Name: 掌控生活的實用指南 | 凱特-霍爾 | TED (A Practical Guide to Taking Control of Your Life | Cate Hall | TED)
Uploaded: 2025-08-31T05:25:44.000Z
Duration: 8 min 40 s

過去簡單式

Five years ago, I was a prisoner in my own life.

五年前，我是自己生活中的囚徒。

頻率副詞

Every morning, I would get up, go buy drugs and then spend the rest of the day using, barely conscious, until I passed out again at the end of the night.

每天早上，我都會起床去買毒品，然後用一天的時間吸毒，幾乎沒有任何知覺，直到晚上再次昏睡過去。

I don't have a lot of memories of that time, but one thing I do remember very clearly is this incredible sense of awe and resentment I felt just watching normal people do normal things.

我對那段時光沒有太多的記憶，但有一件事我記得很清楚，那就是看著正常人做正常的事情，我感到一種難以置信的敬畏和怨恨。

I would see somebody meeting a friend for lunch, and it would seem inconceivable to me that anybody could be that free, that they could just decide what to do with an afternoon.

我會看到有人約朋友吃午飯，我似乎無法想象有人會如此自由，他們可以隨意決定一個下午做什麼。

This talk isn't about addiction, but it's about how we can help each other.

這次談話不是關於毒癮，而是關於我們如何互相幫助。

This talk isn't about addiction per se, but I'm telling you this because I really need you to understand where I'm coming from, how trapped I was, before I tell you that my life is amazing now.

這次談話本身並不是關於毒癮的，但我告訴你們這些是因為我真的需要你們理解我的處境，理解我曾經是多麼困頓，然後我再告訴你們我現在的生活是多麼美好。

I'm married to an incredible man, and we get to do all sorts of fun projects together.

我嫁給了一個很棒的男人，我們可以一起做各種有趣的項目。

And I'm CEO of Astera Institute, a multibillion-dollar private foundation that's pioneering a new approach to supporting innovative science and technology.

我還是阿斯特拉研究所（Astera Institute）的首席執行官，這是一家價值數十億美元的私人基金會，開創了支持創新科技的新方法。

What I do want to talk about today is how I got from point A to point B.

我今天想說的是，我是如何從 A 點到達 B 點的。

It's not that I got smarter or that I started trying harder.

不是因為我變得更聰明，也不是因為我開始更加努力。

I think what changed was even more fundamental.

我認為改變的是更根本的東西。

It was developing a sense of personal agency, which I think about as the capacity to both see and act on all of the degrees of freedom we actually have.

我認為，個人能動性是一種能力，既能看到我們實際擁有的所有自由度，又能將其付諸行動。

It's about being able to find the hidden doors in the walls of life.

這就是要善於發現生活圍牆中隱藏的門。

I want to argue that when it comes to living a satisfying and meaningful life, agency is actually much more important than the things we usually think about as critical to success, like intelligence and hard work, both of which are next to useless if misapplied and which are becoming less and less important as we increasingly outsource them to machines.

我想說的是，要想過上令人滿意和有意義的生活，"能動性 "實際上比我們通常認為的對成功至關重要的東西要重要得多，比如智慧和勤奮，這兩樣東西如果應用不當，幾乎毫無用處，而且隨著我們越來越多地將它們外包給機器，它們也變得越來越不重要了。

I saw a quote recently from Gary Tan, the CEO of Y Combinator, that I really liked.

我最近看到 Y Combinator 首席執行官加里-譚（Gary Tan）說過一句話，我非常喜歡。

He said, intelligence is on tap now, so agency is even more important.

他說，現在情報都是自來水，所以代理更加重要。

For all of the freedom that addiction took from me,

因為毒癮奪走了我所有的自由、

I think it actually gave me an unnatural advantage when it came to cultivating agency.

我認為，在培養代理權方面，這實際上給了我一種非自然的優勢。

And that's because while agency has many mothers, one of them is certainly desperation.

這是因為，中介公司有許多母親，其中之一肯定就是絕望。

Addicts call this the gift of desperation, actually.

癮君子們把這叫做 "絕望的禮物"。

The willingness to do whatever it takes to change your life.

願意不惜一切代價改變自己的生活。

To embarrass yourself by standing up in front of a room full of strangers and say, my name is Kate and I'm a drug addict.

讓自己難堪，站在滿屋子的陌生人面前說，我叫凱特，我是個癮君子。

Or to take medications that will put you in the ER if you drink.

或者服用一喝酒就會被送進急診室的藥物。

I definitely had the gift of desperation.

我失去了工作，失去了大部分朋友。

For a time, I'd basically lost the ability to walk.

有一段時間，我基本上失去了行走的能力。

And so when I left, I walked into a halfway house and a complete mess of a life.

所以當我離開時，我走進了一家中途之家，生活一團糟。

But in a way, I think that was actually good.

但在某種程度上，我認為這其實是件好事。

Because I felt like I had nothing left to lose.

因為我覺得我已經一無所有了。

Every connection someone was willing to make in hopes it might lead to something that would help me get back on my feet.

有人願意為我牽線搭橋，希望能幫我重新站起來。

It didn't matter if I could tell how something would benefit me.

如果我知道某件事會給我帶來什麼好處，那也沒關係。

That's how I ended up meeting most of the people I've worked with in the last four years.

