Part 1: Meet Your Mammoth
第一部分：认识你的猛犸象
The first day I was in second grade, I came to school and noticed that there was a new, very pretty girl in the class---someone who hadn’t been there the previous two years. Her name was Alana and within an hour, she was everything to me.
我上二年级的第一天，来到学校时注意到班上有一个新来的、非常漂亮的女孩——之前两年都没见过她。她叫 Alana，不到一小时，她就成了我的一切。
When you’re seven, there aren’t really any actionable steps you can take when you’re in love with someone. You’re not even sure what you want from the situation. There’s just this amorphous yearning that’s a part of your life, and that’s that.
当你七岁时，爱上某人时你其实没什么可以采取的实际行动。你甚至不确定自己想从这种情况中得到什么。只是有一种模糊的渴望成为了你生活的一部分，仅此而已。
But for me, it became suddenly relevant a few months later, when during recess one day, one of the girls in the class started asking each of the boys, “Who do youwant to marry?” When she asked me, it was a no-brainer. “Alana.”
但对我来说，几个月后的一天，这突然变得相关起来。在课间休息时，班上一个女孩开始问每个男生：“你想嫁给谁？“当她问到我时，我毫不犹豫地回答：“Alana。”
Disaster.
灾难。
I was still new to being a human and didn’t realize that the only socially acceptable answer was, “No one.”
我那时还不太懂得做人，没意识到唯一社交上可接受的回答是”没有人”。
The second I answered, the heinous girl ran toward other students, telling each one, “Tim said he wants to marry Alana!” Each person she told covered their mouth with uncontrollable laughter. I was finished. Life was over.
我刚一回答，那个可恶的女孩就跑向其他同学，告诉每个人：“Tim 说他想娶 Alana！“每个听到的人都忍不住捂嘴大笑。我完蛋了。人生结束了。
The news quickly got back to Alana herself, who stayed as far away from me as possible for days after. If she knew what a restraining order was, she’d have taken one out.
这个消息很快传到了 Alana 本人那里，之后她连续几天都尽可能远离我。如果她知道什么是限制令的话，她肯定会申请一份。
This horrifying experience taught me a critical life lesson---it can be mortally dangerous to be yourself, and you should exercise extreme social caution at all times.
这个可怕的经历教会了我一个至关重要的人生教训——做自己可能会带来致命的危险，你应该时刻保持极度的社交谨慎。
Now this sounds like something only a traumatized second grader would think, but the weird thing, and the topic of this post, is that this lesson isn’t just limited to me and my debacle of a childhood---*it’s a defining paranoia of the human species.*We share a collective insanity that pervades human cultures throughout the world:
现在这听起来像是只有受过创伤的二年级学生才会想到的事，但奇怪的是，这篇文章的主题就是，这个教训并不仅限于我和我那糟糕的童年——它是人类的一种普遍偏执。我们共同拥有一种遍布全世界人类文化的集体疯狂：
An irrational and unproductive obsession with what other people think of us.
一种对他人看法的非理性且无益的痴迷。
Evolution does everything for a reason, and to understand the origin of this particular insanity, let’s back up for a minute to 50,000BC in Ethiopia, where your Great^2,000^ Grandfather lived as part of a small tribe.
进化做任何事都有其原因，为了理解这种特殊疯狂的起源，让我们回到公元前 50,000 年的埃塞俄比亚，你的 2000 代祖父 当时作为一个小部落的成员生活在那里。
Back then, being part of a tribe was critical to survival. A tribe meant food and protection in a time when neither was easy to come by. So for your Great^2,000^ Grandfather, almost nothing in the world was more important than being accepted by his fellow tribe members, especially those in positions of authority. Fitting in with those around him and pleasing those above him meant he could stay in the tribe, and about the worst nightmare he could imagine would be people in the tribe starting to whisper about how annoying or unproductive or weird he was---because if enough people disapproved of him, his ranking within the tribe would drop, and if it got really bad, he’d be kicked out altogether and left for dead. He also knew that if he ever embarrassed himself by pursuing a girl in the tribe and being rejected, she’d tell the other girls about it---not only would he have blown his chance with that girl, but he might never have a mate at all now because every girl that would ever be in his life knew about his lame, failed attempt. Being socially accepted was everything.
