別再否認了 成功當然跟運氣有關大綱

Chance events play a much larger role in life than many people once imagined.

偶然事件對於命運的改變，比許多人以前想象的要大得多。

Most of us have no difficulty recognizing luck when it’s on conspicuous display, as when someone wins the lottery. But randomness often plays out in subtle ways, and it’s easy to construct narratives that portray success as having been inevitable. Those stories are almost invariably misleading, however, a simple fact that has surprising implications for public policy.

當好運以非常引人注目的方式降臨，比如有人中了彩票，我們大部分人不難看出來。但這種偶然因素往往以不易察覺的方式起作用，因此人們容易構建出一種邏輯，將成功描繪爲必然的。然而，這些成功故事幾乎都不可避免地存在誤導性，而這樣一個簡單的事實，會對公共政策產生令人意外的後果。

Consider the history of the Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting in the world. After having languished in obscurity for most of its early existence, Leonardo da Vinci’s work was pushed into the spotlight in 1911 when it was stolen from the Louvre.

來看看《蒙娜麗莎》(Mona Lisa)的歷史吧。這或許是世界上最知名的一幅畫。在誕生之初的大多數時間裏，萊昂納多·達芬奇(Leonardo da Vinci)的這幅畫作一直默默無聞。直到1911年，它從盧浮宮被盜，方纔突然成爲衆人關注的焦點。

The widely publicized theft remained unsolved for two years until Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian maintenance worker at the Louvre, was apprehended after trying to sell the painting to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. His arrest provoked a second wave of publicity, with images of the Mona Lisa splashed around the world.

兩年後，這樁廣爲人知的盜竊事件終於告破。當時，盧浮宮的意大利維修工溫琴佐·佩魯賈(Vincenzo Peruggia)試圖將這幅畫賣給位於意大利佛羅倫薩的烏菲齊美術館(Uffizi Gallery)，隨即被捕。此人歸案再次引發人們對《蒙娜麗莎》的廣泛關注，它的圖片出現在世界各地的媒體上。

In the years since, the painting has come to represent Western culture itself. Yet had it never been stolen, most of us would know no more about it than we do of the two obscure Leonardo da Vinci canvases from the same period that hang in an adjacent gallery at the Louvre. Like Kim Kardashian, apparently, the Mona Lisa is famous largely for being famous.

在之後的多年裏，這幅畫逐漸成爲西方文化本身的代表。但是，如果不是因爲當初被盜，我們大多數人對它的瞭解，不會比萊昂納多·達芬奇同一時期創作的另外兩幅鮮爲人知的油畫更多。後二者就掛在盧浮宮內與《蒙娜麗莎》相鄰的展廳內。顯然，就像金·卡戴珊(Kim Kardashian)一樣，《蒙娜麗莎》之所以這麼出名，很大程度上就是因爲大家知道了它的存在。

As in the art world, so too in the world of work. Almost every career trajectory entails a complex sequence of steps, each of which depends on those preceding it. If any of those earlier steps had been different, the entire trajectory would almost surely have been different, too.

職場和藝術界是一樣的。幾乎每個人的事業軌跡都是由一系列複雜的步驟組成，其中的每一步都取決於前面邁出了什麼樣的步伐。如果早前的步伐中有任何一步是另外一個樣子，幾乎可以肯定，整個軌跡也會因之不同。

Inevitably, some of those initial steps will have been influenced by seemingly trivial random events. So it is reasonable to conclude that virtually all successful careers entail at least a modicum of luck.

而在最初的步伐中，有些不可避免地會受到看似微不足道的偶然事件的影響。所以我們可以得出這樣一個合理的結論：所有成功的職業生涯至少都包含些許的運氣成分。

One’s date of birth can matter enormously, for example. According to a 2008 study, most children born in the summer tend to be among the youngest members of their class at school, which appears to explain why they are significantly less likely to hold leadership positions during high school and thus, another study indicates, less likely to land premium jobs later in life. Similarly, according to research published in the journal Economics Letters in 2012, the number of American chief executives who were born in June and July is almost one-third lower than would be expected on the basis of chance alone.

