商业往事丨第62话：永远有机会改善处境

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永远有机会改善处境

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《生命的意义》是一本关于心理学家维克‧佛兰克尔在二战期间被囚禁在纳粹集中营的故事后，我阅读之后想起了希腊神话薛西佛斯的故事。这个故事后来被法国作家阿尔伯特‧卡缪改写，并延伸出新的意义。这两个故事，一个是真实故事，一个是虚构的，他们都加强了我的信念；就是如果我们能改变我们的心态，采取某种积极行动，我们总能找到方法，改善我们的处境。

在佛兰克尔的故事中，当佛兰克尔在纳粹集中营时他观察到，大多数囚犯不能相信他们昨天还拥有一切，而今天却几乎一无所有。他们失去了尊严，这是毁灭性的失望。有些人自杀了，很自杀容易。因为他们只需要扑向集中营四周围着的电网就可以了。然而，佛兰克尔认为；一个人如果陷入深深的绝望，每天能活着的机会都已经很低了，根本没有必要自杀。也就是说，囚犯不需要自己寻找死亡，死亡会主动过来找他们。因此，佛兰克尔；他不会自杀。相反，佛兰克尔决定想办法让自己生活更可以承受更多的磨难。而其中一种方法，就是尽管生活条件恶劣，他还要尽可能的微笑。他开始把注意力集中在积极的事情上，而不是消极的事情上。这种生活态度让他在三年的监禁期间变得更积极。如果没有这样做，他不可能度过集中营的日子活下来。

在薛西佛斯的故事中，薛西佛斯的父亲是神，他的母亲是人。所以，薛西佛斯是个半神半人。薛西佛斯被认为是人类世界最聪明的人，但他没有任何神的力量，也没有任何神的地位。根据荷马史诗，薛西佛斯跟死神作对，有一次把死神锁在铁链里，让许多人类就不会死亡。

但是在死神被释放后，薛西佛斯被惩罚了。他被判永远要把一块石头推上山。石头推到山顶后，石头又会滚到山底下。让薛西佛斯又得重新开始从山下推石头上山，日复一日的重复同样的惩罚。众神认为没有比这更严重的惩罚，因为薛西佛斯是没有希望的在做一个毫无意义的工作。这就是这个故事的结尾。

法国作家阿尔伯特‧卡缪发现；现代社会许多工人，也是日复一日的做同样的卑微的工作。从一方面来说，他们的命运就跟薛西佛斯一样，每天需要把那块石头推上山日复一日没有希望。对于大多数工人来说，他们不可能再找到另一份工作。因此，卡缪得出结论，人们需要找到一种方法，以某种方式赋予他们的日常工作意义。卡缪决定重写薛西佛斯的故事，让现代人工作有新的意义。

在卡缪的版本中，薛西佛斯最初觉得他的工作毫无意义，这是可以理解的；岩石没有意义，推石头上山没有意义。然而，薛西佛斯改变想法；他相信有意义的是他自己，尽管他受到惩罚，他仍然有自由的意志。如果他能够接受石头和接受惩罚，甚至享受这个惩罚，这就会赋予他的工作有意义，他的生命也会有意义。结果他变得开始喜欢这项工作，这项工作对他来说，已经不再是一种惩罚。这种想法将适用于神可以给他的任何任务。当薛西佛斯开始享受惩罚时，这时惩罚也失去意义了。

以上两个故事的意义几乎相同：也就是总有方法，可以让糟糕的情况变得更好。读完这两个故事后，我们想象一个状况；如果你是在一个工作环境很糟糕的公司工作，你没有机会找到一份更好的工作。你应该怎么做？

只要你愿意改变你的心态，你就是有选择的。至少，你可以努力在工作中学习更多的东西，学习让自己准备好找到一份更好工作的技能。或者，在可能的情况下，你可以尝试和主管合作，改善你的工作环境，使你的工作对你，和对你的主管都更加有利。

发现自己处于糟糕境地的人，往往将自身情况归咎于他人。例如，我们可能责怪我们的父母没有给我们一个好的教育，使我们能够找到一个更好的工作。或者，我们可能会责怪我们的主管，没有给我们更好的待遇。在这两种情况下，我们可能会用这些理由作为借口，让自己不要工作得这么辛苦。抱怨和责备他人很容易响应，但他们不会帮助我们改善我们的处境。