在那个时代，成为部落的一员对生存至关重要。部落意味着食物和保护，而这两样在当时都不容易获得。因此，对你的 2000 代祖父来说，几乎没有什么比被他的部落成员接纳更重要的了，尤其是那些处于权威地位的人。融入周围的人并取悦上级意味着他可以留在部落中，而他能想象的最可怕的噩梦就是部落里的人开始窃窃私语，说他有多烦人、多无用或多奇怪——因为如果有足够多的人不赞同他，他在部落中的地位就会下降，如果情况真的很糟糕，他就会被彻底踢出去，任其自生自灭。他也知道，如果他曾经因追求部落里的一个女孩而出丑被拒绝，她会告诉其他女孩——这样他不仅会失去与那个女孩的机会，而且可能永远都找不到伴侣了，因为他生命中可能遇到的每个女孩都知道他那可悲的、失败的尝试。社交上被接受就是一切。
Because of this, humans evolved an over-the-top obsession with what others thought of them---a craving for social approval and admiration, and a paralyzing fear of being disliked. Let’s call that obsession a human’s Social Survival Mammoth. It looks something like this:
因此，人类进化出了一种对他人看法的过度痴迷——渴望得到社交认可和赞美，以及对被人讨厌的极度恐惧。让我们把这种痴迷称为人类的社交生存猛犸象。它看起来像这样：
Your Great^2,000^ Grandfather’s Social Survival Mammoth was central to his ability to endure and thrive. It was simple---keep the mammoth well fed with social approval and pay close attention to its overwhelming fears of nonacceptance, and you’ll be fine.
你的 2000 代祖父的社交生存猛犸象是他能够生存和繁荣的核心。很简单——用社交认可来喂饱猛犸象，并密切关注它对不被接受的巨大恐惧，你就会没事。
And that was all well and fine in 50,000BC. And 30,000BC. And 10,000BC. But something funny has happened for humans in the last 10,000 years---their civilization has dramatically changed. Sudden, quick change is something civilization has the ability to do, and the reason that can be awkward is that our evolutionary biology can’t move nearly as fast. So while for most of history, both our social structure and our biology evolved and adjusted at a snail’s pace together, civilization has recently developed the speed capabilities of a hare while our biology has continued snailing along.
这在公元前 50,000 年、30,000 年和 10,000 年都很好。但在过去的 10,000 年里，人类发生了一些有趣的变化——他们的文明发生了戏剧性的变化。文明有能力进行突然、快速的变化，而这可能会造成尴尬的原因是我们的进化生物学无法以同样的速度发展。因此，虽然在历史的大部分时间里，我们的社会结构和生物学都以蜗牛般的速度一起进化和调整，但文明最近发展出了兔子般的速度能力，而我们的生物学仍在缓慢前进。
Our bodies and minds are built to live in a tribe in 50,000BC, which leaves modern humans with a number of unfortunate traits, one of which is a fixation with tribal-style social survival in a world where social survival is no longer a real concept. We’re all here in 2014, accompanied by a large, hungry, and easily freaked-out woolly mammoth who still thinks it’s 50,000BC.
我们的身体和思维是为了在公元前 50,000 年的部落中生活而构建的，这使现代人类具有一些不幸的特征，其中之一就是在一个社交生存不再是真实概念的世界里，仍然固守部落式的社交生存方式。我们现在都生活在 2014 年，但却伴随着一只庞大、饥饿且容易受惊的长毛猛犸象，它仍然认为现在是公元前 50,000 年。
Why else would you try on four outfits and still not be sure what to wear before going out?
否则，为什么你会在出门前试穿四套衣服还不确定该穿什么？
The mammoth’s nightmares about romantic rejection made your ancestors cautious and savvy, but in today’s world, it just makes you a coward:
猛犸象对浪漫拒绝的噩梦使你的祖先变得谨慎和精明，但在今天的世界里，它只会让你成为一个懦夫：
And don’t even get the mammoth started on the terror of artistic risks:
更别提让猛犸象谈论艺术风险的恐惧了：
The mammoth’s hurricane of fear of social disapproval plays a factor in most parts of most people’s lives. It’s what makes you feel weird about going to a restaurant or a movie alone; it’s what makes parents care a little too much about where their child goes to college; it’s what makes you pass up a career you’d love in favor of a more lucrative career you’re lukewarm about; it’s what makes you get married before you’re ready to a person you’re not in love with.
猛犸象对社交不认可的恐惧风暴在大多数人生活的大部分方面都起着作用。它让你觉得独自去餐厅或看电影很奇怪；它让父母过分关心孩子上哪所大学；它让你放弃你喜爱的职业，转而选择一个你不太热衷但更有利可图的职业；它让你在还没准备好时就与一个你并不爱的人结婚。
And while keeping your highly insecure Social Survival Mammoth feeling calm and safe takes a lot of work, that’s only one half of your responsibilities. The mammoth also needs to be fed regularly and robustly---with praise, approval, and the feeling of being on the right side of any social or moral dichotomy.
虽然让你那高度不安全的社交生存猛犸象保持平静和安全需要付出很多努力，但这只是你责任的一半。猛犸象还需要定期且充分地被喂养——用赞美、认可，以及在任何社交或道德二分法中站在正确一方的感觉。
Why else would you be such an image-crafting douchebag on Facebook?
否则，你为什么会在 Facebook 上成为一个 如此注重形象塑造的讨厌鬼？
Or brag when you’re out with friends even though you always regret it later?
