TED20260103 How to live a meaningful life - Brian S. Lowery (re-release)

You're listening to TED Talks Daily where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. We are continuing to share a handful of talks, conversations, and episodes from the TED archive that we hope will spark some inspiration.

欢迎收听TED每日播客，我们每天为您带来激发好奇的新思想。我是主持人艾莉丝·胡。我们将继续从TED档案中分享一些演讲、对话和节目，希望能激发灵感。

As we think about the end of the year and the resolutions and practices we hope to bring into this new year, it's a small and big question at the same time, what makes for a meaningful life? In this beautiful archive talk social psychologist Brian S. Lowry explores three ideas tied to the experience of meaning and shows why simply pursuing personal achievements isn't the best way to find it.

当我们思考年岁更迭，以及我们希望带入新年的决心与习惯时，有一个既渺小又宏大的问题：是什么构成了有意义的人生？在这场精彩的档案演讲中，社会心理学家布莱恩·S·劳里探讨了与意义体验相关的三个概念，并说明了为何仅仅追求个人成就并非找到意义的最佳途径。

Life is amazing. Life is incredible. The experiences we have, the possibilities of personal achievement. You could summit Everest. You could create a huge successful business, you could give a TED talk.

生活令人惊叹。生活不可思议。我们拥有的经历，个人成就的可能性。你可以攀登珠峰。你可以创建一个巨大的成功企业，你可以发表一场TED演讲。

And when you're successful, it feels incredible. Success, the flush of excitement, the celebration and you should celebrate. The congratulations, the posting on Instagram. Wherever you put your stuff up, it all feels great. When that fades, when that starts to fade.

当你成功时，感觉不可思议。成功，那阵兴奋的涌动，庆祝，而你理应庆祝。那些祝贺，在Instagram上的分享。无论你在何处展示你的成就，一切都感觉棒极了。当这种感觉消退时，当它开始褪色时。

Sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once, a question comes up. Is this it? Is this all there is?

有时是缓慢地，有时是突然地，一个问题浮现了。就这了吗？这就是全部了吗？

And so I'm going to tell you a little story about myself. To give you a sense of this, so for those of you who don't know, I'm a professor at Stanford.

因此我要给大家讲一个关于我自己的小故事。为了让你们对此有所感受，对于那些不了解的人，我是斯坦福大学的一名教授。

When I got my job, I was elated, elated, and a little bit terrified. And I was terrified because when you get a job like that, you know you're going to be reviewed in about seven years. And either you're going to be given tenure, more or less a job for life, or you're going to get fired.

当我得到这份工作时，我欣喜若狂，欣喜若狂，同时也有点害怕。我害怕是因为当你得到那样一份工作时，你知道大约七年后你会面临评审。要么你获得终身教职，差不多是一份终身职位，要么你被解雇。

It's a little bit like that movie Glengarry Glen Ross, the scene where Alec Baldwin's character goes in to give the motivational speech and he says it's going to be a competition. First prize? Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize set of steak knives. Third prize, you're fired.

这有点像电影《大亨游戏》里的场景，亚历克·鲍德温的角色进去做励志演讲，他说这将是一场竞赛。一等奖？凯迪拉克 Eldorado。二等奖是一套牛排刀。三等奖，你被解雇了。

It's a little bit like that except there's no second prize. And it turns out, as you might imagine, that has a way of focusing your mind. So I was really, really focused on doing good research, getting my papers published, doing well in the classroom and all the other little things you need to do to get tenure.

有点像那样，只不过没有二等奖。结果，正如你可能想象的，这有一种让你集中注意力的效果。所以我真的、真的专注于做好研究，发表论文，在课堂上表现出色，以及所有其他为了获得终身教职需要做的小事。

Seven years later, I made it. I made it, thank you. And it was a huge relief and I was so ex*ited. I was so ex*ited. But. That question came up is this it, is this really all there is?

