I worry about things more than I’d like to.
我对很多事情过于担心。
I worry about making mistakes, getting criticized, having my business fail, being awkward or rude in social situations and lots of other things.
我担心犯错，担心被责备，担心公司倒闭，担心在社交场合出丑或不够礼貌，此外还有很多。
Most of the time my worries just stay in my head. They’re there, but I ignore them well enough to get on with my day and keep working.
大部分时候这些担心只停留在我的脑袋里。它们存在，但我能很好地忽略它们，从而继续工作和生活。
Other times, those worries grip me and derail my progress. I struggled immensely with big parts of writing my upcoming book. My own expectations (and imagined attacks) made starting the writing portion of each chapter a strenuous chore.
但另一些时候，这些担心攫住了我的心神，阻碍了我的工作进程。我在写新书的大块内容时都要奋力挣扎，自己的期望（以及想象出来的别人的攻击）让开始每一章的写作都成为一件困难的事。
I don’t think my level of anxiety is unusual or extreme. I don’t get panic attacks, and I haven’t had anxiety debilitate my life the way it does for many. That said, I’ve tried a lot of things to make it easier. Here’s what’s worked for me.
我不认为我的焦虑水平不正常或达到了极端的程度，也没有感到恐慌，也不像很多人那样，让焦虑影响了我的生活。尽管如此，我依然尝试了很多办法减轻焦虑，以下是对我有效的方式。
Most problems in life are stubborn, rather than complicated. Thus we tend to spend our lives fighting against the same problems over and over. Progress is possible, but at the same time, our old foes are rarely completely vanquished.
Overcoming worrying isn’t a trivial issue. But it there are strategies you can use to lessen the impact.
I’ve found meditation helpful, not so much for the actual meditation itself, but for the idea of what meditation tries to accomplish and to apply the same abstract principles to my ordinary life.
我发现冥想很有帮助，并不是冥想实际的过程本身有多大用处，而是冥想想要实现什么的思想有用，并将同样的抽象原则应用到我日常的生活中。
One of the core ideas of Buddhist philosophy is anatman, or not-self. The idea essentially boils down to reviewing everything in your conscious experience and recognizing that you don’t have control over it.
佛学的核心思想之一就是无我。这种思想本质上可以归结为，回顾你清醒经历过的每件事，然后承认你无法控制它。
It’s easy to see your thoughts as part of yourself. Something you create and control. It can therefore be frustrating when you can’t help yourself from worrying.
很容易认为你的思想是你自身的一部分，是你创造并可以控制的东西。因此当你无法摆脱焦虑时就会感到挫败。
Another way of looking at it, however, is that thoughts just happen. They are a sensory experience, not part of you. Thoughts comes from inside your head, but otherwise they’re as much under your control as what you see, hear or feel from the outside world.
然而，另一种看待的方式是，那些焦虑的想法就是会发生。它们是一种感官体验，而不是你自身的一部分。思想来自你的头脑内部，但在其他方面，它们和你看到、听到或感受到的外部世界一样，不在你的控制之下。
Denying ownership of a thought gives you a choice not to grab onto it. Just like how you might have an annoying sound in the background and choose to ignore it because there’s nothing you can do, you can similarly have a distracting, negative thought and choose to do nothing about it.
否认你拥有一种想法，使你可以避免抓着这种想法不放。就好像有一种恼人的背景音，而你可以选择置之不理，因为反正也无可奈何；类似地，当你有一种负面的、令你分神的想法时，也可以选择对它置之不理。
This approach is different because most of us spend our time trying to “stop” ourselves from worrying (which makes it worse), or try to “solve” the worry by imagining a way to avoid the threat. It’s easy to forget that there’s a third option: do nothing.
这个方法的不同之处在于，我们大多数人都把时间花在了让自己“停止”担心上（这反而使事情更糟），或试图通过想象一种方式避免威胁来“解决”所担心的问题。很容易忘记其实还有第三种选择：什么都不做。
Facing down your fears is good. But there’s a difference between healthy exposure to things that give you anxiety, and indulging in a non-stop download of algorithmically-optimized information designed to trigger your threat response.
战胜恐惧是件好事，但健康地面对那些给你造成焦虑的事情，和沉湎于无止境地接收社交媒体经过算法优化的、有意要激起你面对威胁的反应的信息，这两者之间是有区别的。
Twitter is my vice of choice. I love being able to engage with smart people from around the world on interesting topics. More than once I’ve learned fascinating new things. But the platform is also a nightmare for throwing up things that make you feel angry or anxious.
推特是我的一个不好的选择。我喜欢能够与全世界的聪明人就有趣的话题进行交流，并且我不止一次学到了很棒的新东西。但这个平台也是一个噩梦，因为它不断丢出让你感到愤怒或焦虑的东西。
I now believe that resiliency must be matched with choosing appropriate environments. Mute the people and sources that make you feel worried. Especially if those are the people on “your side.”
我现在认为恢复力必须与选择正确的环境相匹配。屏蔽那些让你感到焦虑的人和信息来源，尤其是那些“你身边”的人。
Not all anxieties are recurring. You may worry that you said something weird to that person one time, and forget about it a few days later. Others, however, have consistent themes and show up again and again.
不是所有让人焦虑的事情都会反复发生。你可能担心自己有次对那个人说了不合适的话，但过几天就忘了。然而，有一些焦虑的内容是持续的问题，会一次又一次地出现。
One of mine is definitely being criticized for my work or projects. Over the last thirteen years I’ve said and done a lot. A lot of the things I’ve said or decisions I made have probably been wrong. Thus, anyone with an axe to grind against me would have plenty of material to make an attack.