比如，一個人的出生日期就可以產生非常大的影響。2008年的一項研究顯示，大多數出生在夏天的孩子往往是班上最小的學生，而這似乎解釋了爲何他們在很大程度上不太可能在高中期間擔任領導角色，因此就像另一項研究顯示的，也就不太可能在以後的生活中獲得優質工作機會。2012年刊登於《經濟學快報》雜誌(Economics Letters)的一項研究也顯示，出生在6月和7月的美國企業首席執行官比單就概率計算應該出現的人數少了將近三分之一。

Even the first letter of a person’s last name can explain significant achievement gaps. Assistant professors in the 10 top-ranked American economics departments, for instance, were more likely to be promoted to tenure the earlier the first letter of their last names fell in the alphabet, a 2006 study found. Researchers attributed this to the custom in economics of listing co-authors’ names alphabetically on papers, noting that no similar effect existed for professors in psychology, whose names are not listed alphabetically.

就連姓氏的首字母也有可能是人們取得的成就天差地別的原因。比如，2006年的一項研究發現，對於美國最頂級的十個經濟學院系的助理教授來說，其姓氏首字母在字母表中的位置越靠前，就有可能越早獲得終身教職。研究人員將其中的原因歸爲經濟學領域的一種慣例，即發表論文時按姓氏首字母對共同作者進行排序。這項研究還指出，心理學領域的教授發表論文時排名不按姓氏字母順序，就不存在類似的效應。

To acknowledge the importance of random events is not to suggest that success is independent of talent and effort. In highly competitive arenas, those who do well are almost always extremely talented and hard-working. As Charlie Munger, the vice chairman of Warren E. Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has said, “The safest way to get what you want is to try and deserve what you want.”

認可偶然事件的重要性，不是爲了證明成功不依賴於天賦和努力。事實上，在競爭極爲激烈的領域，表現好的人幾乎總是極具天賦而又非常勤勉的人。就像沃倫·E·巴菲特(Warren E. Buffett)的控股公司伯克希爾-哈撒韋(Berkshire Hathaway)的副董事長查理·芒格(Charlie Munger)曾經說過的，“要得到自己想要的東西，最穩妥的辦法就是努力讓自己變成值得擁有那一切的人。”

Perhaps the most useful advice for someone who aspires to material success is to develop expertise at a task that others value. Such expertise comes not from luck but from thousands of hours of assiduous effort.

對於渴望獲得物質成功的人士來說，最有用的建議或許是在被他人看重的某一領域掌握自己的專長。這種專長不可能來自運氣，而是要靠成千上萬個小時的刻苦努力。

But talent and effort are not enough. Luck also matters. Even the most able, industrious people in South Sudan have little chance at success. Success is not guaranteed for deserving people in wealthy countries with highly developed legal and educational institutions and other infrastructure, but it’s substantially more likely.

但光有天賦和努力是不夠的。運氣也很重要。即便是最有能力、最勤勉的人，在南蘇丹獲得成功的機會也微乎其微。並不是說，在擁有高度發達的法律、教育體系及其他基礎設施的富裕國家，理應獲得成功的人就一定能成功，但他們的機率會大很多。

Being born in a good environment is one of the few dimensions of luck we can control — that is, at least we can decide how lucky our children will be. But as a nation, we’ve been doing a bad job of it for at least a generation. The luckiest are getting luckier even as their numbers shrink. The unlucky population is growing, and its luck is getting worse.

