最珍貴的資源是時間
朗讀者是我的妻子
「我生命中最愛的東西不花任何錢。毫無疑問，我們都擁有的最珍貴的資源是時間。」?-?史蒂夫·喬布斯
這是我最喜歡引用的話之一。史蒂夫·喬布斯是一個偉大的企業家，他有自己的奮鬥目標，也是一位我尊敬的朋友。佛教和許多其它哲學或宗教公案都涉及這個主題，史蒂夫說得很對，我們中的一些人需要用更長的時間來學習它。對我來說，我需要清楚地知道我如何在地球上度過我有限的時間。不是擔心，只是明確關於「如何」度過。
那麼你如何變得幸福呢？關於這個話題我已經寫了很多，歸結為一件事：花時間做你喜歡的事情。但是很多人不知道他們最喜歡做的事情是什麼。如果你也屬於這樣的人，你需要認真地和自己交流。不要著急，有時候一些事情需要時間，但一定要經常問自己這樣一個問題：「我真正喜歡做的事情是什麼？是什麼讓我忘記了時間，帶給我很大的滿足感？」
你可能會問·「傑哥，這些話聽起來是不錯，但我怎樣才能謀生呢？我應該整天玩遊戲或讀書，然後期待租金能自動被支付了嗎？」不，不會是這樣的，但你需要努力重新設計你的生活，這樣你就能掙到足夠的錢來做你喜歡的事情。其實你只要對自己誠實一點就行。
另外，如果你需要做一些必做事項，比如工作，家務等等，為了讓你有更多的時間花在你喜歡的事情上，那麼花點時間確保你努力讓這些事情變得有趣並有用。如果你採取正確的心態，你可以使任何活動變得有趣。記住，你從某個任務中感受到的任何不愉快都可能來自於你自己，而不是你自己之外的其它東西。不要責怪你的老闆、同事、天氣、經濟狀況等等，而是深入探究你為什麼會這麼想？
所以，拿我自己舉例，我發現讓我的妻子和家人幸福是我最喜歡做的事。簡單地說，看到他們幸福使我感到非常滿足和有內在動力。因為我喜歡讓他們幸福，當我有時間讀書、寫作、散步或做我喜歡做的事情時，他們也會喜歡。一個良性循環就是這樣被創造出來的。但我還是得去工作，我為自己工作，這樣我就能在我最喜歡的事情上建立自己的生活，同時我也非常喜歡我與之共事的人。對我來說，從IT界的頂端（我曾是納斯達克上市軟體公司的CEO）到辭職從2005年開辦自己的公司，這樣的巨大轉變需要勇氣和決心，但這是我一生中做過的最明智的決定之一。
讓我給你舉個例子，說明曾經在我和妻子之間一個潛在的棘手問題最終變成了我們關係里核心支柱的轉化。對於像我和我妻子這樣的跨國婚戀，語言交流曾經是困難的，首先需要決定你要使用哪種語言，因為我們兩個人都會講對方的母語。你通常會期望你的伴侶也能擔負起教你他們母語的職責，這聽起來合乎邏輯，但實際上會產生巨大的壓力並導致許多問題。
為了不讓它成為問題，我們決定做一個有趣的遊戲：一周有7天，一周里3天，我們完全用漢語交談，另外的3天我們則完全用英語交談，然後我們一周中有一個「自由日」，意思是在那天你可以說自己的母語，也可以說外語。最近，我們的「自由日」變成了使用第三種語言——我們一起看日本的電視和電影，說日語。規則很簡單，當天「語言教授者」可以在「學生」諸如發音、語法、短語、俚語用法等方面給予幫助，教授者必須始終是一個保持耐心和彬彬有禮的老師。大多數時候我們只是在正常地交談，儘管那一天用的是一種語言。
起初，做一個有耐心的老師對我來說是很困難的；對我妻子來說，讓她只使用一種外語而不混合她的母語也是有些困難的。我們都覺得我們兩個人的個性在每種語言中都是不同的。有時我開玩笑說，「我覺得我和兩個不同的女人結婚了，我發現這兩個女人都很迷人」; 而我妻子則經常「利用」我的好勝心態，比如她會說：「我的中文男朋友昨天對我非常好，我希望我的英語男朋友今天能像他」等等。
回顧這兩年來，過去曾經是我們關係中的「痛點」恰恰現在變成了是我們日常生活中比較有趣的部分。兩年後的現在，這成為我們自然而然的生活方式。在英語日子裡，我必須學會更加地耐心，做一個更好的老師；而在中文日子裡，我有3天時間可以完全投入到中文學習中。這有助於我們更好地與雙方家人朋友的溝通。她每星期給我三天專註的「漢語日」比每天有一搭無一搭地教我要好得多。
在處理家庭關係問題時，你可以以「遊戲化」的方式來讓你和你的伴侶都得到滿足嗎？一次解決一個問題，把消極變成積極的東西，你就不會失去什麼。關於上面的例子，我意識到如果我的妻子不開心，即使我的中文變得再完美，我也不會幸福。一旦找到原因，解決的方案就變得清晰了。作為一對夫婦，我們相信一次處理一個問題，珍惜我們所擁有的時間。到目前為止，它運作得非常好！
祝你一切順利，
朗龍傑
----- Rough English Translation -----
「My favorite things in life don』t cost any money. It』s really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time.」?—?Steve Jobs
That is one of my favorite quotes by someone I had the pleasure of calling a friend in my lifetime. It is not a new concept. Buddhist and many other philosophical and religious texts all cover this topic. But what Steve says is true. It just takes some of us—like me—longer to learn it. And for me the message was that I need to be clear about how I spend my limited time on earth. Not that I should be worried about it, just clear with regards to the 「how」.