一个让我持续焦虑的内容肯定要算自己的工作或项目遭到批评。在过去十三年里，我说了很多，也做了很多。我说的很多话，或者做出的很多决定，有可能是错误的。因此，任何提着斧子想要找我麻烦的人，都有大量可供他们攻击的素材。
This worry has often been stoked by seeing highly-public cases of someone having their career ruined because of a relatively innocent mistake. I remember puzzling over the downfall of Jonah Lehrer, whose sky-rocketing writing career was torn down over misquoting Bob Dylan. I agree he made some mistakes, but the punishment didn’t match the crime.
有人因为相对无关紧要的小错误而毁了自己的事业，看到这种广受关注的案例，就会点燃我的担心。我记得曾对乔纳·雷尔（Jonah Lehrer）从高处跌落百思不得其解，他如日中天的写作事业因为错误地引用了鲍勃·迪伦而遭到诋毁。我同意他犯了一些错误，但遭到的惩罚太重了。
Although I can’t simulate a career-ending mistake without making one, I’ve tried to attenuate my own fears of criticism by going out and reading it. When I do, the attacks are rarely as bad as the ones I imagine. Even from people who hate me (one guy even created a website saying why he hated me), the reality is usually easier than my imagination.
尽管我没法在不犯一个终结自己事业的错误的情况下去模拟这种情形，但我试图通过走出去阅读别人的批评来缓解我对批评的恐惧。当我这样做时，看到的攻讦很少有我想象的那样严重。即使是来自那些讨厌我的人（有个人甚至还建了一个网站说明他为什么讨厌我）的攻击，现实也比我想象的容易得多。
Your fears may be different. It might be failing a big test, getting fired or being humiliated. Seeking mild exposure to those things you fear is often the only way to diminish their intensity.
你害怕的内容可能不同，或许是害怕一次大型考试的失败，害怕被解雇，或害怕丢脸。想办法适度地面对你害怕的那些事，通常是降低恐惧程度的唯一方式。
My friend, a clinical psychologist, told me that one of the big mistakes people make to deal with anxiety is seeking reassurance. You worry, so naturally you want to talk to someone who will tell you everything will be okay.
我的一位临床心理学家朋友告诉我，人们在应对焦虑时犯的一个大错，就是试图寻求安慰。你很担心，所以很自然地，你想要找个人聊一聊，让他告诉你，一切都会好起来的。
While this does make you feel better for a short time, it actually makes it worse later. By “rewarding” your anxious mental patterns with reassurance, you strengthen this pattern of behavior through negative reinforcement.
尽管这在短时间内会让你觉得更好，但事实上之后会让事情变得更糟。对你焦虑的思维模式“回报”以安慰，你通过负强化增强了这种行为模式。
Similarly, you can have the same issue when trying to “solve” your worries. If you’re have anxious thoughts about someone humiliating you at work, you might fantasize your comeback.
类似地，当你试图“解决”自己担心的事情时，也会有同样的问题。如果你焦虑有人会在工作上羞辱你，那么就可能幻想自己会如何反击。
The alternative approach, suggested by my friend, was to resist the temptation to find a way out of your problem. It will make your anxiety worse, but because there’s no “resolution”, the pattern that led to your anxiety is reduced.
我朋友所建议的另一个办法，是抵制想要解决问题的冲动。这会让你的焦虑更严重，但因为没有“解决之道”，你焦虑的思维模式就被削弱了。
This model suggests that anxiety is a motivation with a clear purpose. That purpose is to identify threats and formulate solutions to them. When the goal of this feeling is frustrated, the response is weakened for the next time.
这个模型认为，焦虑是一种动机，有着清晰的目的，即识别出威胁并形成解决方案。当这种感受的目标没能实现时，下次这种回应就被削弱了。
I got an email from a reader who also struggles with anxiety, and said that although he can see from a distant perspective that many of his anxieties are irrational, he can’t so easily separate the legitimate worries from the ridiculous ones when they’re afflicting him.
我收到一封读者的来信，他正受到焦虑的困扰。虽然拉开一点距离后，他能意识到自己的许多焦虑都是不合理的，但深陷焦虑的折磨之中时，他无法容易地区分出合理的焦虑与没有依据的焦虑。
A behavior that is bad 100% of the time is much easier to break off as a habit than one which is beneficial some of the time. When you quit smoking, you can go cold turkey. When you want to quit overeating, you can’t stop eating food. Similarly, some anxiety is probably a good thing. But too much can be crippling.
如果一个行为100%的时间都是有害的，那么相比于那些时而有益时而有害的行为，戒断前者要容易得多。当你戒烟时，你可以干脆利落地完全戒断；而当你想要戒掉吃得过多时，你无法停止摄入食物。类似地，有些焦虑可能本身是一件好事，但过多的焦虑就会让人吃不消。
What this reader wanted to be able to do was to figure out which fears were rational and which were not, in the moment, so as to ignore the irrational ones.
这位读者当时想要实现的是，能够弄明白哪些恐惧是合理的，哪些是不合理的，从而可以忽略不合理的那些。
You can’t separate out the “rational” worries from the irrational ones.
你无法从不合理的焦虑中分离出“合理的”焦虑。
Most of your anxieties, even the ones you should have less of, do have a rational basis. The things I fear are not things that are totally without merit, although I should probably worry about them less than I do typically.
你的大多数焦虑，即使是你应该减少的焦虑，都有合理的基础。我所害怕的事情并不是完全一无是处，尽管我应该比通常所做的减少一些担心。
Instead of asking whether something is irrational, ask if you should change your behavior. When a worry can’t change your response, it’s not helpful, even if it might be rational.
与其问某件事是不是合理，不如问你是否应该改变自己的行为。当担心也无法改变你做出的回应时，它就是没有帮助的，即使那可能是合理的担心。
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