我就是這樣認識了過去四年中與我共事的大多數人。

Losing my sense of pride also helped me learn really fast.

失去自尊心也讓我學得非常快。

I had brain damage, which meant that I didn't always understand things.

我有腦損傷，這意味著我並不總是能理解事情。

And I couldn't pretend that I did, either.

I don't understand what you just said, can you explain it to me?

我不明白你剛才說的話，你能解釋一下嗎？

In situations where before, I might have just nodded along.

在這種情況下，以前我可能只會點頭稱是。

Side note, people love to explain things.

Now, I have great news, which is that you don't need to ruin your life and then rebuild it.

現在，我有一個好消息，那就是你不需要毀掉自己的生活，然後再重建它。

I do think it helps to be some kind of desperate, but there's always something to be desperate for.

我確實認為，某種程度上的絕望會有所幫助，但總有一些事情是值得絕望的。

I felt that during COVID, as friends and I watched low-income countries struggle with vaccinations, because they lacked adequate cold chain storage.

在 COVID 期間，我和朋友們看到低收入國家因缺乏足夠的冷鏈存儲而在疫苗接種方面舉步維艱，我感受到了這一點。

So we created a company that created a shelf-stable vaccine, and we let that desperation drive us into clinical trials in under six months, faster than any startup in history.

是以，我們創建了一家公司，生產出一種可在貨架上保存的疫苗，在這種絕望的驅使下，我們在不到六個月的時間內就進入了臨床試驗階段，比歷史上任何一家初創公司都要快。

I felt another kind of desperation early on in my marriage, when it seemed like there was an invisible wall between the two of us.

在我婚姻的早期，我感受到了另一種絕望，那時我們之間似乎有一堵無形的牆。

I learned how to resolve the emotional barriers that made it difficult for me to connect with people.

我學會了如何解決使我難以與人溝通的情感障礙。

我不認為代理權是與生俱來的。

But I do think most people learn it through sheer luck.

但我認為，大多數人都是靠運氣學會的。

If it's not the luck of desperation, then maybe it's just the luck of seeing somebody highly agentic operating up close.

如果這不是走投無路的運氣，那麼也許只是近距離看到某個高度特工化的人的運氣。

I also think, though, that it can be learned systematically, and by many more people.

不過，我也認為，它是可以系統學習的，而且可以讓更多的人學習。

I want to share some of the tactics I've learned for becoming more agentic.

我想與大家分享一些我學到的提高代理能力的策略。

首先，假設一切都是可以學習的。

I gave the example of learning to connect with my husband, but I could have just as easily spoken from personal experience about learning to be more optimistic or curious.

我舉了學會與丈夫溝通的例子，但我也可以很輕鬆地從個人經歷出發，談談如何學會更樂觀或更好奇。

I think most traits that people treat as fixed are actually quite learnable, if you both believe that they are and put the same kind of effort into learning them that you would anything else.

我認為，大多數被人們視為固定不變的特質其實都是可以學習的，只要你相信它們是可以學習的，並且像學習其他東西一樣努力去學習它們。

We spend our lives carefully avoiding it, but if you're only aiming for things you get, you're doing yourself a disservice.

我們終其一生都在小心翼翼地迴避它，但如果你只追求你能得到的東西，那就是對自己的傷害。

In fact, sometimes you have to aim for things that feel unreasonable to make sure your instinct about what's reasonable is right.

事實上，有時你必須以感覺不合理的事情為目標，以確保你對什麼是合理的直覺是正確的。

Last time I was applying for a job, I told a couple of people,

上次應聘時，我告訴了幾個人、

I'm thinking about starting an organization much like your own.

我正在考慮成立一個和你們一樣的組織。

A little delusional, maybe, but the thing is, sometimes delusional works.

也許有點痴心妄想，但問題是，有時痴心妄想也會起作用。

Pretty much every one of us has something holding us back that we're completely blind to and that's obvious to other people.

幾乎我們每個人都有一些阻礙我們前進的東西，但我們卻完全視而不見，而這些東西對其他人來說也是顯而易見的。

The single best way to find out is to give people a way to tell you anonymously.

瞭解情況的唯一最佳方法就是讓人們可以匿名告訴你。

I have an anonymous feedback box linked to my Twitter profile, and it has honestly been life-changing, not just in terms of the specific feedback I've gotten, but in knowing that I'm not trying to hide things from myself anymore.

我在自己的 Twitter 個人主頁上設置了一個匿名反饋箱，老實說，它改變了我的生活，不僅是我得到的具體反饋，還有我知道自己不再試圖隱瞞自己的事情。

If I could go back in time five years and talk to the person that I was then and tell her that I would one day experience that kind of freedom, to not have to hide things, to do whatever I feel like with my afternoons, to be basically happy,

如果我能回到五年前，和當時的我談談，告訴她我有一天也會體驗到這種自由，不用隱藏事情，下午想做什麼就做什麼，基本上是快樂的、

But that is the power of personal agency.

No matter how stuck you are, if you can learn to locate the doors hidden within you, you can unlock inconceivable kinds of freedom.

無論你有多麼困頓，只要你能學會找到隱藏在你內心的大門，你就能開啟難以想象的自由。

字幕列表影片播放

掌控生活的實用指南 | 凱特-霍爾 | TED (A Practical Guide to Taking Control of Your Life | Cate Hall | TED)

assume

incredible

instinct

pretend