We hear a lot about goal setting, but hardly anything about why we are so obsessed with goal setting in the first place. Many of us relentlessly pursue goals — which we take for granted as good — without pausing to ask ourselves whether we should.

我们听过很多关于设定目标的说法,但几乎没有听说过为什么我们一开始就对目标设定如此痴迷,我们中的许多人坚持不懈地追求目标——我们认为这是理所当然的好事——却没有停下来问自己是否应该这样做。

There’s a meta dimension to goal setting. What are the circumstances and environments out of which certain kinds of goals emerge? Where, or who, do we adopt our goals from in the first place?
It turns out that there are systems of desire behind nearly every goal — from education to investing to social media — which generate and shape the goals of the people within the systems. And the systems I’m referring to are systems of desire.

目标设定有一个元维度,某些类型的目标是在什么情况和环境下产生的?我们的目标首先从哪里,或者说从谁那里获得?
事实证明,几乎每一个目标背后都有一个“欲望系统”——从教育到投资到社交媒体——这些系统产生并塑造了系统内人们的目标,而我所指的系统就是这个欲望系统。

We should spend a lot more time thinking about these systems — even mapping them out and understanding our place within them — and less time talking about how to achieve the many socially derived goals that emerge from them.
If we see the systems, we gain the ability to see goals that lie outside them.

我们应该花更多的时间思考这些系统,甚至把它们绘制出来,理解我们在其中的位置,而不是谈论如何实现由它们产生的许多社会衍生目标。如果我们看到了系统,我们就有能力看到系统之外的目标。

Moving Goalposts
Author James Clear writes in his book Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones that “we don’t rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems.” From the standpoint of desire, our goals are the product of our systems. We can’t want something that is outside the system of desire we occupy.

移动的“球门柱”
作家詹姆斯 · 克莱尔在他的书《原子习惯: 培养好习惯和打破坏习惯的简单而行之有效的方法》中写道: “我们不会上升到目标的层次,我们会跌到系统的层次。”从欲望的角度来看,我们的目标是我们系统的产物,我们不可能想要在我们所处的欲望系统之外的东西。

The obsession with goal setting is misguided, even counterproductive. Setting goals isn’t bad. But when the focus is on how to set goals rather than how to choose them in the first place, goals can easily turn into instruments of self-flagellation.

痴迷于设定目标是被误导了,甚至会适得其反,设定目标并不是坏事,但是,当人们关注的是如何设定目标,而不是如何首先选择目标时,目标很容易变成自我鞭笞的工具。

Most people aren’t fully responsible for choosing their own goals. People pursue the goals that are on offer to them in their system of desire. Goals are often chosen for us, by models. And that means the goalposts are always moving.
Some trends in goal setting: don’t make goals vague, grandiose, or trivial; make sure they’re SMART (specific, measurable, assignable, relevant, and time-based); make them FAST (another acronym: frequent, ambitious, specific, and transparent); have good OKRs (obxtives and key results); put them in writing; share them with others for accountability. Goal setting has become very complicated. If someone tried to take all the latest tactics into account, it would be a wonder if they managed to set any goals at all.

大多数人对选择自己的目标并不完全负责,人们追求的是他们的欲望系统中提供给他们的目标,目标往往是由模型为我们选择的——这意味着“球门柱”(目标)总是在移动。
目标设定的一些趋势:不要让目标变得模糊、过于宏大或琐碎;确保它们是SMART(具体、可衡量、可分配、相关和基于时间);使它们成为FAST(另一个缩写:频繁、雄心勃勃、具体和透明);有良好的OKRs(目标和关键结果);把它们写下来;与他人分享,建立问责制。
目标设定已经变得非常复杂,如果有人试图把所有最新的策略都考虑进去,那么他真能制定出任何目标来都将是一个奇迹。

Don’t get me wrong: some of these tactics may be helpful. If I want to lose weight, it would help to set goals that are specific, measurable, assignable, relevant, and time-based. But it’s not immediately apparent that losing weight is a good goal for me to begin with. Why do I want to lose weight? What if I am at an ideal weight and I want to lose weight simply to look more like someone I saw on Instagram?