或者在和朋友出去时吹嘘，尽管你事后总是后悔？
Society has evolved to accommodate this mammoth-feeding frenzy, inventing things like accolades and titles and the concept of prestige in order to keep our mammoths satisfied---and often to incentivize people to do meaningless jobs and live unfulfilling lives they wouldn’t otherwise consider taking part in.
社会已经进化到适应这种猛犸象喂养狂潮，发明了诸如荣誉、头衔和声望等概念，以保持我们的猛犸象满足——并经常用来激励人们做一些毫无意义的工作，过一些他们原本不会考虑参与的无法满足的生活。
Above all, mammoths want to fit in---that’s what tribespeople had always needed to do so that’s how they’re programmed. Mammoths look around at society to figure out what they’re supposed to do, and when it becomes clear, they jump right in. Just look at any two college fraternity pictures taken ten years apart:
最重要的是，猛犸象想要融入——这是部落成员一直需要做的事情，所以它们就是这样被编程的。猛犸象环顾社会，弄清楚它们应该做什么，一旦明确了，它们就会立即投入其中。只要看看任何相隔十年拍摄的两张大学兄弟会照片：
Or all those subcultures where every single person has one of the same three socially-acceptable advanced degrees:
或者那些每个人都有相同的三种社会认可的高级学位之一的亚文化：
Sometimes, a mammoth’s focus isn’t on wider society as much as it’s on winning the approval of a Puppet Master in your life. A Puppet Master is a person or group of people whose opinion matters so much to you that they’re essentially running your life. A Puppet Master is often a parent, or maybe your significant other, or sometimes an alpha member of your group of friends. A Puppet Master can be a person you look up to who you don’t know very well---maybe even a celebrity you’ve never met---or a group of people you hold in especially high regard.
有时，猛犸象的关注点并不是更广泛的社会，而是赢得你生活中某个”操纵者”的认可。操纵者是一个人或一群人，他们的意见对你来说非常重要，以至于他们实际上在主导你的生活。操纵者通常是父母，或者可能是你的另一半，有时是你朋友圈中的领袖人物。操纵者可能是你仰慕但不太了解的人——甚至可能是你从未见过的名人——或者是你特别尊敬的一群人。
We crave the Puppet Master’s approval more than anyone’s, and we’re so horrified at the thought of upsetting the Puppet Master or feeling their nonacceptance or ridicule that we’ll do anything to avoid it. When we get to this toxic state in our relationship with a Puppet Master, that person’s presence hangs over our entire decision-making process and pulls the strings of our opinions and our moral voice.
我们渴望操纵者的认可胜过任何人，我们对惹恼操纵者或感受到他们的不接受或嘲笑的想法感到如此恐惧，以至于我们会做任何事来避免这种情况。当我们与操纵者的关系达到这种有毒的状态时，那个人的存在会笼罩我们整个决策过程，操纵我们的观点和道德声音。
With so much thought and energy dedicated to the mammoth’s needs, you often end up neglecting someone else in your brain, someone all the way at the center---your Authentic Voice.
当你把如此多的思考和精力都用在满足猛犸象的需求上时，你经常会忽视大脑中的另一个人，一个位于中心的人——你的真实声音。
Your Authentic Voice, somewhere in there, knows all about you. In contrast to the black-and-white simplicity of the Social Survival Mammoth, your Authentic Voice is complex, sometimes hazy, constantly evolving, and unafraid. Your AV has its own, nuanced moral code, formed by experience, reflection, and its own personal take on compassion and integrity. It knows how you feel deep down about things like money and family and marriage, and it knows which kinds of people, topics of interest, and types of activities you truly enjoy, and which you don’t. Your AV knows that it doesn’t know how your life will or should play out, but it tends to have a strong hunch about the right step to take next.
你的真实声音，就在那里的某个地方，它了解关于你的一切。与社交生存猛犸象的黑白简单相比，你的真实声音是复杂的，有时模糊，不断进化，且无所畏惧。你的真实声音有自己独特的道德准则，由经验、反思和对同情心与诚信的个人理解形成。它深知你对金钱、家庭和婚姻等事物的真实感受，它知道你真正喜欢哪种人、哪些兴趣话题和哪类活动，也知道你不喜欢什么。你的真实声音知道它并不知道你的人生将会或应该如何发展，但它往往对下一步该怎么走有强烈的直觉。
And while the mammoth looks only to the outside world in its decision-making process, your Authentic Voice uses the outside world to learn and gather information, but when it’s time for a decision, it has all the tools it needs right there in the core of your brain.
而猛犸象在决策过程中只看外部世界，你的真实声音则利用外部世界来学习和收集信息，但当需要做决定时，它在你大脑核心就拥有所需的一切工具。
Your AV is also someone the mammoth tends to ignore entirely. A strong opinion from a confident person in the outside world? The mammoth is all ears. But a passionate plea from your AV is largely dismissed until someone else validates it.