七年后，我成功了。我成功了，谢谢。那是一种巨大的解脱，我非常兴奋。我非常兴奋。但是。那个问题出现了：就这了吗？这真的就是全部了吗？

And? I reflected back and I thought about the time I spent in undergrad. Five years in grad school, the tears, and there were a lot of tears. Seven years of trying to get tenure, and I had expected, I had hoped that when I made it past that, when I succeeded, when I went through that threshold, life would feel different, I would feel fulfilled, it would feel meaningful to me, my life would feel meaningful.

然后？我回想过去，想到了我本科的时光。五年的研究生生涯，那些眼泪，流了很多眼泪。七年努力争取终身教职，我曾期望，我曾希望当我跨越那个障碍，当我成功，当我通过那个门槛时，生活会感觉不同，我会感到满足，生活会对我有意义，我的人生会感觉有意义。

But it turns out that wasn't what happened. Now, when psychologists talk about meaningfulness in life, what they're talking about is a sense that our lives matter. That the world makes sense, that we are more than the sum of our minutes, days and years on this planet.

但结果并非如此。当心理学家谈论生活的意义感时，他们指的是我们的生活重要的那种感觉。世界是可理解的，我们不仅仅是生活在这个星球上的分秒、日月的总和。

Now the research on meaningfulness in life suggests there are three big ideas associated with meaningfulness in life. The first big idea is coherence. The world needs to feel coherent. After winter comes spring. After spring comes summer. You get up in the morning. You brush your teeth. You have breakfast. You get the kids off to school, you go to work. Those little routines make the world feel knowable, predictable. Coherent.

关于生活意义的研究表明，有三个核心概念与生活意义感相关。第一个核心概念是连贯性。世界需要感觉是连贯的。冬去春来。春去夏至。你早上起床。你刷牙。你吃早餐。你送孩子上学，你去工作。这些小小的常规让世界感觉可知、可预测。连贯。

Now, when you think about personal achievement, it does create sometimes this experience of coherence because we achieve within a framework. I understood what they expected of me for tenure. I understood that if I got my papers published, that I did well in the classroom, that I talked to the right people, I did all the networking. There was a good chance I could get tenure. You're trying to lose weight, you understand? You change your diet, you exercise, the weight will come off. Or at least we hope so.

那么，当你考虑个人成就时，它确实有时会创造这种连贯性的体验，因为我们是在一个框架内取得成就。我明白他们对终身教职的要求是什么。我明白如果我发表论文，在课堂上表现出色，和正确的人交谈，做好所有的人脉关系，我就很有机会获得终身教职。你想减肥，你懂的？你改变饮食，你锻炼，体重就会下降。或者至少我们希望如此。

Now those things, that framework, gives the world a sense of coherence. Second big idea associated with meaningfulness in life. Second big idea. Purpose.

这些事情，那个框架，给了世界一种连贯感。与生活意义相关的第二个核心概念。第二个核心概念。目标。

Purpose now sometimes people use the term purpose as a synonym for meaning in life, and that's not how I mean it here. Purpose is a way of thinking about what your life can be and should be in the future. It's a way of directing your actions. It gives you goals. When you get up in the morning, you know what you need to do.

目标，有时人们用"目标"这个词作为生活意义的同义词，但这不是我在这里的意思。目标是一种思考你的生活未来可能和应该是什么样子的方式。它是一种指引你行动的方式。它给你目标。当你早上起床时，你知道你需要做什么。

Here's where the drive for personal achievement is strongest. It's clearest. When I was worried about tenure, I knew exactly what I needed to do when I got up in the morning. When you have a goal, when you're trying to achieve something, you have a clarity about what you should do, how to direct your behavior. So that's the second big idea is purpose.

这就是追求个人成就的动力最强烈的地方。它最清晰。当我担心终身教职时，我早上起床时确切地知道我需要做什么。当你有一个目标，当你试图达成某事时，你清楚地知道你应该做什么，如何引导你的行为。所以第二个核心概念就是目标。

Now, the third big idea that many consider to be the most important is significance. Now, the way I like to think about significance is the sense that you can transcend yourself. That you are more than what you are right now, that you will continue to matter into the future beyond this moment.

