摘要：Between teaching MBA students and speaking to a lot of business audiences, I ’ m often interacting with successful people who work

If I Work Harder, Will You Love Me?

Between teaching MBA students and speaking to a lot of business audiences, I ’ m often interacting with successful people who work extremely long hours. It ’ s common for me to hear about 13-hour workdays and seven-day workweeks, with few or no vacations. What I see among many of those I encounter is workaholism, a pathology characterized by continuing to work during discretionary time, thinking about work all the time, and pursuing job tasks well beyond what ’ s required to meet any need. Workaholics feel a compulsion to work even when they are already earning plenty of money and despite getting minimal enjoyment from doing so.

在教授 MBA学生和与许多商业观众交流的过程中，我经常接触到那些工作时间极长的成功人士。13小时的工作日和七天工作周，几乎没有假期或只有极少假期，已经成了常态。我发现，许多我遇到的人都患有工作狂症，这是一种病态行为，表现为在休闲时间继续工作、不断思考工作，并且从事超过任何需求所需的工作任务。工作狂即使已经赚了很多钱，也依然感到迫切需要工作，而这种工作对他们来说几乎没有乐趣。

Does this sound familiar? If you do little else but work — and are mentally absent when not working — you are likely to find your life feels bereft of enjoyment, satisfaction, and meaning. Worst of all, compulsive overworking is incompatible with healthy intimate relationships, which take time, energy, and effort.

这听起来熟悉吗？如果你除了工作几乎什么都不做，且在不工作的时侯精神上完全缺席，那么你很可能会觉得生活缺乏享受、满足感和意义。最糟糕的是，强迫性过度工作与健康的亲密关系是完全不兼容的，亲密关系需要时间、精力和努力。

As with other addictions, telling a workaholic they ’ d be better off not doing the destructive behavior is unhelpful — as though just suggesting “ Hey, why not work less? ” will result in the person slapping their forehead and saying “ I never thought of that! ” Instead, I try to look behind the pathology to discover its origins. Typically, what I find in highly successful people is that an addiction to work is, in fact, based on an inchoate belief that love from others — including spouses, parents, and friends — can be earned only through constant toil and exceptional merit. Unchecked, this mistaken belief is catastrophic. But understanding the reasons behind this delusion can lead to healing.

和其他成瘾行为一样，告诉一个工作狂 “你最好别再做这种有害的行为”是没有帮助的——就好像只是建议“嘿，为什么不少工作一点？”就能让这个人拍着脑袋说：“我从没想过这个！”相反，我通常试图深入了解这种病态背后的根源。通常我发现，那些高度成功的人其实有一种模糊的信念：他们认为，只有通过不断的辛勤工作和出色的表现，才能赢得他人的爱——包括配偶、父母和朋友的爱。如果这种信念得不到纠正，它将是灾难性的。但是，了解这种错觉背后的原因，能够为疗愈提供方向。

Life offers two kinds of reward, which social scientists define as intrinsic and extrinsic. The first kind involves immaterial things that can ’ t be bought, such as love and happiness. The second kind involves material things that can be procured, such as money and goods. We want both kinds of reward, of course — even though we all know what research has shown over and over again: that once we have achieved a basic standard of living, we gain much greater life satisfaction from intrinsic rewards. Compare the scenario of driving to a fancy restaurant in your new Ferrari, where you will eat alone because you have no friends or family, with that of driving to Denny ’ s in a 1999 Corolla to hang out with people who truly love you.

生活提供两种回报，社会科学家将其定义为内在奖励和外在奖励。第一种奖励涉及一些无法购买的非物质的东西，如爱和幸福；第二种奖励则涉及可以获得的物质财富，如金钱和物品。当然，我们都希望拥有这两种奖励 ——尽管我们都知道，研究一再表明：一旦我们达到了基本的生活水平，内在奖励带来的生活满足感远超外在奖励。试想一下，开着你新买的法拉利去高档餐厅吃饭，却只能一个人孤单用餐，因为你没有朋友或家人；再对比一下，开着一辆1999年的卡罗拉去Denny’s餐厅，与那些真正爱你的人共度时光。

And yet, millions of seemingly successful people act as if extrinsic rewards are all that count. Although they may not be totally bereft of loved ones, they live almost as if they were so, neglecting family and friends in favor of work, earning far more than their household needs to survive, even thrive. You can think of this as a crossed psychological circuit, resulting in a false conviction that intrinsic rewards can be bought with extrinsic currency. If I work hard enough and am sufficiently successful, thinks the workaholic, albeit unconsciously, then I will be worthy of the love I truly crave.