相反，我们需要积极思考和行动。我们的思想会影响我们的行为，我们的行为会产生结果。最终，这些结果将加起来并改变我们的环境。因此，我们必须首先改变我们的心态，然后我们可以寻求一个策略来采取行动，以改变我们的处境，就像佛兰克尔和薛西弗斯一样。佛兰克尔决定微笑着面对逆境，寻找事物中的好结果，薛西弗斯决定用积极的想法来接受他的惩罚。结果，他们都找到了生命中的意义。

我们的处境可能非常严峻，但我们不应该有消极或被动的心态。事业是做出来的，不要抱怨情况，也不要袖手旁观，等待形势的改变，只要我们需要采取行动，局势就会得到改善。

We Always have Opportunities to Improve our Status

On reading the book Man’s Search for Meaning about Viktor Frankl’s captivity in Nazi concentration camps during World War II, I remembered the Greek myth about Sisyphus, as rewritten and extended by French author Albert Camus. These two  stories, one true and one fictional, strengthened my conviction that we can always find ways to improve our status if we can change our mindset and take some kind of positive action. 

In Frankl’s story, when Frankl was in Nazi concentration camps, he observed that most prisoners couldn’t believe that they had almost everything yesterday and had almost nothing today. Their loss of dignity was devastating and some commited suicide. It was easy to commit suicide because they only needed to run into the electrified fence surrounding the camp. However, Frankl thought that commiting suicide wasn’t really necessary if one was in deep despair because the chances of surviving day to day were already so low. That is, the prisoners didn’t need to look for death, death would find them. So, Frankl vowed to himself that he would not take his own life. Instead, Frankl decided to find ways to make life more bearable. One of those ways was to smile as much as possible, despite the miserable conditions. He tried to focus on positive things, rather than negative things. And this helped him to fare better during his three years of confinement. Without doing so, he might not have survived.

In the story of Sisyphus, Sisyphus’ father was a god and his mother was a human. So, Sisyphus was half-god and half-human. Sisyphus was considered to be the smartest person in the human world, but he was without any divine power and without any divine position. According to the Homeric epic, one time Sisyphus defied the gods and put the god of death in chains so that no human needed to die. 

But after the god of death was released, Sisyphus was punished. He was sentenced to eternally push a rock up a mountain. Upon reaching the top of the mountain, the rock would roll down to the bottom, leaving Sisyphus to start over. The gods thought that there was no more severe punishment than this because it was without hope and was a meaningless task. And that’s where the original story ended. 

French author Albert Camus saw that many workers need to do the same menial jobs day after day. In a way, their fate is no less absurd than Sisyphus’ fate of needing to push that rock up a mountain every day. And for most of those workers, it was not possible to find another job. So, Camus concluded that people needed to find a way to somehow give meaning to their daily work. And Camus decided to rewrite the story of Sisyphus in order to give it new meaning for modern people.

In Camus’ version, Sisyphus understandably initially felt that his task was a meaningless task. Rock is meaningless, and pushing rock is meaningless. However, he believed that he had meaning and that he still had free will despite his punishment. If he were able to accept the rock and to accept the task, and even enjoy the task, that would give the task and his life meaning. And if he enjoyed doing the task, the task would no longer be a punishment. And this thinking would apply to any task that the gods could give to him. He would eventually find a way to give the task meaning and to start enjoying it. When Sisyphus started to enjoy this punishment, the punishment also lost meaning.

The lesson from the above two stories is almost the same: there’s always a way to make a bad situation better. After reading these two stories, imagine that you are working in a company with a terrible work environment and that you don’t have an opportunity to find a better job. What should you do?

You still have options if you change your mindset. At the very least, you can work hard in order to learn more things to prepare yourself to find a better job. But ideally, you can try to cooperate with your supervisor in order to improve your working environment, such that your job becomes more beneficial to both you and your supervisor. 

People who find themselves in bad situations often blame others for their circumstances. For example, we may blame our parents for not giving us a good education that would allow us to find a better job. Or we might blame our supervisor for not giving us good treatment. In either case, we might use these situations as excuses to not work so hard. Complaining and blaming others are easy responses, but they will not help us to improve our situation. 

Instead, we need to think and act positively. Our thinking will impact our behavior, and our behavior will produce results. Eventually, those results will add up and change our environment. So, we have to change our mindset first, and then we can seek a strategy to take action in order to change our situation, just like Frankl and Sisyphus did. Frankl decided to face adversity with a smile and look for the good in things, and Sisyphus decided to use positive thinking to accept his punishment. As a result, they both found meaning in their lives.

We may be in a very trying situation, but we shouldn’t have a negative or passive mindset. Don't complain about the situation and don’t just sit idly by and wait for the situation to change. We need to take action to cause the situation to improve.