失败了，被拒了，然后呢

译者 淡淡七色花

You will Fail or Be Rejected. Now what

失败了，被拒了，然后呢

We live in a culture dominated by stories of success. We see it everywhere we turn — on TV, in magazines, online, in the daily newspaper. Entire generations are growing up thinking they cannot fail. That success isn’t just the result of doing well, it is a guarantee that we can reach any goal we set.

我们生活在充斥着成功案例的文化环境中。电视，杂志，网络，日报，到处可见这样的成功故事。我们世世代代都在决不能失败的思想中长大成人。成功不仅仅是良好表现的结果，它还是我们实现既定目标的保证。

Now I’m all for optimism, don’t get me wrong. But as a pragmatist, I can’t help but sprinkle a little reality into an optimist’s dreams.

别误会，如今我可是一个坚定地乐观主义者。但作为一个实用主义者，我又禁不住要让些许现实照进乐观主义者的梦想中。

You will fail at some point in your life. You will be fired from a job you care about, or be rejected by a partner in a relationship you thought had a future. You will suffer from doing too much, or doing too little, all of which won’t matter. You will be rejected by something or someone you really want. And it will hurt. It might even hurt like hell.

你可能在生活中的某时某刻遭遇失败。可能你会丢了你所在意的工作，或者在一段你认为有未来的关系中遭到拒绝，可能你会因为做得太多或太少而感到痛苦，所有这一切都无关紧要。可能你会被你真心渴望的人或是拒绝。这样的经历很伤人，可能甚至像地狱一样痛苦。

What do you do now?

这时，你打算怎么办？

First, understand that failure or rejection doesn’t mean the end of the world. We humans have a way of generalizing things to be larger than they really are. When we are rejected or fail at a goal we set for ourselves, it often feels like it was something very personal — “I am a bad person, I suck. I can’t even do this one thing.” We turn it into something that it isn’t.

首先，要知道失败，遭到拒绝并不意味着世界末日。我们人类总善于夸大其词。每当我们遭到拒绝或是没能实现自己定下的目标时，通常会感情用事——“我糟糕透了。我甚至干不成一件事。”我们把事情变成另一副模样。

Don’t get over it right away. Too many “experts” say you just need to “learn from the experience” and move on. While that’s ultimately true, that’s not going to help in the moment of failure or rejection.

别急着和失败撇清关系。太多的“专家”告诉你必须“吃一堑，长一智”，然后继续前进。虽说这种观点完全正确，但是当失败拒绝来临的当口却并非帮的上忙。

Embrace the feeling — feel bad for yourself. Cry. Talk to your friends about how much it stinks you didn’t achieve your goal. This is all a part of a grief process — the process of losing something you really wanted. You have to come to terms with the loss on your own time, and in your own manner.

正视自己的感受——那种为自己感到惋惜的感觉。哭出来。向朋友们倾诉因为没实现目标你有多么的沮丧。这仅仅是你伤心过程的一部分——失去真正渴望的事物的过程。你必须及时地用自己的方法接受这个失败。

Then, move on and understand that as trite as it is to say it, you can’t have a life filled only with good experiences. Sure, we all want to maximize those and minimize the bad, but most of it is out of our control. Decisions made by others are not something we can change — we can only influence them. Once made, we have to accept them even when they don’t go our way. Bad experiences put good experiences in sharp perspective.

然后，继续前进。正如老话说的那样，人生不如意之事十之八九。当然，我们都希望好事最大化坏事最小化，然而多数情况下我们无法掌控。我们无法左右别人的决定，我们只能影响做决定的人。决定一旦做出，我们就必须接受，即便不顺我们的意愿。如意在不如意中变得显而易见。

Failure can also act as a great motivator for the future. Don’t want to fail again? There are times where you can actually change the future based upon what you learn from failure. For instance, if you fail an exam, more often than not the reason might be found in your study habits (or lack thereof). If a relationship goes bad, are there things that you could’ve done differently to have helped it? While it may not help in the present situation, it may give you some guidance for future situations.

失败也可能扮演强大的未来激励者的角色。不想再失败了？很多时候，你可以从失败中吸取教训，并以此为基础从而真正改变未来。举个例子，假如你考试没通过，究其原因通常是由于你的学习习惯（或缺乏好的习惯）。如果一段关系变差，是否你本应该改变做法来改善它呢？当时的情况下可能没什么帮助，但将来也许对你有指导意义。

Most of the time, the lesson you can learn from a failure or rejection isn’t something you’re going to recognize right away. It may takes weeks or even months to see the meaning behind the rejection or failure.

大多数时候，你可能不会马上意识到从失败或拒绝中吸取的教训。失败或拒绝背后的意义可能要经过几周甚至几个月的时间才能显现出来。

Of course, not every failure or rejection has something to teach us. Sometimes we get laid off from a job because of a bad economy. It has little to do with us. It still hurts of course, but it’s not your fault. If you don’t get the promotion or into the college you wanted, it may also be other factors beyond your own personal characteristics as well (such as the sheer number of people vying for the position). There are failures where I learned a lot from, and then there are failures that had little to teach me.

当然，并非每个失败或拒绝都会给我们上一课。有时，我们因为经济不景气而丢了工作。这与我们无关。当然这令人伤心，但错不在我们。如果你没能晋升或进入理想的大学，也可能存在你的个人原因以外的因素（诸如竞争职位或名额的人数众多）。有些失败从中我学会许多，也有些失败从中我一无所获。

Failure and rejection are a part of everybody’s life. The key is not to overgeneralize a situation or personalize it inappropriately (two common cognitive distortions). Embrace failure, accept it as a part of a normal life, and take away something (if there’s something to take away) that you can use to your advantage in the future.

失败，遭到拒绝是每个人生活的一部分。关键在于不要将情况一概而论或带有不恰当的个人感情（两类常见的认知扭曲）。正视失败，将它作为日常生活的一部分，带上那些将来对你有所帮助的东西（如果有值得带上的）。