We formulate our ambitions by admiring the beautiful structures of the architect tasked with designing the city's new airport, or by following the intrepid trades of the wealthiest Wall Street fund manager, by reading the analyses of the acclaimed literary novelist or sampling the piquant meals in the restaurant of a prize-winning chef.

我們的理想，源自於欣賞設計出美麗的建築，負責新機場建造的建築師，或是追隨華爾街最有錢的財務經理，做出一筆筆了不起的交易，又或是閱讀暢銷作家的分析報告，或者學習獲獎無數的名廚，得到美味佳餚的配方。

We form our career plans on the basis of perfection.

我們以完美為積木，建造出理想的職業城堡。

Then, inspired by the masters, we take our own first steps and the trouble begins.

受到大師啟發，我們踏出第一步，開始一段荊棘之路。

What we have managed to design or make in our first month of trading, or write in an early short story, or cook for the family, is markedly and absurdly beneath the standard that first sparked our ambitions.

我們渴望的設計藍圖、第一個月的成交筆數、撰寫短篇故事草稿，或是為家人煮頓飯，門檻可說是既明顯又荒謬地低於初衷。

We, who are so aware of excellence, end up the least able to tolerate mediocrity, which in this case, happens to be our own.

我們患得患失，其實最後只是折磨看似平庸的自己，這情形每天都在你我生活中上演。

We become stuck in an uncomfortable paradox; our ambitions have been ignited by greatness, but everything we know of ourselves points to congenital ineptitude.

我們陷入不自在的矛盾中，偉大點燃野心的熊熊大火，但我們明知自己資質駑鈍。

We have fallen into what we can term the Perfectionist Trap, defined as a powerful attraction to perfection shorn of any mature or sufficient understanding of what is actually required to attain it. It isn't primarily our fault.

我們落入了「完美主義陷阱」，這是一種對完美主義強烈的追求，但同時又缺乏了對於達到目標，所需要的完整或充分的認知。但這不全是我們的錯。

Without in any way revealing this, or even perhaps being aware of it, our media edits out billions of unremarkable lives and years of failure, rejection, and frustration, even in those who do achieve, in order to serve us up a daily curated selection of peak career moments, which thereby end up seeming not like the violent exceptions they actually are, but like a normal baseline of achievement.

在未深陷完美主義陷阱或是根本還不自覺時，媒體報導已刪剪太多成功者不為人知的背後辛酸與無數次失敗，遭受拒絕與沮喪之情。

It starts to appear as though "everyone" is successful because all those who we happen to hear about really are successes – and we have forgotten to imagine the oceans of tears and despair that necessarily surround them.

媒體只是報導高成就者在職業高峰期的每日計畫，最終看起來不像是血淚奮鬥史，而像是達成成就的常見心路歷程，一開始塑造人人皆可成功，因為我們平常聽到的例子就是如此，而我們忘了去思考成功者背後的淚水與揮之不去的絕望。

Our perspective is imbalanced because we know our own struggles so well from the inside, and yet are exposed to apparently pain-free narratives of achievement on the outside.

我們所知過於偏頗，因為雖然自己了解內心的苦悶，卻又同時被外界宣揚的「成功，毫不費力」糖衣影響。

We cannot forgive ourselves the horrors of our early drafts – largely because we have not seen the early drafts of those we admire.

我們無法諒解自己早期工作遇到的波折，原因在於沒有看到仰慕者過去辛勤付出的足跡。

We need a saner picture of how many difficulties lie behind everything we would wish to emulate.

我們需要一張夠理智的全景，記錄下自己努力走過的路。

We should not look, for example, at the masterpieces of art in a museum.

我們不應該去看，比如說，博物館裡的偉大作品。

We should go to the studio, and there, see the anguish, wrecked early versions and watermarks on the paper, where the artist broke down and wept.

我們應該到工作室看看那些曾因藝術家崩潰哭泣而出現的痛苦、混亂的，在紙上的早期版本及浮水印。

We should focus on how long it took the architect before they received their first proper commission— they were over 50—we need to dig out the early stories of the writer who now wins prizes and examine more closely how many failures the entrepreneur had to endure.

我們應該把重點放在建築師在得到第一份合理的傭金前 (他們超過五十歲了) 之前需要多少時間，我們需要挖掘現在得獎的作家的早期作品，且更仔細檢視企業家必須忍受多少次失敗。

We need to recognize the legitimate and necessary role of failure—allow ourselves to do things quite imperfectly for a very long time—as a price we cannot avoid paying for an opportunity one day, perhaps in many decades, to do something that others will consider a spontaneous success.

我們必須承認失敗是人生中正當且必要的一角，允許自己在一段很長的時間內以不甚完美的方式做事 ── 作為一個未來某天，也許幾十年後，他人會認為是偶然成功的代價。