你的真实声音也是猛犸象倾向于完全忽视的对象。外部世界中一个自信人士的强烈观点？猛犸象全神贯注。但来自你真实声音的热情呼吁却往往被忽视，直到有人else验证它。
And since our 50,000-year-old brains are wired to give the mammoth a whole lot of sway in things, your Authentic Voice starts to feel like it’s irrelevant. Which makes it shrink and fade and lose motivation.
由于我们 50,000 年前的大脑被设定为让猛犸象在很多事情上有很大影响力，你的真实声音开始感觉自己变得无关紧要。这使它萎缩、褪色并失去动力。
Eventually, a mammoth-run person can lose touch with their AV entirely.
最终，一个被猛犸象主导的人可能完全失去与自己真实声音的联系。
In tribal times, AVs often spent their lives in quiet obscurity, and this was largely okay. Life was simple, and conformity was the goal---and the mammoth had conformity covered just fine.
在部落时代，真实声音常常默默无闻地度过一生，这在很大程度上是可以接受的。生活很简单，conformity 是目标——而猛犸象在 conformity 方面做得很好。
But in today’s large, complex world of varying cultures and personalities and opportunities and options, losing touch with your AV is dangerous. When you don’t know who you are, the only decision-making mechanism you’re left with is the crude and outdated needs and emotions of your mammoth. When it comes to the most personal questions, instead of digging deep into the foggy center of what you really believe in to find clarity, you’ll look to others for the answers. Who you are becomes some blend of the strongest opinions around you.
但在今天这个文化、个性、机会和选择多样化的大型复杂世界中，失去与真实声音的联系是危险的。当你不知道自己是谁时，你唯一剩下的决策机制就是猛犸象那粗糙且过时的需求和情感。面对最个人化的问题时，你不会深入挖掘自己真正信仰的模糊中心来寻找清晰，而是会向他人寻求答案。你是谁变成了周围最强烈观点的某种混合体。
Losing touch with your AV also makes you fragile, because when your identity is built on the approval of others, being criticized or rejected by others _really_hurts. A bad break-up is painful for everyone, but it stings in a much deeper place for a mammoth-run person than for a person with a strong AV. A strong AV makes a stable core, and after a break-up, that core is still holding firm---but since the acceptance of others is all a mammoth-run person has, being dumped by a person who knows you well is a far more shattering experience.
失去与真实声音的联系也会让你变得脆弱，因为当你的身份建立在他人的认可之上时，被他人批评或拒绝会真的很伤人。糟糕的分手对每个人来说都是痛苦的，但对于一个被猛犸象主导的人来说，这种痛苦会比一个拥有强大真实声音的人更加深入。强大的真实声音形成一个稳定的核心，即使在分手后，这个核心仍然坚固——但由于被猛犸象主导的人所拥有的只有他人的接受，被一个了解你的人抛弃会是一种更加令人崩溃的经历。
Likewise, you know those people who react to being criticized by coming back with a nasty low-blow? Those tend to be severely mammoth-run people, and criticism makes them so mad because mammoths cannot handle criticism.
同样，你知道那些在被批评时会以恶毒的低级反击来回应的人吗？这些往往是严重被猛犸象主导的人，批评让他们如此生气是因为猛犸象无法处理批评。
At this point, the mission should be clear---we need to figure out a way to override the wiring of our brain and tame the mammoth. That’s the only way to take our lives back.
到这一点，任务应该很明确了——我们需要找到一种方法来覆盖我们大脑的固有模式，驯服猛犸象。这是夺回我们生活的唯一方法。
Part 2: Taming the Mammoth
第二部分：驯服猛犸象
Some people are born with a reasonably tame mammoth or raised with parenting that helps keep the mammoth in check. Others die without ever reining their mammoth in at all, spending their whole lives at its whim. Most of us are somewhere in the middle---we’ve got control of our mammoth in certain areas of our lives while it wreaks havoc in others. Being run by your mammoth doesn’t make you a bad or weak person---it just means you haven’t yet figured out how to get a grip on it. You might not even be aware that you have a mammoth at all or of the extent to which your Authentic Voice has been silenced.
有些人天生就有一只相对温顺的猛犸象，或者在成长过程中得到了帮助控制猛犸象的教育。还有一些人终其一生都没能驾驭自己的猛犸象，一直任其摆布。我们大多数人处于中间状态——在生活的某些领域我们能控制住猛犸象，而在其他领域它却肆意妄为。被猛犸象主导并不意味着你是一个坏人或弱者——这只是意味着你还没有找到控制它的方法。你甚至可能没有意识到自己有一只猛犸象，或者不知道你的真实声音在多大程度上被压制了。
Whatever your situation, there are three steps to getting your mammoth under your control:
无论你的情况如何，控制你的猛犸象有三个步骤：
Step 1: Examine Yourself
第一步：审视自己
The first step to improving things is a clear and honest assessment of what’s going on in your head, and there are three parts of this:
改善情况的第一步是清晰而诚实地评估你头脑中发生的事情，这包括三个部分：
1) Get to know your Authentic Voice
1）了解你的真实声音
This doesn’t sound that hard, but it is. It takes some serious reflection to sift through the webs of other people’s thoughts and opinions and figure out who the real you actually is. You spend time with a lot of people---which of them do you actually like the most? How do you spend your leisure time, and do you truly enjoy all parts of it? Is there anything you regularly spend money on that you don’t feel that comfortable with? How does your gut really feel about your job and relationship status? What’s your true political opinion? Do you even care? Do you pretend to care about things you don’t just to have an opinion? Do you secretly have an opinion on a political or moral issue you don’t ever voice because people you know will be outraged?