然而，数百万看似成功的人却仿佛认为外在奖励才是唯一重要的。虽然他们可能并不完全缺乏亲人，但他们几乎把生活过得像没有亲人一样，忽视家人和朋友而把工作放在首位，赚的钱远超过家庭生存甚至过得更好所需要的。你可以把这种心理回路看作是被交叉的，它导致了一个错误的信念：内在奖励可以用外在的货币购买。工作狂的潜意识里常常认为： “只要我足够努力，足够成功，我就配得上我真正渴望的爱。”

Why might someone fall prey to such an erroneous belief? It could be the way you were raised. Workaholic parents tend to have workaholic kids. If you grow up seeing adulthood modeled by people who work all hours and are rarely home, you can be forgiven for regarding this as appropriate behavior for a responsible spouse and parent. This is at least partly the same mechanism behind the fact that you are much likelier to become an alcoholic if you were raised by one.

为什么有人会陷入这样的错误信念呢？可能与你的成长环境有关。工作狂父母往往会培养出工作狂的孩子。如果你在成长过程中看到成年人的生活模式是全天候工作且很少回家，你也许会认为这才是负责任的配偶和父母的行为。这至少在一定程度上与酗酒成瘾的机制相似 ——如果你是由酗酒者抚养长大的，那么你成为酒鬼的几率就会更高。

Researchers have also shown that when parents express love for a child in a conditional way based on the child ’ s behavior, that person is likely to grow up feeling that they deserve love only through good conduct and hard work. This might sound as though I ’ m describing terrible parents, but I don ’ t mean to do so at all; well-intentioned parental encouragement can be heard by a child as a message about their worthiness.

研究人员还发现，当父母对孩子表达爱时，如果这种爱是基于孩子行为的条件性爱，孩子可能会长大后认为只有通过良好的行为和辛勤的工作才能获得爱。这听起来像是在描述糟糕的父母，但我并不想这么做；父母的良好意图也可能被孩子误解为一种关于他们值得不值得被爱的讯息。

In the workaholic ’ s case, it might look like this: Your parents wanted you to succeed in school and in life, so they gave you the most love and attention when you got good report cards, won at sports, or earned the top spot in the orchestra. You were a bright kid, and put two and two together: I am extra lovable when I earn accolades. In my experience, this describes the childhood of a lot of people who strove to be special to gain their parents ’ attention, and who carry this behavior into adulthood by trying to earn the love of others through compulsive work.

对于工作狂来说，这种情况可能是这样的：父母希望你在学校和生活中取得成功，所以当你拿到好成绩、赢得运动比赛或在乐团中获得第一的位置时，他们给你最多的爱和关注。你是一个聪明的孩子，于是把两者联系起来： “我得到表扬时我更值得被爱。”在我看来，很多努力通过获得父母注意来证明自己特别的人，最终会在成年后继续这种行为，通过过度工作来争取他人的爱。

If you ’ re tending toward workaholism, you may very well be discovering that the returns to work are falling below the costs to your life. You are likely defensive about your heavy work habit, and confused about why such a noble virtue is earning complaints at home, instead of praise. Here are three steps you can take to resolve this issue.

如果你正倾向于成为工作狂，你可能已经意识到，工作带来的回报已经低于它对你生活的成本。你可能对自己沉迷于工作的习惯感到防御，并且困惑为什么这样一个看似高尚的美德，在家里却换来了抱怨而非赞扬。以下是你可以采取的三步解决方法。

1. Look at your origins and face the truth.

Think back to your childhood: Did you struggle, say, to get your parents ’ attention and affection unless you excelled in school or outside activities? Did being a “ special ” or a “ bright ” child make you feel loved? If so, don ’ t get mad at your folks: They were probably doing their best, perhaps trying to give you a better life than they ’ d had; or they may have been diligently following some now-outdated parenting advice. But the result is very likely that there ’ s a script in your head that says, You ’ re not inherently lovable as you are, so you better win the spelling bee. You are still trying to win some grown-up version of the spelling bee, even if your parents are long dead.

