Admitting What Is Obvious
直面显而易见的事实

Ignoring what is obvious incurs a huge cost.
忽视显而易见的事会带来巨大的代价。

It requires you to go about your day numbing yourself to the reality of who you are and what you want—which is a waste of time for you and everyone around you.
这让你在日常生活中麻木自己对真实自我和内心渴望的认知 —— 这对你和周围的人来说都是一种时间浪费。

By contrast, admitting what is obvious is freeing and motivating. But it’s terrifying to do it. Sometimes the most obvious truths about ourselves are hard to see because the consequences of those truths seem so dire. 
相比之下，承认显而易见的事实让人感到解放和激励，但这确实令人恐惧。有时，关于我们自己的最明显的真相难以察觉，因为这些真相的后果似乎非常严重。

This happened to me recently. I admitted a truth that was probably obvious to everyone around me, but not to myself: I’m a writer. This sounds so obvious that it feels like it is a joke. I write a weekly column at a newsletter that I started—of course I’m a writer.
这件事最近发生在我身上。我承认了一个对周围人来说可能显而易见的真相，但对我自己却并非如此：我是一名作家。这听起来太明显了，简直像个笑话。我在自己创办的新闻通讯中写每周专栏 —— 当然，我是一名作家。

But this is one of those truths for me. And I’m glad I can admit it.
但对我来说，这确实是一个真理。我很高兴我能坦诚地承认这一点。

If there are obvious truths like this for you, you should find them, and admit them, too.
如果对你来说有这样的明显真理，你应该去发现并承认它们。

Why you can’t admit the obvious
你为什么无法承认显而易见的事实

The poet Robert Bly wrote that we all lug an invisible bag around with us everywhere we go. We’ve been filling it since childhood with the parts of ourselves that are true to us—to how we feel and what we want—but that aren’t acceptable to the people around us. 
诗人罗伯特・布莱曾说，我们每个人都在无形的袋子里到处拖着。自童年起，我们就开始往这个袋子里填充那些对我们真实的部分 —— 我们的感受和渴望 —— 但这些在周围的人看来却是不可接受的。

It starts with our parents: “don’t make noise during dinner,” or “in this family, we play baseball.” It continues with our teachers: “you’d be good at math if you only applied yourself.” Finally, it starts to come from peers in high school: “that’s nerdy,” or “you’ll never have a career doing that.”
这一切始于我们的父母：“吃饭时不要吵闹，” 或者 “在这个家庭里，我们打棒球。” 接着是老师们：“如果你能努力学习，你会在数学上表现得很好。” 最后，这种声音来自高中同学：“这太书呆子气了，” 或者 “你做这个是不会有前途的。”

Each of these interactions causes us to put parts of ourselves in the bag. And the things we put in the bag are the obvious truths that we can’t admit, and that we try to ignore.
这些互动让我们把自己的一部分放进袋子里，而放进去的东西是那些我们无法承认的明显真相，以及我们试图忽视的事情。

Being a writer is one of the things I tried to put in my invisible bag. For a long time, admitting that I am a writer and that I want to be a writer felt like it would force me to shed my identity as a founder, eliminate the possibility of building a consequential company, and seriously cap my potential career earnings.
作为一名作家是我想放进我无形包包中的事情之一。很长一段时间，承认自己是一名作家并渴望成为作家让我觉得这会迫使我放弃创始人的身份，剥夺我建立一家有影响力公司的机会，并严重限制我的职业收入潜力。

So, I pretended to be a founder who also liked to write. 
所以，我假装自己是一个喜欢写作的创始人。

The first clue that I wanted to be a writer was that, after I sold my last business—a B2B software business—instead of going back into software, I started Every. 
我想成为作家的第一个迹象是，在我出售了最后一家公司 —— 一家 B2B 软件公司 —— 后，我没有重返软件行业，而是创办了 Every。

Every is a startup, so it lets me call myself founder. But on the inside, it also secretly lets me do the thing that I really wanted to do but couldn’t admit to myself or anyone else: be a writer.
每个都是一家初创公司，所以我可以称自己为创始人。但在内心深处，它也让我秘密地做我真正想做却无法向自己或他人承认的事情：成为一名作家。

