2025-1-26 23:50
一切都必须支付两次
Everything Must Be Paid for Twice《一切都必须支付两次》原文翻译如下：Post image for Everything Must Be Paid for Twice在学校应该教的一个理财课题是：我们购买的大多数东西，都需要支付两次。There’s the first price, usually paid in dollars, just to gain possession of the desired thing, whatever it is: a book, a budgeting app, a unicycle, a bundle of kale.首先是第一个价格，通常是以美元支付，只是为了获得你想要的东西，不管它是什么：一本书、一款预算应用、一辆独轮车、一捆羽衣甘蓝。But then, in order to make use of the thing, you must also pay a second price. This is the effort and initiative required to gain its benefits, and it can be much higher than the first price.然而，为了真正利用这些东西，你还必须支付第二个价格。这是为了获得它的好处所需的努力和主动性，它可能远远高于第一个价格。A new novel, for example, might require twenty dollars for its first price—and ten hours of dedicated reading time for its second. Only once the second price is being paid do you see any return on the first one. Paying only the first price is about the same as throwing money in the garbage.例如，一本新小说的第一个价格可能是二十美元——而第二个价格则是十个小时的专心阅读时间。只有当你支付了第二个价格，你才能看到第一个价格带来的回报。仅支付第一个价格就相当于把钱扔进垃圾桶。Likewise, after buying the budgeting app, you have to set it all up, and learn to use it habitually before it actually improves your financial life. With the unicycle, you have to endure the presumably painful beginner phase before you can cruise down the street. The kale must be de-veined, chopped, steamed, and chewed before it gives you any nourishment.同样，在购买预算应用之后，你必须设置它，并养成习惯性使用它的方式，才能真正改善你的财务生活。对于独轮车，你必须忍受可能相当痛苦的初学者阶段，才能在街上自由骑行。羽衣甘蓝必须去筋、切碎、蒸熟、嚼烂，才能为你提供营养。If you look around your home, you might notice many possessions for which you’ve paid the first price but not the second. Unused memberships, unread books, unplayed games, unknitted yarns.如果你环顾四周，你可能会发现许多你已经支付了第一个价格，却没有支付第二个价格的物品。未使用的会员卡、未读的书籍、未玩的游戏、未编织的线团。I can’t know for sure, but I have the sense that in pre-consumer societies, there was less emphasis on paying first prices (i.e. getting things into your possession) and much more on paying second prices—doing the work necessary to use what you have, and becoming someone who always does. Imagine a plow, purchased for its features, but which never gets pulled through the earth.我不能确定，但我有一种感觉，在前消费社会，人们不太注重支付第一个价格（即将物品收入囊中），而更注重支付第二个价格——做出必要的努力来使用已有的东西，成为一个总是付出这种努力的人。想象一把犁，买来是为了它的功能，但却从未被拉过土地。The miracle of industrialization has reduced many first prices tremendously, but has also given us many more of them to consider paying. With all the wonderful toys on offer, almost nobody feels like they have quite enough money, enough acquisition power. When a person receives a windfall, they immediately think of more first prices they can now pay.工业化的奇迹大大降低了许多第一个价格，但也给我们带来了更多需要考虑支付的第一个价格。随着各种各样的好玩具出现，几乎没有人觉得自己有足够的钱、足够的购买力。当一个人获得意外之财时，他们会立刻想到可以支付更多的第一个价格。But no matter how many cool things you acquire, you don’t gain any more time or energy with which to pay their second prices—to use the gym membership, to read the unabridged classics, to make the ukulele sound good—and so their rewards remain unredeemed.但无论你获得多少酷东西，你并不会因此多出时间或精力来支付它们的第二个价格——去用健身房会员卡、阅读完整的经典书籍、让尤克里里弹得好——因此，它们的回报依然未能兑现。I believe this is one reason our modern lifestyles can feel a little self-defeating sometimes. In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices, creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices. Yet the rewards of any purchase – the reason we buy it at all — stay locked up until both prices are paid.