出生在一個良好的環境裏，是我們所能掌控的爲數不多的一項運氣——也就是說，我們至少能決定讓自己的孩子擁有多大的運氣。不過，作爲一個國家，我們在這方面做得並不好，至少在這二三十年裏是如此。最幸運的人羣在變得更加幸運，儘管他們的人數減少了。而不幸人羣的基數卻在增加，其運氣也在變得更差。

These changes have stemmed in part from sharply diminished public support for education. According to a 2015 report by the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, for example, state spending per student averaged about 20 percent less in 2014-15 than in the 2007-8 school year. More than 70 percent of students who graduated from four-year colleges in 2015 had student loans that averaged $35,000.

出現這些變化，有一部分原因是教育方面得到的公共支持急劇減少。比如，無黨派機構預算與政策重點中心(Center for Budget and Policy Priorities)在2015年發表的一份報告顯示，2014至2015學年，各州在每個學生身上的平均支出比2007至2008學年降低了20%。2015年從四年制學院畢業的學生，有超過70%揹負着學生貸款，平均額度達3.5萬美元。

It’s no surprise, then, that access to the benefits of a college degree continues to depend heavily on family income. According to a study from the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy, at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, 77 percent of offspring of families in the top income quartile had earned college degrees by age 24 in 2013, compared with only 9 percent of those from bottom-quartile families. More troubling, the disparity persists even when controlling for precollege academic aptitude scores.

因此也就不必奇怪，一個人能否享受大學學位帶來的好處，會持續地嚴重依賴於其家庭收入狀況。賓夕法尼亞大學(University of Pennsylvania)高等教育與民主聯盟(Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy)和佩爾高等教育機會研究所(Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education)共同進行的一項研究發現，2013年，收入水平處在前四分之一範圍內的家庭的子女，有77%在24歲前拿到了大學學位；相比之下，來自後四分之一收入家庭的學生拿到學位的比例只有9%。更讓人不安的是，即便排除了大學前的學術能力測驗分數的影響，這種懸殊的差距依然存在。

The human tendency to underestimate luck’s role has contributed to this troubling state of affairs by reducing the electorate’s willingness to support the public investments that make economic success possible. But the taxes people want to avoid need not be personally painful.

人們有低估運氣的作用的傾向，這幫助促成了如今這種令人不安的狀況，因爲它降低了選民們支持有可能帶來經濟成功的公共投資的意願。但納稅人就是想避開無關個人痛苦的需求。

Evidence from the social sciences demonstrates that beyond a certain income threshold, people’s sense of well-being depends much more on their relative purchasing power than on how much they spend in absolute terms. If top tax rates were a little higher, all homes would be a little smaller, all cars a little less expensive, all diamonds a little more modest and all celebrations a little less costly. The standards that define “special” would adjust accordingly, leaving most successful people quite satisfied.

來自社會科學研究的證據證明，除了一定程度的收入門檻，人們的幸福感更多地取決於他們的相對購買力，而非他們支出絕對值的多少。如果最高稅率略微高一些，所有的住宅都會略微小一些，所有汽車都會略微便宜一些，所有的鑽石首飾都會略微樸素一些，所有慶祝活動的開支都會略微低一些。定義“特別”的標準會相應地發生改變，讓大多數成功人士感覺相當滿意。

Happily, there is a simple remedy: Merely prompting people to reflect on their good fortune tends to make them more willing to contribute to the common good, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Emotion. So try to engage your successful friends in discussions about their experiences with luck. In the process, you may increase their willingness to support the kinds of public investments that will enhance the next generation’s odds of success. And you will almost surely hear some interesting stories.

幸運的是，這裏有一個簡單的解決之道：2010年發表在《情緒》期刊(Emotion)上的一項研究結果顯示，只需敦促人們反思自己獲得的好運氣，就有可能讓他們更願意爲公共利益做貢獻。所以盡力讓你身邊那些比較成功的朋友們談論自己幸運的經歷。在這個過程中，你或許能增加他們支持一些能提高下一代成功機率的公共投資的意願。而且幾乎可以肯定的是，你也會聽到一些有趣的故事。