "under foot." As the nineteenth-century naturalist John Burroughs put it, "The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own place and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is the center of the world."

    And every place is full of openings to make a real difference in the life of another human being. There are millions of small missed opportunities at home, in our offices, on the subway, on the street where we live, in the grocery store -- what David Foster Wallace called "being able truly to care about other people . . . over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways, every day." When we flex our giving muscles every day, the process begins to transform our own lives. Because however successful we are, when we go out in the world to "get things," when we strive to achieve a goal, we are operating from a perceived deficit, focused on what we don't have and are trying to obtain -- until the goal is achieved. And then we go after the next goal. But when we give however little or much we have we are tapping into our sense of abundance and overflow.

    I noticed that Thrive is filled with references to from a number of eminent intellectuals—Aurelius, Augustine, Goethe. What are some of your favorite books and who are some of your favorite intellectuals?

    While writing Thrive I immersed myself in the writings of the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome. Stoicism teaches that unhappiness, negative emotions, and what we would today call "stress" are the result of the judgments we make about external circumstances. To the Stoics, the most secure kind of happiness could be found in the only thing that we are in control of -- our inner world. Everything outside us can be taken away, so how can we entrust our future happiness and well-being to it? These insights are hugely relevant to our time.

    Some of my other favorite books, by some of my favorite thinkers, are Catching the Big Fish, by David Lynch; Memories, Dreams, Reflections, by Carl Jung; and Mindfulness: An-Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World, by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.