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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
工作与生活的平衡因其重要性而决不能置之他人之手，比如你的雇主。在悉尼的TED大会上，马什勾勒出一幅美好图景：完美的一天建立在与家人相处，个人发展以及工作三者之间的平衡之上；进而他鼓励人们让这一理想变为现实。短短10分钟的演说，风趣幽默毫无冷场，直接有力的指出生活与工作如何取得平衡，这是政府与企业都不会说的秘密，我们无法再寻求外援，是每个人责无旁贷的问题。如果你自己不去面对，就会有人替你掌控...你不只要努力工作，出了工作之外你还有更多更重要的责任必须去面对，请问，你的生活失去平衡了吗？
TED的主讲者是畅销作家Nigel Marsh1，在成为畅销作家之前，有一份在广告公司令人钦羡的优渥工作，生活精彩极了。如同他所说的，他有本事把蜡烛两头烧一烧就变成精致艺术品，每个晚上都像是小周末，音乐会，即兴喜剧，泡夜店或单纯喝酒都是周一到周五的例行节目...
这样精彩的生活，让工作主宰了他的人生，Nigel成了他曾发誓不要成为的那种人 - 。为工作而活的奴隶，而非为了生活而工作正因为他发现自己的生活中只剩下工作，连睡觉都梦到工作，脾气也越来越暴躁，不论老婆孩子多么体贴，他都能不假思索地对他们大吼大叫...Nigel Marsh是小说《Fat, Forty and Fired》的作者，一听这个书名就很有趣是不是。
Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work英语演讲：
What I thought I would do is I would start with a simple request. I'd like all of you to pause for a moment, you wretched weaklings, and take stock of your miserable2 existence. (Laughter)
Now that was the advice that St. Benedict gave his rather startled followers3 in the fifth century. It was the advice that I decided4 to follow myself when I turned 40. Up until that moment, I had been that classic corporate5 warrior6 -- I was eating too much, I was drinking too much, I was working too hard and I was neglecting the family. And I decided that I would try and turn my life around. In particular, I decided I would try to address the thorny7 issue of work-life balance. So I stepped back from the workforce8, and I spent a year at home with my wife and four young children. But all I learned about work-life balance from that year was that I found it quite easy to balance work and life when I didn't have any work. (Laughter) Not a very useful skill, especially when the money runs out.
So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, studying and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is: if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest debate. But the trouble is so many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or paternity leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible9 with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family. Now the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. (Laughter) (Applause) It's my contention10 that going to work on Friday in jeans and [a] T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.
(Laughter)
The second observation I'd like to make is we need to face the truth that governments and corporations aren't going to solve this issue for us. We should stop looking outside. It's up to us as individuals to take control and responsibility for the type of lives that we want to lead. If you don't design your life, someone else will design it for you, and you may just not like their idea of balance. It's particularly important -- this isn't on the World Wide Web, is it? I'm about to get fired -- it's particularly important that you never put the quality of your life in the hands of a commercial corporation. Now I'm not talking here just about the bad companies -- the "abattoirs11 of the human soul," as I call them. (Laughter) I'm talking about all companies. Because commercial companies are inherently designed to get as much out of you [as] they can get away with. It's in their nature; it's in their DNA12; it's what they do -- even the good, well-intentioned companies. On the one hand, putting childcare facilities in the workplace is wonderful and enlightened. On the other hand, it's a nightmare -- it just means you spend more time at the bloody13 office. We have to be responsible for setting and enforcing the boundaries that we want in our life.