这听起来并不难，但实际上很难。需要认真反思才能梳理出他人思想和观点的网络，弄清楚真实的你究竟是谁。你和很多人相处——你最喜欢哪些人？你如何度过闲暇时光，你真的享受其中的每一部分吗？有没有什么你经常花钱但感觉不太舒服的事情？你对自己的工作和感情状况的真实感受如何？你真正的政治观点是什么？你真的在乎吗？你是否假装关心一些你其实并不在意的事情只是为了有个观点？你是否在某些政治或道德问题上有秘密的观点，但从不表达，因为你认识的人会感到愤怒？
There are cliché phrases for this process---“soul-searching” or “finding yourself”---but that’s exactly what needs to happen. Maybe you can reflect on this from whatever chair you’re sitting in right now or from some other part of your normal life---or maybe you need to go somewhere far away, by yourself, and step out of your life in order to effectively examine it. Either way, you’ve got to figure out what actually matters to you and start being proud of whoever your Authentic Voice is.
这个过程有一些陈词滥调的说法——“灵魂探索”或”寻找自我”——但这正是需要发生的事情。也许你可以从现在坐着的椅子上或生活中的其他地方开始反思——或者你可能需要独自去一个遥远的地方，脱离你的生活才能有效地审视它。无论如何，你必须弄清楚什么对你来说真正重要，并开始为你的真实声音感到自豪。
2) Figure out where the mammoth is hiding
2）找出猛犸象藏在哪里
Most of the time a mammoth is in control of a person, the person’s not really aware of it. But you can’t make progress if you’re not crystal clear about where the biggest problem areas are.
大多数时候，当猛犸象控制一个人时，这个人并没有真正意识到。但如果你不清楚最大的问题区域在哪里，就无法取得进展。
The most obvious way to find the mammoth is to figure out where your fear is---where are you most susceptible to shame or embarrassment? What parts of your life do you think about and a dreadful, sinking feeling washes over you? Where does the prospect of failure seem like a nightmare? What are you too timid to publicly try even though you know you’re good at it? If you were giving advice to yourself, which parts of your life would clearly need a change that you’re avoiding acting on right now?
找到猛犸象最明显的方法是找出你的恐惧所在——你在哪些方面最容易感到羞耻或尴尬？生活中哪些部分让你一想到就感到可怕、沮丧？在哪些方面失败的前景看起来像噩梦？有什么事你知道自己很擅长，却因为太胆小而不敢公开尝试？如果你要给自己建议，生活中哪些部分明显需要改变，但你现在却在回避采取行动？
The second place a mammoth hides is in the way-too-good feelings you get from feeling accepted or on a pedestal over other people. Are you a serious pleaserat work or in your relationship? Are you terrified of disappointing your parents and do you choose making them proud over aiming to gratify yourself? Do you get too excited about being associated with prestigious things or care too much about status? Do you brag more than you should?
猛犸象藏身的第二个地方是那种因被接受或凌驾于他人之上而产生的过分美好的感觉。 你是否在工作或关系中过分讨好他人？你是否非常害怕让父母失望，以至于选择让他们骄傲而不是追求自己的满足？你是否对与有声望的事物联系在一起过于兴奋，或过分在意地位？你是否比应该的更爱吹嘘？
A third area the mammoth is present is anywhere you don’t feel comfortable making a decision without “permission” or approval from others. Do you have opinions you’re regurgitating from someone else’s mouth, which you’re comfortable having now that you know that person has them? When you introduce your new girlfriend or boyfriend to your friends or family for the first time, can those people’s reaction to your new person fundamentally change your feelings for him/her? Is there a Puppet Master in your life? If so, who, and why?
猛犸象存在的第三个领域是任何你在没有得到他人”许可”或认可的情况下不敢做决定的地方。 你是否有一些观点其实是从别人那里照搬来的，而你现在之所以对这些观点感到舒服，只是因为你知道那个人持有这些观点？当你第一次向朋友或家人介绍你的新女朋友或男朋友时，这些人对你新伴侣的反应是否会从根本上改变你对他/她的感觉？你的生活中是否有一个”操纵者”？如果有，是谁，为什么？
3) Decide where the mammoth needs to be ousted
3）决定在哪些方面需要驱逐猛犸象
It’s not realistic to kick the mammoth entirely out of your head---you’re a human and humans have mammoths in their head, period. The thing we all need to do is carve out certain sacred areas of our lives that _must_be in the hands of the AV and free of mammoth influence. There are obvious areas that need to be made part of the AV’s domain like your choice of life partner, your career path, and the way you raise your kids. Others are personal---it comes down to the question, “In which parts of your life must you be entirely true to yourself?”