那么，第三个许多人认为是最重要的核心概念是重要性。我喜欢这样理解重要性：它是一种你能超越自我的感觉。你不止于现在的你，你的重要性将延续到未来，超越此刻。

This is where I think personal achievement falls short. By definition, personal achievement focuses on you, focuses on the self, and if that's all there is, it's difficult to have significance.

这就是我认为个人成就不足的地方。根据定义，个人成就聚焦于你，聚焦于自我，如果仅此而已，就很难具有重要性。

So when I want to think about meaningfulness in life and significance in particular, it brings to mind a quote attributed to Leonardo da Vinci. Some of you might know it, so Leonardo da Vinci was purported to have said on his deathbed. I have offended God and mankind because my work did not achieve the quality it should have.

因此，当我想思考生活的意义，特别是重要性时，我想起了一句据说是列奥纳多·达·芬奇说的话。你们有些人可能知道，据说列奥纳多·达·芬奇在临终前说：我冒犯了上帝和人类，因为我的工作未能达到它应有的质量。

Now, I wasn't there, so I don't know if he said that exactly in that way. But here's the thing. You can imagine it, you understand it. You understand what it means to have even the most glorious achievements and still ask. Is this enough? Is this it? Is this all I add up to?

我当时不在场，所以不知道他是否真是那么说的。但关键在于，你能想象，你能理解。你理解即使拥有最辉煌的成就，却仍在问这意味着什么。这足够了吗？就这了吗？这就是我全部的价值了吗？

When I look back and think about my time early on in my career, I think about when did it feel meaningful? What gave me a sense of meaning when I think about were my PhD students? So one of the things that faculty do is train the next generation of faculty. And so you have PhD students and you have them for a significant amount of time, often could be five to six years. And the relationships are pretty intense.

当我回顾并思考我职业生涯早期时，我会想什么时候感觉有意义？什么给了我意义感？我想到的是我的博士生们。教授的工作之一就是培养下一代教授。所以你会有博士生，你会和他们相处很长一段时间，通常是五到六年。这种关系相当紧密。

So let me tell you about my first student, Miguel. So Miguel was born in El Paso, Texas, in a relatively low income area. Really smart kid, does well in school, ends up at the University of Texas at Austin, which is a great university, does well there, eventually ends up in the PhD program at Stanford.

让我讲讲我的第一个学生，米格尔。米格尔出生在德克萨斯州埃尔帕索的一个收入相对较低的地区。他是个非常聪明的孩子，在学校表现优异，最终进入了德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校，那是一所很棒的大学，他在那里表现也很好，最终进入了斯坦福大学的博士项目。

So Miguel gets there the year before I do, and by his own account, he's having a tough time. It's a little rough and it's rough in part because he doesn't have the cultural capital that many people that go places like Stanford have. He doesn't understand how the place works, so he's struggling a little bit.

米格尔比我早一年到那里，据他自己说，他当时过得很艰难。有点困难，部分原因在于他缺乏许多进入像斯坦福这类地方的人所拥有的文化资本。他不理解这个地方的运作方式，所以他有些挣扎。

Now, when I arrive, I'm really impressed because he's so smart. He's ambitious and he's asking questions and interested in things that I'm interested in, so I'm really ex*ited to work with him. And so we started to work together and again, it's really intense. I'm working with him for four years. We see each other almost every day, almost every day for those four years. And some days we're working together ten to twelve hours a day. So it's a very intense experience.