While I deeply enjoy almost every part of running a startup—coding, sales, marketing, managing, fundraising, etc.—writing is the thing that I’ve always loved the most. 
尽管我非常喜欢创业的几乎每一个方面 —— 编程、销售、市场营销、管理、筹款等 —— 但写作始终是我最热爱的。

I knew this back in third grade when I wrote a 100-page novel in longhand on loose-leaf sheets of paper. But after writing that novel, I decided I needed more life experience to be a real writer, so I “retired.” 
我在三年级时就意识到了这一点，当时我在松散的纸张上用长手写了一部 100 页的小说。但写完那部小说后，我觉得自己需要更多的生活经验才能成为一名真正的作家，于是我选择 “退休”。

In fifth grade I read a biography of Bill Gates and became enamored with entrepreneurship, so I decided to start a Microsoft competitor. I called it Megasoft. I learned to code so I could build an operating system to compete with Bill—and even though the operating system never saw the light of day, it set me off on a path building software businesses.
在五年级时，我读了一本关于比尔・盖茨的传记，深深被创业吸引，于是决定创办一家与微软竞争的公司，名为 Megasoft。我学习了编程，希望能开发出一个与比尔竞争的操作系统 —— 虽然这个操作系统最终没有问世，但这让我走上了创建软件公司的道路。

Both of these parts of myself have always been intertwined in a braid. But now, I’ve decided to shift the emphasis. I’m not a founder who also likes to write. I’m a writer who also likes to build businesses.
我内心的这两个部分一直交织在一起。但现在，我决定改变重点。我不是一个喜欢写作的创始人，而是一个喜欢创业的作家。

Living in this truth—the truth of what is obvious—is freeing. It will make me the best writer I can be. And, I think—paradoxically—it will help me build better businesses.
生活在这个显而易见的真理中是令人解放的。这将让我成为最好的作家。我认为，矛盾的是，这也会帮助我建立更好的企业。

When you admit what is obvious, you start to improve
当你承认明显的事实时，你就开始进步

Billions of dollars in value are wasted every year by people doing the high-status thing they wish they felt compelled to do instead of the weird, low-status thing they actually want to do. Why is this value wasted?
每年都有数十亿美元的价值被浪费，因为人们选择去做那些他们希望自己能感到有必要去做的高地位事情，而不是他们真正想做的那些奇怪且低地位的事情。为什么会浪费这些价值呢？

You’re never going to be great at something you want to want. It’s always going to be a half-in, half-out kind of thing—instead of the all-in endeavor that greatness requires. Doing what you want to do, by contrast, lets you go all in.
你永远无法在你想要的事情上变得伟大。这总是半心半意，而不是伟大所需的全力以赴。相反，做你真正想做的事情，让你能够全心投入。

As soon as I admitted to myself that I am a writer, it was easy for me to throw myself into it with wild abandon. Suddenly, I was sucking down great writing and furiously scribbling in my notebook. I made a list of skills I wanted to build and topics I wanted to cover. I realized how important it is for me to go deep on the future of AI and scientific discovery, AI’s power as a tool for creative expression, and its importance as a method for understanding ourselves. I recommitted to publishing this column every week. It felt like I didn’t have enough time in five lifetimes to do everything I wanted to do—and I feel like my writing is significantly better than it has ever been.
一旦我承认自己是作家，我就能毫无保留地投入其中。突然间，我开始沉浸于优秀的写作，并在笔记本上疯狂地记录我的想法。我列出了想要提升的技能和想要探讨的主题。我意识到，深入研究人工智能的未来、科学发现、人工智能作为创造性表达工具的力量，以及它作为理解自我的方法的重要性，对我来说至关重要。我重新承诺每周发表这一专栏。感觉在五辈子里都没有足够的时间去实现我的所有想法 —— 而且我觉得我的写作水平比以往任何时候都要好。

