氧气和乙炔:稍微失控

从生活中我领会到了一件事儿，那就是“平衡”被高估了。

Sometimes your life will be highly out of balance, and that’s perfectly fine. Sometimes you will be particularly enamored (or obsessed) with one thing, and the rest of your life is thrown off its axis.

有时候你的生活平衡会被打破，其实那样的确挺好的。一些时候你会特别迷恋一件事，这时候你生活中的其他事情就会偏离主轴。

When you become hyper-focused, for a few months your career may be your primary focus (which can be the case if you’re working toward quitting your job and doing something you love for a living). You might go into a cave to work on a project to take your success to a new level and intentionally neglect the other areas of your life.

当你变得高度集中，几个月时间你的事业可能会成为你的主要焦点（此点可用做如果你努力工作是为辞去手头工作来做自己喜欢之事为生的事例）。你可能会将自己投入到工作项目的空间，以此获得成功而达到一个新的高度，那时你其实已经有意地忽视了生活中的其他领域。

Maybe your relationships will be your primary focus for a period of life, as well as learning how to cultivate them more intimately and intelligently.

或许生活中的一段时期，你的主要焦点是人际关系，了解怎样聪明地培养人际亲密关系成为了关注点。

At another time, your attention might be concentrated on overhauling your diet and changing your fitness habits.

另一些时候，你的注意力可能会集中在饮食大调整和改变健康习惯上。

At different periods of my life, I’ve found it necessary to become highly unbalanced in order to find a greater equilibrium. At certain times I’ve focused mostly on self development, confidence and reclaiming ownership of my mind. There have been periods where I’ve intentionally neglected different areas of my life and worked on building my business so I could quit my job and work for myself. At the beginning of 2009, my main focus was on changing my relationship to food and moving toward eating more raw foods. Most recently, I’ve become more focused on the physical expression of self development: martial arts, gymnastics, trail-running.

在我生活的不同时期，我发现，为了找寻到一种更棒的均衡，必须要变得高度失衡才可以。在一个时间段，我把大部分的注意力放在自我完善，提高自信和思维再生上。也会有一段时间我有意地忽视生活中不同领域以期建立自己的生意，也好辞去那时的工作，为自己工作。2009年初，我的主要焦点是在改变我与食物的关系，那段时间我一直更多地吃生食。前不久，我更多地关注物理学表达的自我完善，即练习武术，体操和越野跑。

From the outside, it would be very easy for someone to look at the way I live and conclude that I live a highly unbalanced life. They might even think that’s it out of control. And that’s perfectly fine with me. My aim is not to live a balanced life. My aim is to do what excites me, and follow the path that makes me come alive.

以旁观者的眼光来看，很容易根据我的生活方式得到我过着极不平衡的生活这一结论。你们也许还会想我的生活没准儿失控了。但其实这样对我来说挺好的。我的目标不是过平衡的生活，而是做一些能够让我兴奋的事情，遵循着让我活力无限的道路生活。

Unbalanced success

打破平衡的成功

I’ve become highly unbalanced to accomplish much of the success I’ve had with this website and my business.

我的高度不平衡状态帮助我完成了这个网页和自己事业的绝大部分成功。

When I wrote Reclaim Your Dreams and The Zero Hour Workweek, that was the only thing I did. I didn’t work on building traffic, I didn’t try to write blog posts, tweak the design, or work on social media. I just wrote until I was done. It was highly unbalanced. And extremely effective.

当我写《重获梦想》和《零小时工作周》时，就只专注与写作。这段时间内，我也不建设交通，也不写博客帖子，做界面设计或者兼职社区媒体。我只是一直写，直到写完为止。的确高度失衡，但却格外高效。1

When I created Paid to Exist, that’s all that I worked on.

当我创作《为存在支付》时，我只做这么一件事。

When I decided to become a life coach, I completely immersed myself in learning everything I could to become a coach.

当我决定做一个生活教练，我会完全专注于学习成为教练的每一件事。

At any given point during these times, my life might have looked seriously unbalanced. I would call it something else… full engagement.

在这段时间内的任何点看上去，我的生活的确非常失衡。我有另外一个词称呼这种状态：满档。

You could perpetually toe-dip and divide each endeavor into perfectly partitioned portions. That would be safe. That would probably feel pretty comfortable. And you’d have the approval of the majority of those around you.

你可以连续全心投入并把每次的努力很好地划分成几个部分。这样会保险些也更舒适，而且获得你周围大多数人的支持。

But chances are, that wouldn’t be very exciting, and it most certainly won’t lead to greatness.

但当时机会是这样的，他很令人兴奋，但却多数情况下不会引领成就。

Being truly exceptional requires complete immersion. Becoming great demands that you give yourself to your practice fully.

变得无与伦比需要完全地投入，完完全全地将所需投入到自己的实践中去。

I think that too much weight can be put on finding the perfect balance. If you’re highly balanced and highly bored, what’s the point? I would rather do what makes me fulfilled.

我想，更多的力量可以用于寻找一种完美的平衡。如果你高度平衡但却极其无聊，那么又有何意义？我宁可去做一些能让我充实的事情。

Perhaps this elusive balance doesn’t really exist. The greatest equilibrium might be found off-center.

也许这种难以捉摸的平衡并不真正存在，而真正意义上的均衡则可能出现在稍偏离中心的位置上。

So, maybe it makes more sense to do what makes you come alive, and leave it for others to decide whether you’re balanced or not.

所以，可能去做一些更能让我们焕发活力的事情才更有意义，至于这样到底是平衡还是失衡，留给其他人去思考吧！