One day, you and everyone you know will die, and beyond a small group of people for an extremely brief period of time, little you say or do will ever matter.

有一天，你和你認識的所有人都會死去，除了一小部分人，在極其短暫的時間內，你的一言一行都不會有任何意義。

This is the uncomfortable truth of life, and everything you do is but an elaborate avoidance of it.

這就是令人不安的生活真相，而你所做的一切不過是在精心迴避它。

We are inconsequential cosmic dust, bumping and milling about on a tiny blue speck.

我們是無足輕重的宇宙塵埃，在一個微小的藍色斑點上磕磕碰碰。

We imagine our own importance.

我們想象自己的重要性。

We invent our purpose.

我們發明了自己的目的。

We are nothing.

我們什麼都不是。

Enjoy your fucking coffee.

好好享受你的咖啡吧

Nobody likes to think about their own death, but it's necessary.

沒有人喜歡思考自己的死亡，但這是必要的。

In fact, it's possibly the most important mental exercise we can do, and here's why.

事實上，這可能是我們能做的最重要的心理鍛鍊，原因就在這裡。

Death is the only thing that we can know with any certainty.

死亡是我們唯一能確切知道的事情。

As such, it must be the compass by which we orient all of our other values and decisions.

是以，它必須成為我們所有其他價值觀和決定的指南針。

Stuck to our own devices, we will obsess over wealth, fame, and beauty, even though these things bring our lives little meaning and great amounts of stress and anxiety.

我們會固步自封，沉迷於財富、名聲和美貌，儘管這些東西給我們的生活帶來的意義不大，卻給我們帶來了巨大的壓力和焦慮。

Without acknowledging our own death, we make the superficial appear important, and the important appear superficial.

不承認自己的死亡，我們就會讓膚淺顯得重要，讓重要顯得膚淺。

Charles Bukowski once wrote,

查爾斯-布考斯基曾寫道

We are all going to die.

我們都將死去。

All of us.

我們所有人

What a circus.

好一個馬戲團。

That alone should make us love each other, but it doesn't.

單憑這一點，我們就應該相愛，但事實並非如此。

We are terrorized and flattened by life's trivialities.

生活中的瑣事讓我們感到恐懼和壓抑。

We are eaten up by nothing.

我們一無所有。

Death reminds us that we must ignore life's trivialities.

死亡提醒我們必須忽略生活中的瑣事。

That we must choose values that stretch well beyond ourselves.

我們必須選擇超越自我的價值觀。

Because this is the timeless rule of happiness.

因為這是幸福的永恆法則。

And whether you're listening to Aristotle or Confucius or Harvard psychologists or Jesus

無論你是在聆聽亞里士多德、孔子、哈佛心理學家還是耶穌的教誨

Christ or a fucking Disney princess, they more or less all say the same thing.

基督或他媽的迪斯尼公主，他們或多或少都說了同樣的話。

That happiness comes from caring about something greater than yourself.

這種幸福感來自於對比自己更偉大的事物的關注。

This is the feeling that we go to church for.

這就是我們去教堂的感覺。

It's what we fight in wars for.

這就是我們打仗的目的。

It's what we raise families and save pensions and build bridges and create startups for.

這就是我們養家餬口、儲蓄養老金、建造橋樑和創建初創企業的目的。

This fleeting sense of being part of some great unknowable cosmic form.

這種稍縱即逝的感覺，讓人覺得自己是某種偉大的、不可知的宇宙形式的一部分。

Ultimately, death forces us to confront the question of legacy.

歸根結底，死亡迫使我們面對遺產問題。

While most people worry incessantly about how to live a great life, the real question is what will we leave behind?

當大多數人都在為如何過上美好生活而憂心忡忡時，真正的問題是我們會留下什麼？

Because you are great already.

因為你已經很棒了。

Whether you realize it or not.

無論你是否意識到這一點。

Whether anybody else realizes it or not.

不管別人是否意識到這一點。

And it's not because you launched an iPhone app, or you finished school a year early, or you bought yourself that sweet ass boat.

這並不是因為你推出了一個 iPhone 應用程序，或者你提前一年完成了學業，或者你給自己買了一艘漂亮的小船。

These things do not define greatness.

這些並不能定義偉大。

You are already great because in the face of endless confusion and certain death, you continue to choose what to give a fuck about and what not to.

你已經很偉大了，因為面對無盡的困惑和必死的命運，你繼續選擇了什麼是該在乎的，什麼是不該在乎的。

This mere fact, this simple optioning of your own values in life, already makes you wealthy.

這個簡單的事實，這個對自己人生價值的簡單選擇，已經讓你變得富有。

Already makes you successful.

已經讓你成功了。

Already makes you loved.

已經讓你得到了愛。

Even if you don't feel it.

即使你感覺不到

You too are going to die, and that is because you were fortunate enough to have lived.

你也會死，那是因為你幸運地活了下來。

And while microscopic in scope, your existence will echo across the universe, reverberating in the tiniest and faintest ways, leaving your indelible mark in its wake.

雖然微不足道，但你的存在將在宇宙中迴響，以最微小、最微弱的方式迴盪，留下你不可磨滅的印記。

You don't have to be massive to have meaning.

不一定非要龐大才有意義。

You don't have to be remembered to have created value.

你不一定要被人記住才能創造價值。

The way the trees that have fed our ancestors have been long dead and forgotten, we too will be dead and forgotten, while our life force will have taken on some great new unknowable form.

就像哺育了我們祖先的樹木早已死去並被人遺忘一樣，我們也將死去並被人遺忘，而我們的生命力將以某種不可知的新形式出現。

So yes, take a moment, give thanks for the miracle of your individual existence, and enjoy your fucking coffee.

所以，是的，花點時間，感謝你個人存在的奇蹟，享受你那該死的咖啡吧。