Who’s going to win in that scenario? Will it be me, or someone who wants to write but can’t seem to bring themselves to sit down at the keyboard?
在那种情况下，谁会获胜？是我，还是一个想写却总是无法坐下来的那个人？

Of course, doing this required me to grapple with a problem: how to square wanting to be a writer with wanting to build businesses. It was scary to want to be a writer because it meant giving up on being a founder. But as soon as I admitted the obvious, something else happened:
当然，做这件事让我不得不面对一个问题：如何将想成为作家与想创业结合起来。想成为作家让我感到害怕，因为这意味着要放弃创始人的身份。但当我承认这个显而易见的事实时，事情发生了变化：

I started to find heroes who had done exactly that.
我开始寻找那些真正做过这件事的英雄。

When you admit what is obvious, you can find examples to look up to
当你承认明显的事实时，你会找到值得学习的榜样

Once I admitted what was obvious, I realized there are a lot of people who have done something like what I want to do.
一旦我承认了显而易见的事实，我意识到有很多人做过我想要做的事情。

Bill Simmons is one such example. He built The Ringer, a sports and pop culture website and podcast network, which he sold to Spotify for $250 million. Simmons was both the CEO of The Ringer and one of its main stars—The Bill Simmons Show was the marquee podcast on the network. 
比尔・西蒙斯就是一个这样的例子。他创办了 The Ringer，一个专注于体育和流行文化的网站及播客网络，并以 2.5 亿美元的价格将其出售给 Spotify。西蒙斯不仅是 The Ringer 的首席执行官，还是其主要明星之一 ——《比尔・西蒙斯秀》是该网络的招牌播客。

How’d he manage to square the circle between creative output and running the business? As far as I can tell, he stuck to what he’s good at: creating content, and spotting and developing talent. Then he recruited and maintained a core group of trusted operators around him who handled the rest of the business. He sets the vision, and they execute.
他是如何在创造性产出与经营业务之间找到平衡的？据我了解，他专注于自己擅长的领域：创作内容以及发现和培养人才。随后，他招募并维持了一支值得信赖的核心团队来处理其他业务。他设定愿景，而他们负责执行。

Once I found Bill Simmons I saw this dynamic at play in a thousand other places. Neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris mostly spends his time writing and recording podcasts, but he also founded Waking Up, a meditation app that helps his audience apply and practice the mindfulness skills he writes about. Sam doesn’t run the business day-to-day, though—he has a trusted general manager to handle that, so he can focus on thinking and creating. Other examples abound: Nate Silver, who started data journalism site FiveThirtyEight and is one of its main voices; Shane Parrish, who founded the popular blog Farnam Street; and Hank and John Green, the brothers, writers, and YouTubers who started both VidCon and creator merchandise company DFTBA; Gwyneth Paltrow who founded Goop.
一旦我发现比尔・西蒙斯，我在其他许多地方看到了这种现象。神经科学家和哲学家萨姆・哈里斯大部分时间都在撰写和录制播客，但他还创立了 “觉醒” 冥想应用，帮助听众应用和练习他所提到的正念技能。不过，萨姆并不负责日常运营 —— 他有一位值得信赖的总经理来处理这些事务，这样他就可以专注于思考和创作。还有许多其他例子：内特・西尔弗创办了数据新闻网站 FiveThirtyEight，并且是其主要发声者之一；香农・帕里什创办了受欢迎的博客 Farnam Street；汉克和约翰・格林这对兄弟、作家和 YouTuber 创办了 VidCon 和创作者商品公司 DFTBA；还有创立 Goop 的格温妮斯・帕特洛。

I had previously been blind to this way of operating because it’s so anathema to the usual tech ethos, which is to hire other people to do the creative work, rather than continue to do it yourself.
我之前没有意识到这种操作方式，因为它与常见的科技理念相悖，后者是雇佣他人来完成创造性工作，而不是自己继续做。

