理想職業(yè)生涯需要事先規(guī)劃嗎?

From ‘Hamlet’ to Hillary

理想職業(yè)生涯需要事先規(guī)劃嗎?

IF Hillary Clinton goes the distance, she may have Shakespeare to thank.

如果希拉里·克林頓(Hillary Clinton)能夠跑完全程，她可能得感謝莎士比亞。

Shakespeare and beer.

莎士比亞和啤酒。

Both forged one of her campaign’s chief architects, Joel Benenson. Both are among his compasses.

她競(jìng)選活動(dòng)的主設(shè)計(jì)師之一喬爾·班納森(Joel Benenson)，就是由這兩者造就的。兩者都是指引他的好幫手。

And I mention that not for what it portends about her message. No, I’m fascinated by what the jagged arc of Benenson’s life and career says about higher education, the liberal arts, indulging your passions, allowing for digressions and not sweating the immediate relevance and payoff of each and every step you take.

我提到它們，并非是說這預(yù)示了克林頓要傳達(dá)的訊息。不是。令我著迷的是班納森不循常規(guī)的人生和事業(yè)軌跡體現(xiàn)了怎樣一種思路：高等教育和文科的意義何在?還有，你可以燃燒激情，可以偏離大道，無須對(duì)走的每一步的重要性和回報(bào)感到緊張。

Benenson, 62, majored in theater at Queens College, part of the City University of New York. He thought he’d be an actor, but for most of his 20s co-owned a beer distributorship in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn.

班納森如今62歲，當(dāng)年在紐約城市大學(xué)(City University of New York)的皇后學(xué)院(Queens College)主修戲劇專業(yè)。他覺得自己會(huì)成為一名演員，但20多歲的大部分時(shí)候，他都和人一起在布魯克林的皇冠高地做啤酒分銷生意。

And now? He’s one of the country’s leading pollsters and political strategists. He played a key role in Barack Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential races and is doing likewise in Clinton’s 2016 one.

現(xiàn)在呢?他是全美著名的民意調(diào)查專家和政治策略師，曾在貝拉克·奧巴馬2008年和2012年的兩次總統(tǒng)競(jìng)選中發(fā)揮了關(guān)鍵作用，目前正在為克林頓2016年的競(jìng)選出謀劃策。

But if his present and past seem disconnected to you, they don’t to him. After I wrote a column earlier this year extolling the study of literature and its grand masters, he emailed me: “I can personally attest to the value of Shakespeare in my current profession.”

可能大家會(huì)覺得他的現(xiàn)在和過去跨度太大，但他自己卻不這么看。今年早些時(shí)候，我寫了一篇專欄文章，頌揚(yáng)了文學(xué)研究以及該領(lǐng)域的大師。之后他發(fā)電子郵件給我，表示：“我可以用親身經(jīng)歷來證明，莎士比亞在我目前職業(yè)中的價(jià)值。”

Parsing “Hamlet” and “Macbeth” gave him an “understanding of the rhythm and nuance of language,” he explained, that’s as useful as any fluency in statistics or political science per se.

他解釋說，解析《哈姆雷特》和《麥克白》讓他“了解到語言中的節(jié)奏和細(xì)微差別”，而這與熟練掌握統(tǒng)計(jì)學(xué)或政治學(xué)本身一樣有用。

And the legacy of the beer business?

那么，啤酒生意給他帶來的影響又是什么呢?

He said that almost “every single person” around him — his customers, his employees and his associates — was “living paycheck to paycheck.”

他說，身邊的幾乎“每個(gè)人”——客戶、員工和同事——都“指望薪水過活”。

“Those conversations never left me,” he explained over a recent lunch, adding that his “value as a pollster” is his ability to write questions in the language of these men and women and to hear the answers accurately. “I know their voices.”

“我身邊總是存在這類對(duì)話，”他在近日的一次午餐中解釋，而他“作為一個(gè)民意調(diào)查專家的價(jià)值”，就在于能夠運(yùn)用這些人的語言來編寫問題，并準(zhǔn)確解讀他們的回答。“我了解他們?cè)捓锏暮x。”

Benenson shared his story and thoughts in part because he’s concerned, as I am, that too many anxious parents and their addled children believe in, and insist on, an exacting, unforgiving script for success and (supposedly) happiness. Go to this venerable college. Pursue that sensible course of study. Tailor your exertions to the looming job market.

班納森之所以分享自己的故事和想法，部分原因在于，他和我一樣，擔(dān)心太多焦慮的父母和懵懂的孩子相信并嚴(yán)格遵循通往成功(據(jù)說還有)幸福的一套嚴(yán)格死板的秘方。上名校、讀好專業(yè)、努力為將要進(jìn)入的就業(yè)市場(chǎng)做有針對(duì)性的準(zhǔn)備。

They put too much faith in plotting, too little in serendipity. And it can leach joy and imagination from their pursuits.