So how do you become happy? I have written extensively on this, but it boils down to one thing: spend time doing your favorite things. But many people don』t know what their favorite things to do are, exactly. If you are one of these people, you need to have a serious conversation with yourself. No rush, sometimes things take time, but be sure to regularly ask yourself the question, 「What are the things I really like to do, the things that make me forget time and give me great satisfaction?」
「Sounds great James, you say, but how do I earn a living doing that? Should I just play games or read books all day and expect the rent to pay itself?」 No, not exactly, but you can endeavor to re-architect your life so you can earn enough to live on doing the things you enjoy doing. You just have to be really honest with yourself.
Also, if there are things you need to do such as work, chores, etc., that you need to finish in order to get more time to spend on what you enjoy, then take the time to ensure you endeavor to make those things fun and useful to do. You can make any activity fun if you adopt the proper mindset. Remember, any unhappiness you feel from a task is likely created from within yourself rather than anything outside yourself. Don』t blame your boss, co-workers, the weather, the economic situation, etc., instead look deeply into why you are feeling this way and yourself so good 「why…」 questions to probe at the root cause.
So, in my case, I figured out that making my wife and family happy is my favorite thing to do. Simply put, seeing them happy makes me extremely satisfied and intrinsically happy. And because I like making them happy, they enjoy it when I get time to read, write, take a walk or do the things that I like to do. A virtuous cycle is created. Yet I still have to go to work. So, I work for myself so that I can build my life around my favorite things. It also helps immensely that I really enjoy what I do and the people I work with. But it took time to get that way. You need to visualize yourself being happier with a different lifestyle. In my case, making the shift from the top of the corporate IT world (I was a CEO of a NASDAQ listed software company) to a founding startup in 2005 took courage and determination. But it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made in my life.
Let me give you an example of how my wife (a Beijing born Chinese) and I turned a potentially caustic relationship issue into one of the core pillars of our mutual bond. Communication can be difficult for a multi-cultural couple like my wife and I. One of the first things that needs to be decide is what language you are going to use. There is often some expectation around teaching each other』s language to each other. Sound logical but in practice it is a huge stress-creating monstrosity of an issue.
Instead of letting it become a factor in all our disagreements, we decided together to make a fun game out of it. There are 7 days in the week: 3 days we speak entirely in Chinese, 3 days we speak entirely in English and one day a week we have a free for all where you can speak any language. Recently our 「free day」 is turning into Japanese day where we watch Japanese TV and movies together with English and Chinese sprinkled in everywhere. The rules are simple. The native speaker is responsible for teaching on his/her days. The student can request help on certain things like, pronunciation, grammar, phrases, slang usage, etc. The student is the decision-maker and also enforces the one-language rule. The teacher must be a patient and well-mannered teacher at all times. But it is not a class environment or anything. Most of the time we are just talking normally, albeit in the one language for that day.
In the beginning, this was hard. It was difficult for me to be a patient teacher. For my wife, it was difficult for her to only use one language and not mix languages or revert to her mother tongue. But it is extremely fun, too! We both feel our personalities are different in each language and we play with that a lot. It feels like I am married to two different women, both of which I find fascinating and my wife leverages my competitive nature by saying things like, 「my Chinese-speaking boyfriend was unusually nice to me yesterday, I wish my English-speaking boyfriend could be more like him」, etc., so she gets what she wants out of it.
Fast forward two years and what used to be a real sore spot in our relationship is one of the more fun aspects of our daily life. After two years, this way it is totally natural to us now. I had to learn to be more patient and a better teacher on English days. The unexpected result is that my wife is actually invested in teaching me whereas before it often frustrated her. And vice-versa. If I thought more selfishly, I would feel I am 「giving up」 3 or 4 days a week that I could be using to speak and learn Chinese with her. But in reality, I now get 3 days of her really being invested in my learning and I give back the same, which helps her communicate better with my family, friends and makes her extremely happy. Three days of commitment from her a week to my learning is much better than everyday of her feeling she is giving without receiving.
What is a big issue in your relationship that you could 「gamify」 this way to make it mutually satisfying to yourself and your partner? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain by starting with one issue at a time and turning a negative into a positive. Regarding the example above, I realized even if my Chinese became perfect, I would still not be happy unless my wife was truly happy. Once you get the alignment then solution becomes clear. As a couple, we take our issues on one at a time in this fashion and cherish the time we spend together. So far it has worked really well.
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