But it makes a lot of sense for a creator-run business to be structured in this way. The best thing a founder of any business can do is focus on what they are uniquely suited for—and hire people better than them to do the rest. In a creator-run business, the founder should focus on making the product.
但是，创作者主导的企业采用这种结构是非常合理的。任何企业的创始人最应该做的就是专注于自己独特的优势，并雇佣比自己更优秀的人来处理其他事务。在创作者主导的企业中，创始人应专注于产品的开发。

Once I found this way of operating, I started to bend my world that way. I made a few key hires (to be announced soon!) and began to hand off some of my day-to-day operational responsibilities. I’m still intimately involved in every aspect of the business, but my day is significantly more focused around doing the best creative work I can for Every—and I expect  that to pay significant dividends for the business over time. 
一旦我找到这种运作方式，我就开始按照这种方式来塑造我的世界。我进行了几次关键的招聘（即将公布！），并开始将一些日常运营的责任交给他人。我仍然与业务的每个方面紧密相关，但我的工作日显著更专注于为 Every 创作我能做到的最佳作品 —— 我预计这将随着时间的推移为业务带来丰厚的回报。

It’s truly the most satisfied, excited, and aligned I’ve ever felt running Every. Which brings me to my last point:
这是我在运营 Every 时感到的最满足、最兴奋和最契合的时刻。这让我想到了最后一个要点：

How could I have done this sooner?
我怎么能更早就做到这一点呢？

How to admit what is obvious
如何承认那些显而易见的事实

Admitting the obvious is to take a scary leap. It is to make decisions that bring your life into alignment with what you truly want—rather than what you think you should want or what others want from you. It is to risk taking the low-status meandering path, instead of the high-status linear one. 
承认显而易见的事实是一种可怕的飞跃。这意味着做出将你的生活与真正想要的东西对齐的决定，而不是你认为自己应该想要的东西或他人对你的期望。这是冒着走低地位曲折道路的风险，而不是高地位的直线道路。

It can be easy, in retrospect, for me to wish I had done this earlier. To think that it might be possible to white-knuckle my way through future admissions of this kind, to give up all of my internalized shoulds, and any temptation to be affected by the desires and pressures of the people around me. To want to leap that gap in a single bound, and to believe that I could if I tried hard enough.
回想起来，我常常希望自己能更早地做到这一点。我曾想，未来的这种入学申请我或许可以通过强忍着的方式来应对，放弃内心深处的 “应该”，以及受到周围人欲望和压力影响的诱惑。我希望能够一次性跨越那道鸿沟，并相信只要我努力就能做到。

But I’m not sure that’s possible. Sometimes the obvious truth is hidden from you for a reason, and it takes great care and lots of time to see it. 
但我不确定这是否可能。有时候，显而易见的真相会出于某种原因被隐藏，而要看清这一点需要极大的耐心和时间。

Spiders weave webs across gaps that cannot be crossed by crawling or jumping. Instead, when a tiny spider wants to weave a web across a large distance, it produces a fine adhesive thread that it allows to catch and drift along the wind. It can feel by the sensitive vibrations passed along the thread when it catches and adheres on the other side of the gap. Then, it carefully walks across that first strand like a tightrope walker, laying another thread down as it goes.
蜘蛛在无法通过爬行或跳跃跨越的间隙中编织网。当一只小蜘蛛想要在较大距离上编织网时，它会产生一根细腻的粘性丝线，让它在风中捕捉和漂流。当丝线在间隙的另一侧被捕捉并粘附时，它能通过丝线传递的敏感振动感知到。然后，它像走钢丝一样小心翼翼地走过第一根丝线，同时在前进的过程中放下另一根丝线。

It weaves back and forth like this—carefully, one step at a time—until a web is formed out of thin air. 
它像这样来回编织 —— 小心翼翼，一步一步 —— 直到在空气中织成一张网。

I think this is the way to admit the obvious. Loose a single thread in the direction of what you want. When it catches—follow it, and strengthen it. Eventually, you’ll be ready to cross the gap with confidence and spin a web of your own.
我认为这是承认明显事实的方法。放松一根线索，朝着你想要的方向。当它被抓住时 —— 跟随它并加以强化。最终，你会自信地跨越鸿沟，编织出属于自己的网络。