The third observation is we have to be careful with the time frame that we choose upon which to judge our balance. Before I went back to work after my year at home, I sat down and I wrote out a detailed14, step-by-step description of the ideal balanced day that I aspired15 to. And it went like this: wake up well rested after a good night's sleep. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have breakfast with my wife and children. Have sex again. (Laughter) Drive the kids to school on the way to the office. Do three hours' work. Play a sport with a friend at lunchtime. Do another three hours' work. Meet some mates in the pub for an early evening drink. Drive home for dinner with my wife and kids. Meditate16 for half an hour. Have sex. Walk the dog. Have sex again. Go to bed. (Applause) How often do you think I have that day? (Laughter) We need to be realistic. You can't do it all in one day. We need to elongate17 the time frame upon which we judge the balance in our life, but we need to elongate it without falling into the trap of the "I'll have a life when I retire, when my kids have left home, when my wife has divorced me, my health is failing, I've got no mates or interests left." (Laughter) A day is too short; "after I retire" is too long. There's got to be a middle way.
A fourth observation: We need to approach balance in a balanced way. A friend came to see me last year -- and she doesn't mind me telling this story -- a friend came to see me last year and said, "Nigel, I've read your book. And I realize that my life is completely out of balance. It's totally dominated by work. I work 10 hours a day; I commute18 two hours a day. All of my relationships have failed. There's nothing in my life apart from my work. So I've decided to get a grip and sort it out. So I joined a gym." (Laughter) Now I don't mean to mock, but being a fit 10-hour-a-day office rat isn't more balanced; it's more fit. (Laughter) Lovely though physical exercise may be, there are other parts to life -- there's the intellectual side; there's the emotional side; there's the spiritual side. And to be balanced, I believe we have to attend to all of those areas -- not just do 50 stomach crunches19.
Now that can be daunting20. Because people say, "Bloody hell mate, I haven't got time to get fit. You want me to go to church and call my mother." And I understand. I truly understand how that can be daunting. But an incident that happened a couple of years ago gave me a new perspective. My wife, who is somewhere in the audience today, called me up at the office and said, "Nigel, you need to pick our youngest son" -- Harry21 -- "up from school." Because she had to be somewhere else with the other three children for that evening. So I left work an hour early that afternoon and picked Harry up at the school gates. We walked down to the local park, messed around on the swings, played some silly games. I then walked him up the hill to the local cafe, and we shared a pizza for two, then walked down the hill to our home, and I gave him his bath and put him in his Batman pajamas22. I then read him a chapter of Roald Dahl's "James and the Giant Peach." I then put him to bed, tucked him in, gave him a kiss on his forehead and said, "Goodnight, mate," and walked out of his bedroom. As I was walking out of his bedroom, he said, "Dad?" I went, "Yes, mate?" He went, "Dad, this has been the best day of my life, ever." I hadn't done anything, hadn't taken him to Disney World or bought him a Playstation.
Now my point is the small things matter. Being more balanced doesn't mean dramatic upheaval23 in your life. With the smallest investment in the right places, you can radically24 transform the quality of your relationships and the quality of your life. Moreover, I think, it can transform society. Because if enough people do it, we can change society's definition of success away from the moronically25 simplistic notion that the person with the most money when he dies wins, to a more thoughtful and balanced definition of what a life well lived looks like. And that, I think, is an idea worth spreading.
(Applause)
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marsh
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| n.沼泽，湿地 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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corporate
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| adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的 | |
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warrior
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| n.勇士，武士，斗士 | |
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thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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workforce
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| n.劳动大军，劳动力 | |
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incompatible
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| adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的 | |
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contention
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| n.争论，争辩，论战；论点，主张 | |
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abattoirs
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| n.屠场( abattoir的名词复数 )；（拳击、摔跤、斗牛等的）角斗场 | |
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DNA
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| (缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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elongate
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| v.拉长，伸长，延长 | |
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commute
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| vi.乘车上下班；vt.减(刑)；折合；n.上下班交通 | |
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crunches
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| n.（突发的）不足( crunch的名词复数 )；需要做出重要决策的困难时刻；紧要关头；嘎吱的响声v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的第三人称单数 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄 | |
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daunting
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| adj.使人畏缩的 | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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pajamas
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| n.睡衣裤 | |
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upheaval
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| n.胀起，(地壳)的隆起；剧变，动乱 | |
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radically
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| ad.根本地，本质地 | |
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moronically
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| 鲁钝 | |
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