我认为，这也是现代生活方式有时感觉有些自我挫败的原因之一。在追求满足的过程中，我们不断支付第一个价格，创造了一个庞大的未支付第二价格的债务。然而，任何购买的回报——我们购买它的原因——都将被锁住，直到两个价格都支付完毕。For example, you can pick up Moby-Dick for a dollar at a garage sale, but it’s a wasted dollar if you don’t subsequently pay a significant second price: sixteen hours of attending closely to long Victorian commentaries on whales and the men who hunt them.例如，你可以在跳蚤市场上花一美元买到《白鲸》，但如果你没有随后支付一个重要的第二价格——十六个小时专注于阅读冗长的维多利亚时代鲸鱼及其猎人的评论——那这一美元就是浪费的。And you’ve got many more debts competing for those same sixteen hours — the more first prices you’ve paid alongside this garage sale dollar, the less you feel like you’ll ever have time to properly experience the legend of Captain Ahab, or do any other elective activities that require effort and initiative.你还有许多其他的债务在争夺这十六个小时——你支付的第一个价格越多，你就越觉得自己永远没有时间去真正体验亚哈船长的传奇，或者做任何其他需要努力和主动性的选修活动。This scarcity feeling creates one of the major side-effects of our insurmountable second-price debt: we reflexively overindulge in entertainment and other low-second-price pleasures –- phone apps, streaming services, and processed food — even though their rewards are often only marginally better than doing nothing.这种稀缺感带来了我们无法承受的第二价格债务的一个主要副作用：我们下意识地过度沉溺于娱乐和其他低第二价格的享乐——手机应用、流媒体服务、加工食品——尽管它们的回报通常比什么都不做好不了多少。This stuff is attractive because it takes little effort (and we’re tired from working to pay for so many first prices) but it can eat up a ton of time, depleting the second-price budget even further.这些东西很有吸引力，因为它们付出的努力很少（而我们因为需要支付那么多第一个价格而感到疲惫），但它们却能吞噬大量时间，进一步消耗第二价格的预算。The only solution I can think of is to consciously throw the switch the other way: avoid paying any more needless first prices, and set your lifestyle around paying certain second prices, so you can finally enjoy the long-promised prizes waiting in your bookshelf, storage room, and hard drive.我能想到的唯一解决方案是有意识地改变方向：避免支付更多不必要的第一个价格，把你的生活方式围绕支付某些第二价格来设定，这样你就能最终享受到那些长久承诺的奖赏，等待在你的书架、储藏室和硬盘里。Paying a second price, unpleasant as it sounds, is a process you can acquire a taste for, and when you do, it’s exhilarating.支付第二价格，虽然听起来不太愉快，但这是一个你可以培养兴趣的过程，当你做到时，它会让你感到兴奋。It’s like picking your way through unmapped wilderness – the going is slow and there’s lots to trip over, but it’s new territory the whole way, and after the initial discomfort you feel very alive. Then when you come out the other side, this new territory has become part of your usual range, and you’re tougher and more interesting.这就像是在未知的荒野中摸索前进——过程缓慢，路上有许多障碍，但一路上都是新领土，初时的不适感过去后，你会感到非常充实。然后，当你穿越到另一端，这片新领土就成了你日常的一部分，而你变得更加坚韧和有趣。Figuring out how to pay the second price isn’t hard. You just have to notice that moment you usually think about packing it in, and stay with it instead of doing something else.弄清楚如何支付第二价格并不难。你只需要注意到你通常想放弃的那个时刻，坚守下去，而不是去做别的事情。In other words, when you hit the weeds, you go into them instead of away. The awkward B major chord on the guitar – get your fingers in place anyway, and see if you can relax into the position just a bit more. The part where Ishmael goes on at length about historical whale drawings – try to understand why it matters to him. It is in these unfamiliar moments that the rewards appear.换句话说，当你遇到困难时，你应该迎难而上，而不是回避。吉他上那个难度大的B大调和弦——无论如何把手指放好，看看能不能稍微放松一点。伊什梅尔对历史鲸鱼图画长篇大论的部分——试着理解这对他来说为什么很重要。正是在这些不熟悉的时刻，奖励才会显现。