完全把猛犸象赶出你的头脑是不现实的——你是人类，人类的头脑中就有猛犸象，就是这样。我们都需要做的是在生活中划出一些神圣的领域，这些领域必须由真实声音掌控，不受猛犸象的影响。有一些显而易见的领域需要成为真实声音的领地，比如你选择生活伴侣、职业道路，以及抚养孩子的方式。其他的则是个人的——归根结底就是这个问题：“在生活的哪些部分，你必须完全忠于自己？“
Step 2: Gather Courage by Internalizing That the Mammoth Has a Low IQ
第二步：通过内化猛犸象智商低下来积累勇气
Real Woolly Mammoths were unimpressive enough to go extinct, and Social Survival Mammoths aren’t any better. Despite the fact that they haunt us so, our mammoths are dumb, primitive creatures who have no understanding of the modern world. Deeply understanding this---and internalizing it---is a key step to taming yours. There are two major reasons not to take your mammoth seriously:
真正的长毛猛犸象都不够出色以至于灭绝了，社交生存猛犸象也好不到哪里去。尽管它们如此困扰我们，但我们的猛犸象其实是愚蠢、原始的生物，它们对现代世界毫无理解。深刻理解这一点——并将其内化——是驯服你的猛犸象的关键一步。有两个主要原因不应该认真对待你的猛犸象：
1) The mammoth’s fears are totally irrational.
1）猛犸象的恐惧完全是非理性的。
5 things the Mammoth is incorrect about:
猛犸象错误认识的5件事：
→ Everyone is talking about me and my life and just think how much everyone will be talking about it if I do this risky or weird thing.
→ 每个人都在谈论我和我的生活，想想如果我做了这件冒险或奇怪的事，每个人会谈论得有多厉害。
Here’s how the mammoth thinks things are:
这是猛犸象认为事情的样子：
Here’s how things actually are:
这是事情的真实情况：
No one really cares that much about what you’re doing. People are highly self-absorbed.
→ If I try really hard, I can please everyone.
→ 如果我非常努力，我就能取悦所有人。
Yes, maybe in a 40-person tribe with a unified culture. But in today’s world, no matter who you are, a bunch of people will like you and a bunch of other people won’t. Being approved of by one type of person means turning another off. So obsessing over fitting in with any one group is illogical, especially if that group isn’t really who you are. You’ll do all that work, and meanwhile, your actual favorite people are off being friends with each other somewhere else.
是的，也许在一个有统一文化的40人部落里可以。但在今天的世界里，无论你是谁，总会有一群人喜欢你，也有一群人不喜欢你。被一类人认可意味着会让另一类人反感。所以痴迷于融入任何一个群体都是不合逻辑的，尤其是如果那个群体并不真正代表你是谁。你会做所有那些工作，而与此同时，你真正喜欢的人正在别处和彼此做朋友。
→ Being disapproved of or looked down upon or shit-talked about has real consequences in my life.
→ 被不认可、被看不起或被说闲话会对我的生活产生真实的影响。
Anyone who disapproves of who you’re being or what you’re doing isn’t even in the same room with you 99.7% of the time. It’s a classic mammoth mistake to fabricate a vision of future social consequences that is wayworse than what actually ends up happening---which is usually nothing at all.
任何不认可你是谁或你在做什么的人，99.7%的时间里甚至都不在同一个房间里。这是猛犸象的一个典型错误，即编造出一个未来社交后果的景象，这个景象比实际发生的要糟糕得多——而实际上通常什么都不会发生。
→ Really judgy people matter.
→ 非常爱评判的人很重要。
Here’s how judgy people function: They’re highly mammoth-controlled and become good friends with and date other judgy people who are also highly mammoth-controlled. One of the primary activities they do together is talk shit about whoever’s not with them---maybe they feel some jealousy, and eye-rolling disapproval helps them flip the script and feel less jealous, or maybe they’re not jealous and use someone as a vehicle for bathing in schadenfreude---but whatever the underlying feeling, the judging serves to feed their hungry mammoth.
爱评判的人是这样运作的：他们高度受猛犸象控制，并与其他同样高度受猛犸象控制的爱评判的人成为好朋友或约会对象。他们在一起做的主要活动之一就是说不在场的人的坏话——也许他们感到一些嫉妒，而翻白眼表示不赞同帮助他们扭转局面，感觉不那么嫉妒了，或者他们可能并不嫉妒，只是利用某人作为沐浴在 幸灾乐祸 中的载体——但无论潜在的感觉是什么，这种评判都是为了喂养他们饥饿的猛犸象。
When people shit-talk, they set up a category division of which they’re always on the right side. They do this to prop themselves up on a pedestal that their mammoth can chomp away on.