不要误会我的意思:这些策略中的一些可能是有帮助的。如果我想减肥,制定具体的、可衡量的、可分配的、相关的和基于时间的目标会有帮助,但是,对我来说,减肥是不是一个好的目标并不是一开始就很明显,我为什么要减肥?如果我现在的体重很理想,而我想减肥只是为了看起来更像我在Instagram上看到的某个人呢?

People set goals and make plans to arrive at a future point called “progress.” But will it be progress? How can we be so sure? The French chef Sébastien Bras set a goal to maintain his restaurant’s three Michelin stars, and he pursued it vigilantly. Then one day he realized the pursuit was killing him. He told the Michelin Guide to take back their stars and not to come back. Some goals — even good ones — overstay their welcome.

人们设定目标,制定计划,以达到一个被称为 "进步 "的未来点,但这是进步吗?我们怎么能如此肯定?法国厨师塞巴斯蒂安-布拉斯(Sébastien Bras)设定了一个目标,即保持他的餐厅的米其林三星,并且他警惕地追求这个目标,然后有一天,他意识到这种追求正在杀死他,他告诉《米其林指南》收回他们的三星,不要再来了,有些目标——即使是好的目标——会超出自己的期望。

Have you noticed that goals have an irreproachable and unimpeachable status? You want to run an ultramarathon? People will applaud your determination. Run for city office? You have their support. Sell your home and move into the back of a van? Cool, essentialism is in. Nobody will question your goals.

你有没有注意到,目标占据了一个无可指责、无可挑剔的地位?你想跑一次超级马拉松 ?人们会为你的决心鼓掌,你想竞选市政府职位?他们会支持你,你想卖掉你的房子,搬到货车车厢里去住?也很好,现在“本质主义”很流行的嘛——你看,没有人会质疑你的目标。

But it’s worth asking where goals come from in the first place. Every goal is embedded within a system.
Mimetic desire — the phenomenon of our wanting what other people want because they want it — is the unwritten, unacknowledged system behind visible goals. The more we bring that system to light, the less likely it is that we’ll pick and pursue the wrong goals.

但我们有必要首先问问目标从何而来,每个目标都是嵌入在某个系统之中的。
模仿的欲望——我们想要别人想要的东西,因为他们想要——是隐藏在可见目标背后的不成文的、未被承认的系统,我们越是把这个系统暴露出来,我们就越不可能选择和追求错误的目标。

Mimetic Systems
First, let’s look at a few more examples of what I call mimetic systems of desire — places, where the desire to achieve certain things are to be a certain kind of person, are heavily influenced by what other people desire or have desired in the past.

模仿系统
首先,让我们再看几个我称之为欲望模仿系统的例子——在这里,实现某些事情的欲望和成为某某种特定类型人的欲望,在很大程度上受到其他人的欲望或过去的欲望影响。

These systems are mimetic (which is another word for imitation) because everyone is unconsciously imitating the desires of the people around them or those who came before them. Few stop to ask whether pursuing the goals they have been conditioned to pursue are even in their best interest.
The U.S. education system, the venture capital industry, the “publish or perish” racket for academics and social media, are examples of mimetic systems: mimetic desire sustains them.

这些系统是模仿性的( imitation的另一种说法),因为每个人都在不自觉地模仿他们周围的人或前人的欲望,很少有人停下来问,追求那些他们习以为常的目标是否符合他们的最佳利益。
美国的教育系统、风险投资行业、学术界和社交媒体的 "不出版就灭亡 "的喧嚣,都是模仿系统的例子:模仿的欲望支撑着它们。

In U.S. secondary schools, most students organize their energy around college application builders such as their grade point average, standardized test scores, and extracurricular activities. Many high schools have the goal of 100 percent “college placement,” even though many university students feel they are no longer getting value for their money and wind up crushed by debt.