他們對(duì)這個(gè)計(jì)劃太有信心，對(duì)機(jī)緣巧合又太缺乏信心。而這，可能會(huì)在謀求職業(yè)的道路上，抹殺掉他們的快樂和想象力。

His experience illuminates a different possibility. And so, as it happens, do the experiences of many of the other main characters in Obama’s ascent. They either didn’t travel a perfectly straight line to their political destinies or weren’t conventional overachievers at the start.

班納森的經(jīng)歷展示了不同的可能性。實(shí)際上，在奧巴馬崛起過程中發(fā)揮重要作用的另外一些人也是如此，而且為數(shù)不少。他們要么在抵達(dá)政治高峰的過程中沒有遵循完美的直線道路，要么在一開始也不是那種通常意義上的優(yōu)等生。

David Axelrod was a journalist for a long time before he became a political operative. (Yes, there’s a difference.) David Plouffe left college, at the University of Delaware, without a diploma, and didn’t get the last credits he needed and actually graduate until two decades later, in his 40s.

戴維·阿克塞爾羅德(David Axelrod)當(dāng)了很長(zhǎng)一段時(shí)間的記者，后來才開始在政界工作(是的，兩者之間有區(qū)別)。戴維·普洛夫(David Plouffe)離開特拉華大學(xué)(University of Delaware)時(shí)沒有文憑，畢業(yè)所需的最后幾個(gè)學(xué)分直到20年后才拿到，那時(shí)他已經(jīng)年逾不惑。

Valerie Jarrett was supposed to take the degrees that she got from Stanford (undergraduate) and the University of Michigan (law school) and be a high-powered, highly paid attorney. But she gave that track a try and it didn’t suit her. So she went to work for decidedly less money in government, initially for Harold Washington, who was then was the mayor of Chicago.

瓦萊麗·賈勒特(Valerie Jarrett)從斯坦福大學(xué)(本科)和密歇根大學(xué)(法學(xué)院)獲得了學(xué)位，本應(yīng)該成為有權(quán)有勢(shì)的高薪律師。但她試了試這條道路，發(fā)現(xiàn)并不適合自己。于是她去了薪水明顯較少的政府部門工作，最初是在時(shí)任芝加哥市長(zhǎng)的哈羅德·華盛頓(Harold Washington)手下工作。

There’s only so much in life that you can foretell and plan, though you wouldn’t know that from my inbox. Last week was typical: one email about a study of which college majors led to the best-paying positions; another about a proposal to make every college student do an internship, take a class in business and get career counseling starting freshman year. Both emails reflected a widespread desire to find some surefire formula for a guaranteed livelihood.

人生中就只有這么多的東西是你可以預(yù)見和規(guī)劃的。不過，你不會(huì)從我的收件箱里看出這一點(diǎn)。上周的狀況就很典型：一封郵件的主題是研究大學(xué)哪個(gè)專業(yè)通向薪水最高的職位;另一封郵件則提出建議，想讓每個(gè)大學(xué)生都參加實(shí)習(xí)、上一門商科課程，并從大一開始就獲得職業(yè)方面的咨詢。這兩封郵件都反映了一種普遍愿望：找到一個(gè)萬無一失的公式來保證生計(jì)。

But the biographies of many accomplished, contented people aren’t formulaic. They’re accidents of a sort, except for this: By taking approaches that weren’t too regimented, these people were able to color outside the lines and surprise themselves. And their learning transcended their formal studies.

然而，許多很有成就、很有滿足感的人，他們的經(jīng)歷并不是程式化的。他們多少像是誤打誤撞，不過所有人都有個(gè)共同點(diǎn)：通過采取不那么刻板的方式，他們?cè)跅l框之外行事，并給自己帶來了驚喜。他們研習(xí)的東西，超越了正規(guī)學(xué)習(xí)的范疇。

Benenson grew up in Queens, the youngest of three kids. His father died when he was 18 months old and his mother, who worked as a bookkeeper and office manager, never remarried. He chose Queens College because it was free and he could live at home.

班納森在皇后區(qū)長(zhǎng)大，是3個(gè)孩子中的幼子。父親去世時(shí)，他才18個(gè)月大，而母親做過簿記員和辦公室主管，后來一直沒有再婚。他之所以選擇皇后學(xué)院，是因?yàn)樗鈱W(xué)費(fèi)，而且自己可以住在家里。

He was attracted to acting by more than the bright lights. “To do it well, you have to get at what’s going on beneath the words and the emotional content of it,” he said, adding that such attention to the details of speech and gesture is crucial “for anybody who’s communicating.”

