IN the spring of 2004, during my senior year of college, I faced a hard decision about my future career. I had a job offer from Microsoft and an acceptance letter from the computer science doctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had also just handed in the manuscript for my first nonfiction book, which opened the option of becoming a full-time writer. These are three strikingly different career paths, and I had to choose which one was right for me.
在2004年的春天，在我大学的最后一年，关于我未来的职业，我面临着艰难的决定。我有一个来自微软的工作机会，一封麻省理工学院电脑科技博士项目的录取通知书。我正好上交了我的第一本纪实作品的手稿，这为我成为全职作家打开了选择的大门。这是三种截然不同的职业道路，我要选择适合我的那一条。
For many of my peers, this decision would have been fraught with anxiety. Growing up, we were told by guidance counselors, career advice books, the news media and others to “follow our passion.” This advice assumes that we all have a pre-existing passion waiting to be discovered. If we have the courage to discover this calling and to match it to our livelihood, the thinking goes, we’ll end up happy. If we lack this courage, we’ll end up bored and unfulfilled — or, worse, in law school.
对于很多我的同伴而言，这个决定可能会充满焦虑。长大的过程中，我们被辅导员，职业建议书，新闻媒体和其他人教导要“跟随我们的热情。”这条建议假设我们都有已经存在的，等着被发现的热情。按照这种思维，如果我们有勇气去发现这种职业并且与我们的生命相匹配，我们最终会快乐。如果我们缺少这种勇气，我们最终就会无聊而且不满意，或者更坏，我们会在法律学校。
To a small group of people, this advice makes sense, because they have a clear passion. Maybe they’ve always wanted to be doctors, writers, musicians and so on, and can’t imagine being anything else.
对一小部分人来说，这个建议是有道理的，因为他们有一中清楚的热情。可能他们一直想要成为医生，作家，音乐家等等，而且不能想象成为其他任何东西。
But this philosophy puts a lot of pressure on the rest of us — and demands long deliberation. If we’re not careful, it tells us, we may end up missing our true calling. And even after we make a choice, we’re still not free from its effects. Every time our work becomes hard, we are pushed toward an existential crisis, centered on what for many is an obnoxiously unanswerable question: “Is this what I’m really meant to be doing?” This constant doubt generates anxiety and chronic job-hopping.
但是这种生活信条给我们其他人很大压力—而且要求深思熟虑。它告诉我们，如果我们不小心，我们最终就会错过我们真正的职业。甚至在我们做出一个选择之后，我们仍然摆脱不了它的影响。每一次我们的工作变得困难的时候，我们被推向一个存在性危机，纠结于对大多数人来说回答不了的问题：“这真的是我注定要做的吗？”这种不断的疑虑导致焦虑和慢性跳槽。
As I considered my options during my senior year of college, I knew all about this Cult of Passion and its demands. But I chose to ignore it. The alternative career philosophy that drove me is based on this simple premise: The traits that lead people to love their work are general and have little to do with a job’s specifics. These traits include a sense of autonomy and the feeling that you’re good at what you do and are having an impact on the world. Decades of research on workplace motivation back this up. (Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” offers a nice summary of this literature.)
当我在我大学的最后一年考虑我的选择的时候，我就知道了这种热情迷信和它的要求。但是我选择忽视它。驱使我的职业选择哲学是基于这个简单的前提：让人们热爱他们的工作的特质与一种工作的具体细节没有太大关系。这些特质包括一种自治感和你对你所做的是擅长的和你对世界产生影响的感觉。几十年的关于工作场所动力的研究都支持这种说法。（丹尼尔·平克的书“动力”提供了这本书的一个好的简介。）
These traits can be found in many jobs, but they have to be earned. Building valuable skills is hard and takes time. For someone in a new position, the right question is not, “What is this job offering me?” but, instead, “What am I offering this job?”
这些特质能在很多工作中找到，但是它们必须通过努力才能被得到。形成有价值的技巧是艰难而又费时的。对于一个职业新手而言，对的问题不是“这个工作正在给我提供什么？”而是“我正在给这份工作投入什么？”
RETURNING to my story, I decided after only minimal deliberation to go to M.I.T. True to my alternative career philosophy, I was confident that all three of my career options could be transformed into a source of passion, and this confidence freed me from worry about making a wrong choice. I ended up choosing M.I.T., mainly because of a slight preference for the East Coast, but I would have been equally content heading out to Microsoft’s headquarters near Seattle. Or, with the advance from my first book, I could have hunkered down in a quiet town to write.
回到我的故事，我后来仅仅经过最少的考虑就决定去MIT。和我的职业选择哲学相符，我自信我的所有三种职业选择都能成为热情的源泉，这种自信是我免于担心做出一个错误的选择。我最终选择了MIT，主要是因为对东海岸的一点偏爱，但是我也会同样高兴到西雅图附近的微软总部去。或者，凭借我第一本书的优势，我能在一个安静的地方潜心写作。
During my initial years as a graduate student, I certainly didn’t enjoy an unshakable sense that I had found my true calling. The beginning of doctoral training can be rough. You’re not yet skilled enough to make contributions to the research literature, which can be frustrating. And at a place like M.I.T., you’re surrounded by brilliance, which can make you question whether you belong.
在我毕业后的最初几年，我当然不喜欢一种我已经找到了我的天命的不可撼动的感觉。博士训练的开始是艰难的。你不够有技巧来对研究报告做出贡献，这一点是让人沮丧的。在像MIT的地方，你被杰出者包围，这让你会自问你是否属于那里。
Had I subscribed to the “follow our passion” orthodoxy, I probably would have left during those first years, worried that I didn’t feel love for my work every day. But I knew that my sense of fulfillment would grow over time, as I became better at my job. So I worked hard, and, as my competence grew, so did my engagement.
如果我那个时候服从了“跟随你的热情”哲学，我可能就因为担心我不爱我每天的工作而在那最初的几年里离开了。但是我哦知道我的满足感会与日俱增，当我对我的工作越来越擅长的时候。所以我努力工作，当我的竞争力增强的时候，我的投入也增加了。
Today, I’m a computer science professor at Georgetown University, and I love my job. The most important lesson I can draw from my experience is that this love has nothing to do with figuring out at an early age that I was meant to be a professor. There’s nothing special about my choosing this particular path. What mattered is what I did once I made my choice.
今天，我是一个乔治敦大学的电脑教授，而且我热爱我的工作。我能从我的经历中得到的最重要的教训是这种热爱与我早年时想要成为一个教授没有任何关系。我选择这条特别的道路没有什么特别的重要的是我曾经做了我的选择。
To other young people who constantly wonder if the grass might be greener on the other side of the occupational fence, I offer this advice: Passion is not something you follow. It’s something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world.
对其他一直想着职业篱笆另一边的草可能更绿的年轻人，我给出这条建议：热情不是你跟随的某样东西。这是你努力对世界做出有价值的工作时跟随你的东西。
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