在美国的中学里,大多数学生把他们的精力都集中在大学申请上,比如他们平均绩点、标准化考试成绩和课外活动,许多高中的目标是百分之百的 "大学录取率",尽管许多大学生觉得他们的钱花得并非物有所值,最终被债务压垮。

Students have lost sight of the teleology, or final purpose, of the education system. When you’re in fifth grade, you know clearly that your goal is to get to sixth grade — and it goes like that up through twelfth grade, at which point you’ve spent the past four years of your life preparing for something called “college” along carefully defined lines (you probably even had a college advisor who advised you as to which schools you should apply for, based on your data).

学生们已经忽略了教育系统的目标,或者说最终目的。当你上五年级的时候,你清楚地知道你的目标是升入六年级—— 一直到十二年级,这时你已经花了你生命中的四年时间,按照精心定义的路线为一个叫做 "大学 "的东西做准备(你甚至可能有一个上大学顾问,根据你的数据,建议你应该申请哪些学校)。

College is where the teleology grows even less clear. Is the goal to get a good job? To get into grad school? To be a well-rounded person who is able to think critically? To be a good citizen? When I started at the Stern School of Business as an undergrad, I had no idea. So what did I do? I looked around to see what everyone else was doing — what everyone else seemed to want. There was a clear obxt of desire: Wall Street. So I fought for it, and I got what I thought I wanted. And that’s when I began my miserable fifteen-month career in Advanced Excel and PowerPoint.

大学是一个让目标变得更加模糊的地方。你的目标是找一份好工作吗?去读研究生?成为一个具备批判性思维并全面发展的人?做一个好公民?当我作为一个本科生开始在斯特恩商学院学习时,我是不知道,对此一无所知。那我做了什么?我环顾四周,看看其他人都在做什么——似乎其他人都想要点什么,其中有一个明确的愿望对象: 华尔街,所以我努力争取,我得到了我认为自己想要的东西,就在那时,我开始了我长达15个月的高级Excel和PowerPoint 打工人的悲惨职业生涯。

Traditional venture capital (VC) funds operate in a mimetic system. They need extraordinary returns on their investments to justify the risks they take. Many only fund companies that have the potential to return ten times the value of their investment within five to seven years. Because of their investment timeline, VCs favor technology companies that can scale quickly — not foodservice companies that might grow steadily but only incrementally over twenty or thirty years. They’re looking for instant ramen, not risotto.

传统的风险投资基金也是基于模仿系统运作的,他们需要超常的投资回报来证明他们所承担的风险是合理的,许多人只投资那些有可能在五到七年内回报十倍于其投资价值的公司,由于他们的投资期限,风险投资公司更青睐于能够迅速扩大规模的科技公司——而不是那些可能稳定增长但在20或30年内只能缓慢增长的餐饮服务公司,他们要的是速食拉面,而不是意大利烩饭。

The VC demand for quick-hitting investments increases the attractiveness of tech start-ups to entrepreneurs. A mimetic system takes shape. It is driven not only by economic incentives and financial returns — which no doubt factor in — but also the prestige and validation that come with being financed by the right VC. They award Michelin stars in the form of investment checks. And for VCs: the benefits of having invested in sexy companies and headline-grabbing CEOs.

风险投资公司对快速投资的需求增加了科技初创企业对企业家的吸引力,一个模仿系统形成了,它不仅受到经济激励和财务回报的驱动 (这毫无疑问是因素之一) ,还受到被合适的风险投资公司投资所带来的声望和认可的推动,他们以投资支票的形式授予“米其林星级”,对于风投公司来说,投资于备受瞩目的公司和引人注目的CEO所带来的好处也是如此。

Social media platforms thrive on mimesis. Twitter encourages and measures imitation by showing how many times each post has been retweeted. People are more likely to use Facebook the more they are engaged with mimetic models, rivals whose posts they can track and comment on.
The greater the mimetic forces on a social media platform, the more people want to use it. If social media companies were to build in more friction or braking mechanisms for mimetic behavior, they would decrease user engagement and ultimately revenue; they have strong financial incentives to accelerate mimetic behavior. If two people argue on a social media platform, drawing others into the feud, it’s not hard to see who wins: the platform.