他被表演吸引，不只是因?yàn)闀?huì)置身在聚光燈下。“要表演好，你就必須了解文字的弦外之音，還有它的情感內(nèi)涵，”他說。“對(duì)于任何想要進(jìn)行溝通的人”，這種對(duì)說話方式和動(dòng)作細(xì)節(jié)的關(guān)注是至關(guān)重要的。

So are a firm grasp of language and context, which drama and literature hone.

對(duì)語言與語境的正確把握也是如此，而戲劇和文學(xué)可以磨練這種能力。

In that sense, he said, he prepared for a political world of slogans, focus groups and opinion surveys by doing plays by Harold Pinter and Terrence McNally and reading novels by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville.

他說，在這個(gè)意義上，通過排演哈羅德·品特(Harold Pinter)和特倫斯·麥克納利(Terrence McNally)的戲劇，閱讀納撒尼爾·霍桑(Nathaniel Hawthorne)和赫爾曼·梅爾維爾(Herman Melville)的小說，他為進(jìn)入充斥著口號(hào)、焦點(diǎn)小組和民意調(diào)查的政界做好了準(zhǔn)備。

All those glorious words really did pave the path to sound bites.

所有那些華麗的辭藻，確實(shí)為言簡(jiǎn)意賅的句式鋪平了道路。

“THAT term has become derogatory,” he said, divulging that he once pushed back at Obama’s skepticism of such tidy, pithy locutions by saying to him: “Mr. President, ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone’ is a sound bite. ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’ is a sound bite. We remember them because they reflect high principle and clarity of thought and universal truths. That’s the power of them.”

“言簡(jiǎn)意賅已經(jīng)帶有貶義了，”他說。奧巴馬曾對(duì)簡(jiǎn)潔有力的風(fēng)格持懷疑態(tài)度，當(dāng)時(shí)他反駁：“總統(tǒng)先生，‘你們中間誰沒有罪，先向她投石罷’言簡(jiǎn)意賅。 ‘分裂之家無可持存’也言簡(jiǎn)意賅。我們之所以記得這些句子，是因?yàn)樗鼈兎从沉怂枷肱c普世真理的高尚原則和透徹明了。它們的力量就來源于此。”

Like Plouffe, Benenson didn’t finish college right away. He left to get a jump-start on acting, which didn’t really pay the bills. That’s where the beer business came in.

像普洛夫一樣，班納森也沒有馬上完成大學(xué)學(xué)業(yè)。為了迅速進(jìn)入表演行當(dāng)，他離開了學(xué)校，但賺的錢無法維持生計(jì)，于是他開始做啤酒生意。

He didn’t get his last credits and his degree until his late 20s, and in his early 30s he took another sharp turn. He became a journalist.

直到他快30歲，他才獲得了最后的學(xué)分，拿到了學(xué)位。30出頭時(shí)，他又再次轉(zhuǎn)行，成為了一名記者。

It wasn’t until his early 40s that he fully awoke to his enthusiasm for the kind of work that he does now and pivoted to it.

直到40出頭，他才徹底發(fā)現(xiàn)自己真正充滿激情的工作是什么，于是開始轉(zhuǎn)向目前的領(lǐng)域。

The lesson for young people?

他的經(jīng)歷可以給年輕人提供怎樣的經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn)?

“Don’t think about what you want to do for the rest of your life,” he said. “Think about what you want to do next.” Maybe, he said, you “have a big goal out there and pursue it, but along the way, that line from A to B is not a continuum. The key will be identifying what you are passionate about in each of those steps along the way.”

“不要考慮你這一輩子要做什么事情，”他說。“而是考慮你接下來想做什么。”也許你“有一個(gè)遠(yuǎn)大目標(biāo)要追求，但一路走來，從A到B的路程不是連續(xù)的。關(guān)鍵是要確定在沿途的每一步你對(duì)哪些東西充滿激情。”

He said that parents were too focused on mapping a straight-line journey from cradle to lucrative career.

他說，家長(zhǎng)們太專注于幫子女謀劃從搖籃到高薪工作之間的直線道路了。

“Stop making the focus of your kids’ education a job,” he said. “College is about learning how to think critically, learning how to write and communicate your ideas.”

“不要把孩子的教育側(cè)重在某個(gè)職業(yè)上，”他說。“大學(xué)的關(guān)鍵是學(xué)會(huì)如何進(jìn)行批判性地思考，學(xué)會(huì)如何寫作并交流想法。”

He keeps three copies of the collected works of Shakespeare — the plays and sonnets both — including the one from his college days. He marked it up extensively.

他保存著莎士比亞的三套作品集——有戲劇，也有十四行詩(shī)——其中一套來自他的大學(xué)時(shí)代。他在上面做了很多標(biāo)記。