We're thinking of it as denying ourselves.

我們總覺得存錢是在否定自己。

- Saving money often feels like we're just throwing our money away.

- 存錢有的時候會讓我們感覺好像只是把錢丟進水裡而已。

Why save for the future, when there's so much we want to do right now?

既然我們當下想做的事情那麼多，那為什麼還要為了未來而存錢呢？

- And so for a lot of us thinking about retirement is stressful.

- 而有很多人覺得光是想到退休後的生活就讓人覺得有壓力。

And to avoid that stress, we just don't think about it, and that prevents us from doing the things that are in our long-term best interest.

為了逃避這樣的壓力，我們便完全不去思考退休的事，而這樣做便讓我們沒辦法做到長期來看對自己最有利的事情。

What is more important?

到底哪一個比較重要？

Your happiness right at this instant?

當下立即的快樂？

Or your happiness an hour from now? Or a day from now? Or ten years from now?

一個小時後的快樂？一天後的快樂？十年後的快樂？

And one of the difficulties and challenges with that, is that there isn't a correct answer.

而解決這類問題最大的困難與挑戰，便是這是個沒有正確答案的問題。

- If there isn't a correct answer, how do we figure out the choice that's right for us?

- 既然沒有正確答案的話，那我們要如何知道怎麼選擇才是對的？

Is there anything in our brains that can give us a clue?

我們可以在腦中找到解答的線索嗎？

This is Your Brain on Money.

歡迎收看「財思」節目。

[01. Retirement]

[01. 退休]

This is Alex Korb, author of The Upward Spiral, and he's going to tell you everything that he's learned about the brain.

這為是 Alex Korb，他是《向上螺旋》一書的作者，而今天他要來向各位講解他在腦部方面的研究。

- Yeah, so I'll just explain to you very briefly everything that I've learned in the last 20 years of studying the brain.

- 對，我會非常簡略地向你們解釋我在過去 20 年間研究腦部時都學到了些什麼。

Uh, so there are millions of, you know, different little regions of the brain.

呃，首先，人的腦袋裏有數百萬個小小的不同分區。

And science has sort of simplified that down to, you know, dozens that we can sort of wrap our heads around.

科學界把這些分區簡化成數十個區域，讓我們能比較好了解腦袋裡究竟在發生什麼事。

But the ones that I think are the most interesting and the most important have to do with the thinking and the habit and reward circuits, and how those interact.

但其中我覺得最有趣也最重要的分區，便是思考、習慣與獎勵迴路，以及它們之間的互動方式。

You can sort of think of these different brain regions as like different types of friends.

你可以把這些不同的大腦分區當成不同個性的朋友一樣。

Your prefrontal cortex, the thinking part of the brain, is saying “Hey, let's do it this way because that's gonna get us to where we're trying to go.”

你的前額葉皮質，也就是大腦中負責思考的部分，正說著：「嘿，我們這樣做吧？因為這樣才能引導我們到想去的地方。」

And then the habit circuit in the brain says “Well, no, let's do it this way because this is the way we've always done it, and that's more comfortable.”

而大腦中的習慣迴路則說：「呃，別吧，我們還是用我的方法來做，因為我們一直都是這樣做的，而且這樣做也比較輕鬆。」

And the reward center of the brain says “Oh, look there's a cookie!”

在這時候大腦中的獎勵中心則在大喊著：「喂，你看那邊有一塊餅乾耶！」

The human brain just has certain tendencies.

人腦有種特定的傾向。

Like, we're always gonna pay more attention to things that are immediate, right now.

我們對當下、立即的事物更加關心。

- This is how the brain's evolved over millions of years.

- 這是大腦在數百萬年演化之下的結果。

We have a bias for the short term.

我們更偏袒短期發生的事情。

10 bucks today is more tangible than 100 bucks a year from now.

在今天賺到 10 塊錢，比在一年後擁有 100 塊錢來得更重要。

- In order to, sort of, be happy over time you have to find the right balance of like, how much money should I spend now to enjoy living my life versus how much should I save to plan ahead so that I can enjoy it later?

- 想要保持長期的快樂，你必須在像是我該在享受生活上花多少錢，以及我應該先為未來退休後享福規劃並儲蓄多少之間的問題上做好平衡。

And there are ways to, sort of, influence the system one way or the other.

而其實有很多的因素能影響這樣的思維系統。

There's a really cool study where when they had people sign up for their retirement benefits, they included like a digitally aged picture of yourself, so that when you looked at it it was a little bit more concrete of the idea of like, “Oh, I am going to become that person like that is me that I am saving for.”

有個很有趣的研究案例是，研究者讓人們在簽署退休方案時，在裡頭包含了一張數位處理過，預測該人老年後長相的照片，讓他們在看到照片時會對退休這個概念有更確實的認識，使他們心想：「噢，我以後會變成這樣，也就是我現在存的錢都是為了這張照片裡，未來的我自己。」

Most of us have this abstract idea of retirement, so it doesn't like feel real or tangible.

大多數人都對退休僅有著模糊的想像，感覺不到退休的現實感。

You can make these future visions of retirement feel more concrete by imagining them in more detail.

你能藉由去思考退休後未來生活上的細節，來讓整個退休的概念在腦中更加紮實。

- Imagine you're not just putting money into an account, you're putting money toward that brownstone or that vacation on the lake.

- 想像你不只是把錢存進帳戶而已。你是在把錢投資到未來那棟心目中的獨棟褐色石造房子，或是在湖邊的一次假期上。

The more you can imagine it the more motivated you'll be to realize it.

想像得越深入，變越有動力去實現它。

- One of the keys to being sustainably happy is really just understanding yourself better, so that you can make choices that are best for you and your circumstances, and understanding your brain can be a big part of that.

- 要永續地保持快樂心情的其中一個關鍵，便是更深入的理解自己，讓你可以真的做出對自己還有周遭環境最好的決定，並了解到你的大腦也在其中扮演了重要的角色。

- If we understand how our brains influence us to make certain decisions, we can work to overcome these biases.

- 了解了自己大腦的運作方式之後，我們便能克服這些先天的短見。

When it comes to retirement, the good news is we can start small.

對於準備退休生活來說，好消息是我們可以從小地方著手。

- Saving $1 a day is infinitely better than saving $0 per day.

- 一天存一塊錢總比完全不存錢來得好。

And so just take one little step in the next direction and then, you know, a year from now, “Ah ok, I could up that to $200 a month and then ok” and revisit it.

你可以先從一點點小錢開始，然後過了一年之後，「啊這樣的話，感覺我可以把錢提升到每個月存 200 塊錢」，並在之後持續重複這個過程。

You don't need to solve all of your problems at once.

你不需要一次解決所有問題。

Making a tiny decision and then realizing it wasn't quite right, and then making another tiny decision to go in a different direction, and then making another tiny decision.

先從做出一個小小的決定開始，如果發現這樣做不太對，就再做出個小小的決定，往另一個方向邁進，然後再做出另一個小小的決定。

That's, that's what living your life is as opposed to thinking about all these possibilities that I have no control over and sitting there doing nothing.

這，這才是渡過人生的正確方式，而不是總是想著自己完全無法控制的各種可能性，然後坐在那邊什麼也不做。

It will feel uncomfortable, but you're doing it because that's the only way to get where you're trying to go.

剛開始肯定會不好受，但你必須繼續下去，因為這是讓你的人生步上正軌的唯一方式。