社交媒体平台因模仿而繁荣。Twitter通过显示每个帖子被转发的次数来鼓励和衡量模仿行为,人们越是与模仿模式接触,就越有可能使用Facebook,人们越是喜欢模仿模型,就越有可能使用 Facebook,他们会去追踪和评论他们的帖子。
一个社交媒体平台上的模仿力量越大,人们就越想使用它。如果社交媒体公司限制模仿行为,建立更多的约束或制动机制,将会减少用户参与,最终导致收入减少,因此他们有强烈的经济动机来加速模仿行为——如果两个人在社交媒体平台上争论不休,那就把其他人也拉进这场争斗,不难看出谁是赢家:这个平台。

Systems of desire, both positive and negative, are everywhere. Prisons, monasteries, families, schools, and friend groups operate as systems of desire. And when a strong mimetic system is in place, it remains in place until it’s disrupted by a stronger one.

欲望的系统,无论是积极的还是消极的,都无处不在,监狱、寺院、家庭、学校和朋友圈都是一个欲望系统,当一个强大的模仿系统一旦存在,它就会一直存在,直到它被一个更强大的系统所破坏。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


So What Can We Do?
To step back, create distance from the systems of desire that we’re part of, and to try to see them for what they are.?
Stepping back and taking a high-level view of a system of desire is like flying over the country in a plane and seeing the fields and rivers and valleys below. It’s the best way to spot petty rivalries, small-spirited ambitions, and the emptiness of certain accolades or achievements.

那么,我们能做些什么呢?
退后一步,与我们所处的欲望系统保持距离,并试着看清它们的本来面目。
退后一步,对欲望系统进行高层次的观察,就像坐在飞机上俯瞰一个国家,看看下面的田野、河流和山谷,这是发现琐碎的竞争、小肚鸡肠的野心、以及某些空洞的荣誉或成就最好的方法。

If we want to go beyond the status quo or routines, we’ll need to gain perspective. So caught up are many of us with self-preservation and identity reuation brought on by the pandemic — Am I a Mask Wearer or Not? Am I a Risk-Taker or Safety Maximalist? Will I Be a Work-From-Homer or an Office Guy?— that we’re overdue for some serious self-examination as to where we go from here.

如果我们想超越现状或常规,我们就需要获得视角。我们中的许多人都陷入了由大流行带来的自我保护和身份重估中——我是戴口罩还是不戴 ?我是一个风险承担者还是一个安全至上主义者?我是要居家工作还是常驻办公室 ?——我们早就应该认真地自我检讨,看看接下来该怎么办。

How do we know whether the new goals and desires and lifestyles that we’ve either adopted, or want to adopt as we emerge from the pandemic, are indeed the ones that will lead to fulfillment?
The answers are elusive without radical honesty about the systems of desire that are shaping us. We should start mapping them out. Literally. You don’t have to be an artist, but you do have to externalize in some way the systems of desire that are deeply internalized within you.

我们如何知道,我们在这场大流行爆发后所采纳或希望采纳的新目标、新愿望和新生活方式,是否真的会带来满足?
如果没有对塑造我们的欲望系统的彻底诚实,答案是难以捉摸的,我们应该开始把它们绘制出来,你不必成为一个艺术家,但你必须以某种方式将你内心深处的欲望系统具体化。

It’s one thing to know a landscape by sight, another thing entirely to know it well enough to be able to map it out so that others may know how to navigate it too. The same is true of our inscape, or inner landscape. When it comes to our desires and the systems that mold them, we don’t truly understand them until we’ve named and communicated them.