回想一下你的童年：你是否曾经感到，只有在学校或者课外活动上表现出色，才会获得父母的关注和爱？你是否觉得自己是个 “特别的”或“聪明的”孩子，从而获得了父母的爱？如果是的话，请不要生气：你的父母可能已经尽力而为，可能是想给你一个比他们自己拥有的更好的生活；或者他们可能是认真遵循一些现在已经过时的育儿建议。但结果很可能是，你的大脑里有一条潜在的剧本，告诉你：“你本身并不可爱，所以你必须赢得拼字比赛。”即使你的父母已经不在，你仍然在努力赢得某种成年版的拼字比赛。

2. Give what you want to receive.

Benjamin Franklin wrote that “ if you would be loved, love, and be loveable. ” The profound truth behind this assertion is that you should give what you want to receive. So if you want more courtesy, start by being courteous to others. And if you want true love from your beloved, give them true love, in the intrinsic currency that satisfies our deeper needs. That means giving your self, not more money or things. Try this: Take a day away from work, turn off your phone, and give the person you love the attention they crave, all day.

本杰明 ·富兰克林曾写道：“如果你想被爱，去爱别人，并且成为值得爱的那种人。”这一说法背后有着深刻的真理，那就是你应该给出你希望收到的东西。所以，如果你想要更多的礼貌，就从对他人礼貌开始。如果你想要来自爱人的真正的爱，就要给予他们真正的爱，这种内在的爱能满足我们更深层的需求。那意味着要给予你自己，而不是更多的金钱或物质东西。试试看：休息一天，不工作，关掉手机，整天给你爱的人他们渴望的关注。

3. Make plans to change.

One day is not enough to repair your relationships, and big changes in your habits don ’ t take place overnight. If you were dependent on alcohol, say, I wouldn ’ t be so naive as to imagine that not drinking for a day would fix the problem. Breaking any addiction takes a lot of planning and resolve. Own up to your workaholism, acknowledge the roots of the problem, and work with your loved ones to make a long-term plan to live differently. That might mean planning a career or job change, in six months ’ to a year ’ s time; scheduling weekend trips and tech-free vacations from now until then; and asking your family to hold you accountable for making progress.

一天的时间不足以修复你的关系，习惯的重大变化也不会一蹴而就。如果你曾依赖酒精，比如说，我不会天真地认为不喝一天酒就能解决问题。摆脱任何成瘾行为都需要大量的计划和决心。正视你对工作的依赖，承认问题的根源，并与你的亲人合作，制定一个长期计划，改变你的生活方式。这可能意味着计划在六个月到一年的时间里进行职业或工作变动；从现在开始安排周末短途旅行和无技术设备的假期；并要求你的家人监督你的进展，帮助你保持进步。

Let me close with one of my many conversations with work-addicted strivers that makes the point better perhaps than any studies can. An older, very wealthy man told me how he worked himself to a husk to earn his fortune. While he ground away at building his company over the decades, barely talking to his wife and kids, he dreamed about how marvelous it would be to be wealthy. I asked him what he imagined it would be like to be so rich. He said that he thought of the obvious stuff, such as houses and cars. “ But mostly, ” he said, “ I thought if I was rich, my wife would love me. ”

最后，让我通过一段与一位工作成瘾者的对话来总结这个问题，也许比任何研究都能更好地说明这一点。一位年长的非常富有的男人告诉我，他是如何通过拼命工作，几乎耗尽自己，赚取财富的。在数十年里，他默默地经营着自己的公司，几乎不与妻子和孩子交流，他曾梦想着财富带来的美好。我问他，想象自己变得富有，会是怎样的一种感觉。他说，他想到了那些显而易见的东西，比如房子和车子。 “但最重要的是，”他说，“我觉得如果我有钱了，我的妻子会爱我。”

“ And? ” I asked, noting that he was not wearing a ring.

“然后呢？”我问道，注意到他没有戴戒指。

“ She didn ’ t. ”

“她没有。”

来源：趣闻捕手一点号