当人们说坏话时，他们设立了一个分类，而他们总是站在正确的一边。他们这样做是为了把自己捧到一个高台上，让他们的猛犸象可以尽情啃食。
Being the material a judgy person uses to feel good about themselves is a fairly infuriating thought---but it has no actual consequences and it’s clearly all much more about the judgy person and their mammoth problem than it is about you. If you find yourself making decisions partially based on not being talked badly about by a judgy person, think hard about what’s actually going on and stop.
成为一个爱评判的人用来让自己感觉良好的材料是一个相当令人恼火的想法——但它没有实际后果，而且显然这更多是关于那个爱评判的人和他们的猛犸象问题，而不是关于你。如果你发现自己部分地基于不被一个爱评判的人说坏话来做决定，好好想想实际发生的是什么，然后停止这种行为。
→ I’m a bad person if I disappoint or offend the person/people who love me and have invested so much in me.
→ 如果我让爱我并为我投入了很多的人失望或生气，我就是个坏人。
No. You’re not a bad person for being whoever your Authentic Voice is in your one life. This is one of those simple things---if they truly selflessly love you, they will for sure come around and accept everything once they see that you’re happy. If you’re happy and they still don’t come around, here’s what’s happening: their strong feelings about who you should be or what you should do are their mammoth talking, and their main motivation is worrying about how it’ll “look” to other people who know them. They’re allowing their mammoth to override their love for you, and they should be adamantly ignored.
不。在你唯一的人生中做真实的自己并不会让你成为一个坏人。这是一件简单的事情——如果他们真的无私地爱你，一旦他们看到你快乐，他们肯定会转变态度并接受一切。如果你快乐，而他们仍然不改变态度，那么发生的是这样的：他们对你应该成为什么样的人或应该做什么的强烈感觉是他们的猛犸象在说话，他们的主要动机是担心这在认识他们的其他人眼中会”看起来”如何。他们允许他们的猛犸象凌驾于对你的爱之上，你应该坚决地忽视他们。
Two other reasons why the mammoth’s fearful obsession with social approval makes no sense:
猛犸象对社交认可的恐惧性痴迷毫无意义的另外两个原因：
A) You live here:
A）你生活在这里：
So who gives a fuck about anything?
所以谁会在乎任何事呢？
B) You and everyone you know are going to die. Kind of soon.
B）你和你认识的每个人都会死。而且很快。
So like…yeah.
所以就像…是啊。
The mammoth’s fears being irrational is one reason the mammoth has a low IQ. Here’s the second:
猛犸象的恐惧是非理性的，这是猛犸象智商低下的一个原因。这是第二个原因：
2) The mammoth’s efforts are counterproductive.
2）猛犸象的努力适得其反。
The irony of the whole thing is that the obsessive lumbering mammoth isn’t even good at his job. His methods of winning approval may have been effective in simpler times, but today, they’re transparent and off-putting. The modern world is an AV’s world, and if the mammoth wants to thrive socially, he should do the thing that scares him most---let the AV take over. Here’s why:
整件事的讽刺之处在于，这只痴迷的笨拙猛犸象甚至不擅长它的工作。它赢得认可的方法在更简单的时代可能有效，但在今天，它们是透明的且令人反感的。现代世界是真实声音的世界，如果猛犸象想在社交上茁壮成长，它应该做最让它害怕的事——让真实声音接管。原因如下：
**AVs are interesting. Mammoths are boring.**Every AV is unique and complex, which is inherently interesting. Mammoths are all the same---they copy and conform, and their motives aren’t based on anything authentic or real, just on doing what they think they’re supposed to do. That’s supremely boring.
真实声音是有趣的。猛犸象是无聊的。 每个真实声音都是独特而复杂的，这本身就很有趣。猛犸象都是一样的——它们复制和conformity，它们的动机不是基于任何真实或真实的东西，只是基于做它们认为应该做的事。这是极其无聊的。
**AVs lead. Mammoths follow.**Leadership is natural for most AVs, because they draw their thoughts and opinions from an original place, which gives them an original angle. And if they’re smart and innovative enough, they can change things in the world and invent things that disrupt the status quo. If you give someone a paintbrush and an empty canvas, they might not paint something good---but they’ll change the canvas in one way or another.
真实声音引领。猛犸象跟随。 对大多数真实声音来说，领导力是自然而然的，因为它们从一个原创的地方汲取思想和观点，这给了它们一个原创的角度。如果它们足够聪明和创新，它们可以改变世界上的事物，发明打破现状的东西。如果你给某人一支画笔和一块空白画布，他们可能画不出好东西——但他们会以某种方式改变画布。
Mammoths, on the other hand, follow---by definition. That’s what they were built to do---blend in and follow the leader. The last thing a mammoth is going to do is change the status quo because it’s trying so hard to _be_the status quo. When you give someone a paintbrush and canvas, but the paint is the same exact color as the canvas, they can paint all they want, but they won’t change anything.