当我到达时，我对他印象非常深刻，因为他非常聪明。他有抱负，他提问，对我感兴趣的事物也感兴趣，所以我很兴奋能与他共事。于是我们开始一起工作，同样，关系非常紧密。我和他一起工作了四年。那四年里，我们几乎每天见面，几乎每天。有些日子我们每天一起工作十到十二个小时。所以这是一段非常紧密的经历。

And what I remember about that time was that I was really worried about doing enough to make sure he would be successful. I was concerned, am I being a good advisor? Am I giving him what he needs? Am I helping him in his story? Now, keep in mind, I want to get tenure. I still think I'm going to get fired. So even with that fear, I'm worried about what do I need to do to make sure Miguel can continue in his story and his journey.

我记得那个时候，我真的很担心自己做得足够多，以确保他会成功。我担心，我是一个好的导师吗？我给了他需要的东西吗？我在他的故事中帮助他了吗？请记住，我想获得终身教职。我仍然认为我会被解雇。所以即使怀着那种恐惧，我仍然担心我需要做什么来确保米格尔能继续他的故事和旅程。

And by the way, he, he's been great. He got a job. He's been a professor now for over 15 years at UCLA. He's had serious leadership roles at his university. And I'm incredibly proud that I got a chance to be a little part of that.

顺便说一下，他，他一直很棒。他找到了一份工作。他已经在加州大学洛杉矶分校当了超过15年的教授。他在他的大学担任过重要的领导角色。我无比自豪我能有机会成为其中的一小部分。

What do I take from that? What I take from that is that relationships are what provide us meaning. And my guess is you already knew that I'm saying something a little bit more than that. Not just that relationships provide meaning, but that being a part of a story that is not your own provides meaning. Being a part of a story that is not your own provides meaning.

我从中学到了什么？我学到的是，关系给予了我们意义。我猜你已经知道我要说的比这多一点。不仅仅是关系提供了意义，而且是成为一个不属于你自己的故事的一部分提供了意义。成为一个不属于你自己的故事的一部分提供了意义。

So where does this leave us? One, I think personal achievement is great. Like I love my personal achievements. I'm really happy with my life. I think it's turned out okay. I wish incredible personal achievements for all of you. So I think that personal achievement is fantastic, however. Sometimes. We replace the deep human need for meaning with chasing of personal achievement. And it's a problem when we confuse those two things.

那么，这让我们得出什么结论呢？第一，我认为个人成就很棒。就像我喜欢我的个人成就一样。我对我的生活很满意。我认为结果还不错。我希望你们所有人都有惊人的个人成就。所以我认为个人成就是极好的，然而。有时。我们用追求个人成就取代了人类对意义的深切需求。当我们混淆这两者时，就成了问题。

And the reason they get confused, the reason it's easy to confuse them is because personal achievement. It's easy to quantify. You know, if you got that job, you know, if you bought that home, you know what your salary is. It's easy to see and it feels comfortable to chase things you understand and you can achieve. That's one reason. The other reason is that personal achievement feels good.

它们被混淆的原因，容易混淆的原因是个人成就。它易于量化。你知道，如果你得到了那份工作，你知道，如果你买了那所房子，你知道你的薪水是多少。它易于看见，追逐你理解且能实现的东西让人感觉舒适。这是一个原因。另一个原因是个人成就感觉很好。

Personal achievement feels good. What we want, we think we want is happiness. And personal achievement provides a hit of happiness. It feels fantastic when you make that achievement. Getting meaning doesn't necessarily feel that way. For example, studies find that parents who spend more time parenting their children report more meaningfulness in life but not necessarily more happiness.

个人成就感觉很好。我们想要的，我们以为我们想要的是幸福。而个人成就提供了一阵幸福感。当你取得成就时，感觉棒极了。获得意义感不一定有那种感觉。例如，研究发现，花更多时间养育孩子的父母报告说生活更有意义，但不一定更幸福。

So these things are not the same. So if you want more meaning in life, what is there to do? One look for opportunities to participate in others' stories. You might try a little supporting actor energy if you want meaning, play a supporting role in other people's lives. That's number one. Two. Accept that the pursuit of meaning may not generate happiness.