透过视觉来了解风景是一回事,完全了解它,把它描绘出来以便其他人也知道如何去浏览则是另一回事,而我们的内在的“风景”或者说内在景观也是如此,对于我们的欲望和塑造它们的系统,我们只有搞清楚它们并与之沟通后才能真正理解它们。
原创翻译:龙腾网 http://www.ltaaa.cn 转载请注明出处


Map Out the Systems of Desire in Your World
Every industry, every school, every family has a particular system of desire that makes certain things more or less desirable. Know which systems of desire you’re living in. There’s probably more than one.
Our most pressing problems are problems of desire. We can’t want that which we’ve never seen or heard, or that which lies outside of the world that we live in, unless we’ve stopped believing that the universe of desire ends at whatever shore we happen to be standing on.

描绘出你的欲望系统
每个行业、每个学校、每个家庭都有一个特定的欲望系统,它或多或少地会让某些事情变得更加理想或不理想,了解你生活在哪些欲望系统中(可能不止一个)。
我们最紧迫的问题是欲望的问题。我们不可能想要那些我们从未见过或听过的东西,或者那些位于我们生活的世界之外的东西,除非我们已经不再相信欲望的世界终结在我们所站立的彼岸。

Setting better goals requires looking to the future and wanting something enough to effect change.It means falling in love with a better version of the future.
That’s the only way we’ll want to do something about climate change, poverty, or epidemic levels of obesity (among other things). We’ll need to desire the necessary changes more than we desire the alternatives — the comfortable, easy ways forward.

设定更好的目标需要着眼于未来,希望有足够的东西来实现改变,这意味着爱上一个更好的未来。
我们想要对气候变化、贫困或肥胖症的流行 (以及其它问题)采取行动,这是唯一的方式,我们需要的是必要的改变,而不是其他选择——舒适、简单的前进方式。

It starts with not growing complacent in the systems of desire that we’re in. First, we have to see them.
Here’s one exercise that I found helpful.
On a piece of paper, draw a large circle. The circle represents some system of desire that you’re currently in: your family, your company, your friend group, maybe even your country.

首先,我们不能自满于我们所处的欲望系统,我们必须正视它们。
这里有一个我觉得很有用的练习。
在一张纸上,画一个大圆圈,这个圆圈代表你目前所处的某种欲望系统:你的家庭、你的公司、你的朋友圈,甚至可能是你的国家。

On the inside of the circle, map out all of the people or institutions that are responsible for setting the goals that you (or other people) typically pursue. (For instance: Instagram Fitness Influencer That I Follow Has Six-Pack Abs). Be honest with yourself about how attached you are to the goals and people that you list.
Then ask yourself: What are some things that I might want to pursue that lie completely outside the boundaries, for which there is no support or understanding? These things fall outside of the circle.

在圆圈的内侧,画出所有负责设定你(或其他人)通常追求的目标的人或机构。例如:我关注的Instagram上的健身达人有六块腹肌),诚实地告诉自己,你对你所列举的目标和人有多重视。
然后问问你自己:有哪些事情是我想要去做的,却是完全超出界限的,是不被支持和理解的 ? 这些东西都在圆圈之外。

The outside is much harder to see. It’s the mysterious domain of desires and goals for which there aren’t any immediate models inside the system. Coming up with these doesn’t come easily. But it’s worth wrestling with for a few days.This is exercise in setting goals “outside the box” (or in this case, the circle.) The difference here is that we’re dealing with desire. We’re talking about goals, not ideas. Goals have to do with something we want, not just something we think.