另一方面，猛犸象是跟随者——这是它们的定义。这就是它们被设计来做的——融入并跟随领导者。猛犸象最不可能做的事就是改变现状，因为它正在努力成为现状。当你给某人一支画笔和画布，但颜料的颜色与画布完全相同时，他们可以随心所欲地画，但什么也不会改变。
**People gravitate toward AVs, not mammoths.**The only time a mammoth-crazed person is appealing on a first date is when they’re on the date with another mammoth-crazed person. People with a strong AV see through mammoth-controlled people and aren’t attracted to them. A friend of mine was dating a great on-paper guy awhile back but broke things off because she couldn’t quite fall for him. She tried to articulate why, saying he wasn’t weird or special enough---he seemed like “just one of the guys.” In other words, he was being run too much by a mammoth.
人们被真实声音吸引，而不是猛犸象。 只有当一个痴迷于猛犸象的人与另一个同样痴迷的人约会时，他们在第一次约会时才会有吸引力。拥有强大真实声音的人能看穿被猛犸象控制的人，并不会被他们吸引。我的一个朋友曾经和一个看起来很棒的男人约会，但最终分手了，因为她无法真正爱上他。她试图解释原因，说他不够奇特或特别——他看起来就像”普通人中的一员”。换句话说，他太受猛犸象控制了。
This also holds among friends or colleagues, where AV-run people are more respected and more magnetic---not because there’s necessarily anything extraordinary about them, but because people respect someone with the strength of character to have tamed their mammoth.
这在朋友或同事中也是如此，由真实声音主导的人更受尊重，更有吸引力——不是因为他们有什么特别之处，而是因为人们尊重那些有足够强大的性格驯服了自己猛犸象的人。
Step 3: Start Being Yourself
第三步：开始做真实的自己
This post was all fun and games until “start being yourself” came into the picture. Up to now, this has been an interesting reflection into why humans care so much what other people think, why that’s bad, how it’s a problem in your life, and why there’s no good reason it should continue to plague you. But actually doingsomething after you finish reading this article is a whole different thing. That takes more than reflection---it takes some courage.
这篇文章一直都很有趣，直到”开始做真实的自己”出现。到目前为止，这一直是对为什么人类如此在意他人的看法、为什么这是不好的、它如何成为你生活中的问题，以及为什么没有理由让它继续困扰你的有趣反思。但在读完这篇文章后真正去做些什么是完全不同的事情。这需要的不仅仅是反思——还需要一些勇气。
But courage against *what,*exactly? As we’ve discussed, there’s no actual danger involved in being yourself---more than anything, it just takes an Emperor Has No Clothes epiphany, which is as simple as this:
但究竟是对抗什么的勇气呢？正如我们讨论过的，做真实的自己并不涉及任何实际危险——比起任何事情，它只需要一个”皇帝的新装”式的顿悟，就像这样简单：
Almost nothing you’re socially scared of is actually scary.
几乎没有什么你在社交上害怕的事情是真正可怕的。
Absorbing this thought will diminish the fear that you feel, and without fear, the mammoth loses some power.
吸收这个想法会减少你感受到的恐惧，没有了恐惧，猛犸象就失去了一些力量。
With a weakened mammoth, it becomes possible to begin standing up for who you are and even making some bold changes---and when you watch those changes turn out well for you with few negative consequences and no regrets, it reinforces the epiphany and an empowered AV becomes a habit. Your mammoth has now lost its ability to pull the strings, and it’s tamed.
随着猛犸象的削弱，开始为真实的自己站出来，甚至做出一些大胆的改变成为可能——当你看到这些改变对你来说结果良好，几乎没有负面后果，也不会后悔时，它会强化这种顿悟，一个被赋予力量的真实声音就会成为习惯。你的猛犸象现在失去了操纵你的能力，它被驯服了。
The mammoth is still with you---it’ll always be with you---but you’ll have an easier time ignoring or overruling it when it speaks up or acts out, because the AV is the alpha dog now. You can start to relish the feeling of being viewed as weird or inappropriate or confusing to people, and society becomes your playground and blank canvas, not something to grovel before and hope for acceptance from.
猛犸象仍然与你同在——它将永远与你同在——但当它发声或表现出来时，你会更容易忽视或否决它，因为现在真实声音才是主导。你可以开始享受被人视为怪异、不恰当或令人困惑的感觉，社会成为你的游乐场和空白画布，而不是你需要卑躬屈膝并希望得到认可的东西。
Making this shift isn’t easy for anyone, but it’s worth obsessing over. Your Authentic Voice has been given one life---and it’s your job to make sure it gets the opportunity to live it.
做出这种转变对任何人来说都不容易，但值得为之痴迷。你的真实声音只有一次生命——确保它有机会活出这一生是你的责任。