Your Life in Weeks

This is a long human life in years:

人的一生，以年为单位，如图：

每一行是10年

And here’s a human life in months:

人的一生以月为单位，如图：

每一行是三年

But today, we’re going to look at a human life in weeks:

今天，我们以周为单位来看看人的一生，如图：

Each row of weeks makes up one year. That’s how many weeks it takes to turn a newborn into a 90-year-old.

每一行是一年。整个图就是我们从出生到90岁一共有的周数

It kind of feels like our lives are made up of a countless number of weeks. But there they are—fully countable—staring you in the face.

我们总觉得我们的生命是由无数的周组成的，但是其实他们完全屈指可数的。

Before we discuss things further, let’s look at how a typical American spends their weeks:

在我们进一步讨论之前，我们来看看下面图片里美国人是如何度过一生的这些周的

Sources: 12345

出生-小学-中学-高中-大学-工作-退休

There are some other interesting ways to use the weeks chart:

这些周表还有其他的有意思的使用方式：

名人去世的时间

政客赢得冠军的时间

爱因斯坦和牛顿获得早起成就的时间

But how about your weeks?

你的一生周表是怎样的？

Sometimes life seems really short, and other times it seems impossibly long. But this chart helps to emphasize that it’s most certainly finite. Those are your weeks and they’re all you’ve got.

人生有时白驹过隙，有时度日如年。但是这个表格帮助你脱离体感，量化生命的长度。你要明白，生命是有限的，就这么多个有限的，可数的格子。

Given that fact, the only appropriate word to describe your weeks is precious. There are trillions upon trillions of weeks in eternity, and those are your tiny handful. Going with the “precious” theme, let’s imagine that each of your weeks is a small gem, like a 2mm, .05 carat diamond. Here’s one:

又一个最合适的单词去描述你的周数；宝贵的。永恒拥有无数的周，然而你能握住的只有有限的数量。提到宝贵，我们就把你的每一周都是一个小的宝石， 2mm直径，0.5克拉的钻石

If you multiply the volume of a .05 carat diamond by the number of weeks in 90 years (4,680), it adds up to just under a tablespoon.

如果你把0.5克拉的钻石乘以90年，4680个周，人生的重量大小不过一个勺子

Looking at this spoon of diamonds, there’s one very clear question to ask: “Are you making the most of your weeks?”

看着这个只有一个勺子的钻石，我们不禁扪心自问：你有好好生活，认真度过每一周吗

In thinking about my own weeks and how I tend to use them, I decided that there are two good ways to use a diamond:

反思我自己的每一周，我认为有两个最佳的度过方式：

1) Enjoying the diamond

首先：享受她

2) Building something to make your future diamonds or the diamonds of others more enjoyable

In other words, you have this small spoonful of diamonds and you really want to create a life in which they’re making you happy. And if a diamond is not making you happy, it should only be because you’re using it to make other diamonds go down better—either your own in the future or those of others. In the ideal situation, you’re well balanced between #1 and #2 and you’re often able to accomplish both simultaneously (like those times when you love your job).

其次：最一些事情，能让你未来或者其他人的钻石更有趣有意义

换句话说：你的人生钻石有限，要么你让你一块都是快乐的片段；要么有些钻石暂时牺牲，为了让其他未来的钻石获得更多的快乐；要么有些钻石牺牲，为了让别人的钻石更加快乐。在一个理想的情况下，你能够平衡这三种情况，而且你能够兼得，比如当你在做你热爱工作的时候。

Of course, if a diamond is enjoyable but by enjoying it you’re screwing your future diamonds (an Instant Gratification Monkey specialty), that’s not so good. Likewise, if you’re using diamond after diamond to build something for your future, but it’s not making you happy and seems like a long-term thing with no end in sight, that’s not great either.

当然，如果如果一个钻石周很快乐，但是摧毁了未来的钻石周，这就不明智了。同样地，如果你重复度过一些钻石周，但是并没有让你快乐，循环往复缺看不到出路，这也是不明智的。

But the worst possible way to use a diamond is by accomplishing neither #1 nor #2 above. Sometimes “neither” happens when you’re in either the wrong career or the wrong relationship, and it’s often a symptom of either a shortage of courage, self-discipline, or creativity. Sometimes “neither” happens because of a debilitating problem.