所以这些事并不相同。因此，如果你想要生活中有更多意义，该做什么呢？一、寻找机会参与他人的故事。如果你想要意义，可以尝试一点配角能量，在别人的生活中扮演支持角色。这是第一点。二、接受追求意义可能不会产生幸福。

The pursuit of meaning might not generate happiness. In fact, it might be uncomfortable. It turns out that meaning is more associated with the self providing for others than providing for yourself. And that's sometimes a hard thing to do, expending effort, emotional energy on behalf of something that is not going to return happiness is not something that we tend to think of as a useful, a good use of our time, but it turns out it does produce meaning.

追求意义可能不会产生幸福。事实上，它可能令人不适。结果发现，意义更多地与为他人付出相关，而非为自己付出。而这有时是件难事，为了一些不会回报幸福的事情付出努力、情感能量，往往不被我们视为一种有用的、好的时间利用方式，但结果证明，它确实能产生意义。

So let me say just a couple more things, one. I think the human need and pursuit of meaning is both beautiful and profound, because when you have meaning in your life, that means that someone else gave you the opportunity to participate in a story that is not your own. And for that, for the meaning you have in your life, you should feel a deep gratitude, a deep gratitude for the people who have allowed you to participate in the story that was not your own.

让我再说几点。一、我认为人类对意义的需求和追求既美好又深刻，因为当你生命中有意义时，那意味着别人给了你机会参与一个不属于你自己的故事。为此，为你生命中所拥有的意义，你应该感到深深的感激，对那些允许你参与不属于你自己故事的人们深深的感激。

On the other side. When you allow people to participate in your life, you're giving them the opportunity to generate meaning. And so in that way, the deep, deep human need for meaning connects us in a circle, I think, a beautiful and profound circle of generosity and gratitude.

另一方面。当你允许别人参与你的生活时，你就是在给他们创造意义的机会。这样，人类对意义的深切需求将我们连接成一个循环，我认为，一个由慷慨与感激构成的美丽而深刻的循环。

And so right now here, I'm deeply grateful that you all have let me participate in your stories. And that's deeply meaningful for me. Thank you for that. The theme of this conference is the brave and the brilliant.

所以此时此刻，我深深感激你们所有人都让我参与了你们的故事。这对我来说意义深远。为此谢谢你们。本次会议的主题是勇敢与卓越。

I think that one way that we can experience or be brave is by accepting the fact. That our personal achievements, what we're capable of, the things that we've done pale, pale in comparison to the effect we have on other people and what that does in the world.

我认为，我们能体验或变得勇敢的一种方式是接受这个事实：我们的个人成就，我们的能力，我们所做的事情，与我们对他人的影响以及这种影响在世界上所产生的作用相比，显得苍白，苍白无力。

And that as you go through the world with all of your brilliance. And I mean that in terms of light. As you go through the role lighting the world. When you interact with other people and you illuminate them and help them shine more brightly, that's how the world gets illuminated. That's how we bring up the lights.

并且当你带着你的全部光芒走过这个世界时。我指的是光的意义。当你扮演着照亮世界的角色。当你与他人互动，你照亮他们，帮助他们更加闪亮，世界就是这样被照亮的。我们就是这样点亮光芒的。

And the world obviously desperately needs that. And in return, what you get is meaning because when we're gone. All of the accomplishments will mean nothing, the only thing that will be left of you when you're gone and we all will be gone eventually. The only thing will be left of you is the role you played in other people's stories, what you leave with other people, how that reverberates through time. And that is a beautiful thing. And I wish all of that for you. Thank you.

世界显然迫切需要这个。而作为回报，你得到的是意义，因为当我们离开时。所有的成就都将毫无意义，当你离开时，唯一留下的东西（我们最终都会离开），唯一留下的就是你在别人故事中扮演的角色，你留给别人的东西，它如何在时光中回响。那是一件美好的事情。我祝愿你们所有人都拥有这一切。谢谢。

That was Brian S. Lowery speaking at TED 2024.

以上是布莱恩·S·劳里在TED 2024的演讲。