圈外的东西更难看到,这是一个神秘的欲望和目标领域,在系统内部没有任何直接的模型,想出这些并不容易,但它值得我们花上几天时间去思考。
这是“跳出框框”( 在这里是圆圈 ) 设置目标的练习,不同之处在于我们处理的是欲望,我们谈论的是目标,而不是想法,目标与我们想要的东西有关,又不仅仅是我们想的东西。

The power of conformity is well-known in the realm of ideas, but far more powerful in the realm of desire. We want what other people want because there’s comfort in knowing that someone else is pursuing the same thing that we are. Nobody wants to run a marathon alone.
Yet the idea that I want to run a marathon at all is the more interesting thing. Where did I get it in the first place?

从众的力量在思想领域是众所周知的,但在欲望领域更强大,我们想要别人想要的东西,因为知道别人在追求和我们一样的东西会让我们感到安慰,没有人会愿意独自一人跑马拉松。
然而,我想跑马拉松的想法才是更有趣的事情,这个想法一开始是从何而来的?

The question that our culture will have to answer is whether we want to run more and more decadent marathons, or whether we want to go to Mars, or whether there’s a greater desire that we are in the process of realizing.
We’ll realize it by recognizing not only our limiting beliefs, but also recognizing the people and things that limit our desires.

我们的文化将不得不回答的问题是,我们是想跑越来越颓废的马拉松,还是想去火星,或者是否有一个更大的欲望,我们正在实现的过程中。
我们要认识到这一点,不仅要认识到我们的受限心理,还要认识到限制我们欲望的人和事。

Entrepreneur and VC Marc Andreessen, in an April 2020 post on his company’s website titled “It’s Time to Build,” wonders how so many Western countries were unprepared — from a production standpoint — for the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020. At one point, there were serious shortages of ventilators, test kits, cotton swabs, even hospital gowns. The complacency and malaise seemed to extend to many other domains, even before the pandemic — to education, manufacturing, transportation. Why were Americans no longer building the things of the future? he asked.

2020年4月,企业家兼风险投资家 Marc Andreessen 在他的公司网站上发表了一篇题为《是时候建设了》的文章,他想知道从生产的角度来说为什么这么多西方国家对2020年新冠病毒的爆发毫无准备,呼吸机、检测试剂盒、棉签,甚至医院的病号服都一度出现严重短缺,这种自满情绪和萎靡不振似乎延伸到了许多其他领域,甚至在大流行病之前就已经出现了,譬如教育、制造业和交通运输业,他问,为什么美国人不再建造未来的东西 ?

The problem is not capital or competence or even a lack of awareness of what’s needed. “The problem is desire,” Andreessen wrote. “We need to ‘want’ these things.” But he acknowledges that there are forces in place that prevent us from wanting to build the things we need: regulatory capture, industry incumbents, stalemate politics. “The problem is inertia,” he continued. “We need to want these things more than we want to prevent these things.”

问题不在于资本或能力,甚至不在于缺乏对所需事物的认识,“问题在于欲望,”安德森写道“我们需要‘想要’的欲望。”
但他承认,有一些力量在阻止我们想要建造我们需要的东西:监管部门的掣肘、行业既得利益者、僵持的政治。
“问题在于惯性,”他继续说道“ 我们需要更多地想要这些东西的欲望,而不是想要阻止这些东西的欲望。”

Crippled systems of desire, unable to adapt, have made it so that we gravitate toward the path of least resistance — monetizing YouTube videos of people reacting to other YouTube videos, for instance — and lack the will to build the essential tools needed for human survival and flourishing.

由于欲望系统遭到破坏,我们无法适应,我们被吸引到了阻力最小的道路上——例如,将人们对其他 YouTube 视频的反应转化为金钱,缺乏建立人类生存和繁荣所需的基本工具的意愿。

If you understand the systems of desire that color the choices of people around you, you’re more likely to see emergent possibilities by daring to look in different directions.
Make visible what is invisible. Mark the boundaries of your current world of wanting, and you’ll gain the ability to transcend it.

如果你理解了周围人的欲望系统,你就更有可能看到突发的可能性,因为你敢于看向不同的方向。
使不可见的东西可见,标记出你你当前欲望世界的界限,你就会获得超越它的能力。