最最不明智的度过方式是你的度过方式对当下的自己，未来的自己或者其他人都没有任何好处。比如你从事自己不喜欢的工作，后者陷入不合适的恋情。表明你没有自律，缺乏勇气和创造性，或者因为一些心里脆弱的问题。

We’ve all had Neither Weeks and they don’t feel good. And when a long string of Neither Weeks happens, you become depressed, frustrated, hopeless, and a bunch of other upsetting adjectives. It’s inevitable to have Neither Weeks, and sometimes they’re important—it’s often a really bad Neither Week that leads you to a life-changing epiphany—but trying to minimize your Neither Weeks is a worthy goal.

我们都会有不明智的度过时间的阶段，每天抑郁，沮丧，无望，各种消极情绪。他们是不可避免的，而且很重要-是这些心碎的时间让你开始有了顿悟，尝试去脱离这种时间，并寻求方式和智慧去让自己更和时间快乐共处。

It can all be summed up like this:

总结来说，如图

The Life Calendar

人生日历

One of the ways we end up in NeitherLand is by not thinking about things hard enough—so one of the most critical skills is continual reflection and self-awareness. Otherwise, you can fall into an unconscious rut and waste a bunch of precious diamonds.

摆脱虚度时光的方式是：多反思，和自己对话，提高自我意识。每当陷入同样的模式的时候，提醒自己不要沉迷。否则你会无意识的，按惯性浪费宝贵的时间钻石。

To help both you and ourselves stay conscious and avoid NeitherLand, we’ve created a Life Calendar that lays out every week of your life on one sheet of paper. We don’t typically bring products into posts, but in this case, they go hand-in-hand.

未来让我们保持清醒，我们绘制了人生日历。

Besides the purpose of encouraging regular reflection, we hope the calendar can help you feel more oriented in your life, help you set goals and hold yourself to them, and remind you to be proud of yourself for what you’ve accomplished and grateful for the diamonds in your spoon.

除了让你更多反思，还可以帮你找到人生的方向。在你获得成就的时候为自己骄傲。

How you use the calendar is totally open for creativity. Some possibilities:

日历的使用方式大家可以自由发挥；

比如：

§ Highlight the weeks in the past in different colors to segment them into “life chapters”—i.e. High School, College, Job 1, Job 2, New City, Engagement, Marriage, etc., or maybe a whole other conception of what a life chapter means to you. You can also mark special boxes where key turning points happened.

用不同的颜色代表不同的人生篇章：高中，大学，工作1 ，工作2 ，订婚，结婚 或者其他重要转折点

§ Write something in each week’s box as it goes by—the boxes are large enough to write a few words in with a sharp pencil.

在每周的框里写出你最想说的话，当然你的图得打印的足够大

§ Plot out goals for the future by making a mark on a future box and visually seeing exactly how many weeks you have to get there.

写出未来的计划，并看看你花了多少周实现的

§ If you’re a new parent, it might be fun to make one for your child so they can look at it later and have some info on what happened in the first few years of their life.

如果刚有孩子，你还可以给你孩子做一个，等他长大了让他看看

§ Or maybe you’d rather leave it totally untouched.

Both the week chart above and the life calendar are a reminder to me that this grid of empty boxes staring me in the face is mine. We tend to feel locked into whatever life we’re living, but this pallet of empty boxes can be absolutely whatever we want it to be. Everyone you know, everyone you admire, every hero in history—they did it all with that same grid of empty boxes.

或者你可以什么都不写。仅仅这个表格在提醒你，这些时间，是你的。有时候，我们觉得人生步履维艰，但是这些时间没有被填写的时间表告诉我们，我们可以自己任意填写和定义。历史的英雄，你崇拜的人，他们有的和你一样，这一个时间日历。所以，时间是由你来定义的。

The boxes can also be a reminder that life is forgiving. No matter what happens each week, you get a new fresh box to work with the next week. It makes me want to skip the New Year’s Resolutions—they never work anyway—and focus on making New Week’s Resolutions every Sunday night. Each blank box is an opportunity to crush the week—a good thing to remember.

这个日历也会提醒我们人生要宽容。不论每一周发生了什么，下周都是一个新的开始。所以我经常不愿意制定新年目标计划，他们重来没有实现过。每一个未被度过的时间都是美好的机会，永远相信，美好的事情即将发生。

The Calendar:

日历

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