Which option do you prefer?
- I flip a coin. Heads, I give you $100,000, tails, you get nothing.
- I give you $1000.
你会如何选择？
- 如正面朝上，我给你10万美金，正面朝下则一无所获。
- 我给你1000美金
Of course, like 90% of people, you’d take the $1,000, even though the expected value of the gamble is $50,000. In economics, the $49,000 difference is called risk premium. If you’re willing to take on risk, you stand to gain a large reward.
虽然第一种选择的期望值为5万美金，90%的人会选择拿1000美金。在经济学里，这4.9万美金称为风险溢价。倘若你愿意冒险一试，你就有机会拿到丰富的奖励。
The reason most people aren’t is that they spend their entire lives chasing certainty. In a 1951 book called The Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts talks about the benefits of not craving certainty so much:
大多数人不愿意冒险是因为他们一生都在寻求稳定。在阿伦• 瓦兹于1951年发行的书本《心之道》中，他谈到了不要太追求稳定的益处：
I call it the backwards law. When you try to stay on the surface of the water, you sink; but when you try to sink, you float. When you hold your breath, you lose it — which immediately calls to mind an ancient and much neglected saying, ‘Whosoever would save his soul shall lose it.
我称之为Backwards law。你越想浮在水面，你身体反而会下沉；而当你试图下沉，你的身体反而会浮起来。当你憋气时，你又掉下去了，这不禁让我想起了一句古老但被世人忽略的谚语---凡要救自己生命的,必丧掉生命。
Today, the world is more uncertain than ever before, which makes the skill Watts talks about more valuable than it ever was.
That skill is called detachment
It is the art of being okay when life sucks, because you’re removed from the expectation that it pans out a certain way.
Detachment enables you to do great things:
- You can swing for home runs instead of second base, because you don’t need the $1,000.
- You’re free to say “I don’t know,” because you don’t feel pressure to look smart.
- You can always say how you feel, because you’re not worried about whether your feelings will offend others.
- You focus on taking care of your own shortcomings, rather than pointing out others’, because you’re not so great just yet.
- You don’t worry about being wrong, because it doesn’t matter if you’re right today or tomorrow. You can contradict yourself, but the world keeps turning.
- You can just do your job and watch what happens, because it’s as good as any job on the way to figuring out your dream one.
- You accept that life has trade-offs (权衡取舍) and make them, rather than constantly trying to bypass the fact itself.
Ironically, caring a little less helps you get more out of what you care so much about. Detachment allows higher demands and not settling for less. Ask not for certainty, ask for the best.
You only get one life. Swing for the fences.
人生只有一次，何不尽全力一搏！
From Quoran- Niklas Göke
My peers think I'm weird. I must be doing something right."
