如果沒有天賦，努力有什麼用？
努力，真的是個很奇特的說法。
Working hard. This is really a peculiar phrase.
基本所有人都在說，但基本沒有多少人能說清楚它到底是啥。
Almost everybody keeps saying it. But few of them can explain what it is.
在你小的時候，肯定也這麼被爸媽說過。
Back in your childhood, you must had heard this from your parents.
如果你記不住課本上的英語單詞，解決方法是努力學習。
If you could not memorize the new words on your English textbooks, they told you to work hard.
如果你總是做不出數學試卷上的最後一道題，解決方法是努力學習。
If you kept failing in solving the last questions on your math test papers, they told you to work hard.
如果你從來都背不清楚政治課本上看起來差不多的話，解決方法依舊是努力學習。
If you could never manage to remember those almost-identical sentences on your politics textbooks, they told you to work hard.
但是，到底怎樣才叫努力？
But what exactly is working hard?
如果你問出這個問題，那些讓你去努力的人卻多半答不出來。
If you ask this question, a good half of the people who told you to work hard won’t be able to answer.
每天回家做作業到兩點，算不算努力？
Some people keep doing homework until 2:00 am. Do we take that as working hard?
但那些栽過跟頭的人都知道，這麼做並不一定就能帶來好成績。
But whoever had done this and still got an ugly score knows that this does not necessarily promise good results.
所以，那還能怎麼辦？
So what else can we do?
每天不睡覺了？那肯定不現實。
Quit sleeping all together? That’s totally not practical.
說真的，努力這個詞，已經變成了一個不負責任的託詞。
Truth to be told, the phrase working hard has already become an excuse to avoid taking responsibility.
一對每天搓麻將的爸媽，可以義正言辭地讓孩子去努力；
A lousy pair of parents who play mahjong everyday can self-righteously tell their kids to work hard,
這麼一來，爸媽就沒有義務去了解任何細節了；
so that it saves them from taking care of any detail in this affair.
一切成敗變成了孩子“努力”或“不努力”的結果，以後不管是責備還是表揚，都變得無比方便。
Success or failure, it becomes a result of the kid’s working hard or not. It becomes easy and convenient for the parents to judge and blame.
一個販賣成功學的無恥之徒，也可以靠着“努力”這杆大旗來大肆斂財。
A shameless liar who sells bullshits which promise success can make money since people believe in working hard.
一個充滿頑疾的社會也可以公然拿起“不努力”這個理由，去歧視那些被遺忘的人。
And an illy functioning society can discriminate those who are forgotten and blame them for not working hard enough.
誠然，我們必須承認，成功確實需要努力。
Of course, we must admit that it does take working hard to be successful.
但努力只是個必需品，它不是萬靈藥。
But working hard is only a necessity. It’s not the elixir.
它是成功的必要條件，但絕不是充分條件。
It is a necessary condition. It’s not the sufficient condition.
如果你天生就對語言這個東西不敏感，那不管你怎麼努力去背單詞，也不能變成精通7國語言的外交官。
If you are born to be insensitive towards languages, no matter how many words you work hard to memorize, you won’t become a diplomatist who is proficient in 7 languages.
如果缺乏天賦，努力是不能帶來成功的。
Without talents, working hard can not bring you success.
但這並不代表世界是殘酷的，只是我們一直以來對“努力”和“天賦”的理解都存在很大的誤區。
But this is not suggesting that the world is completely cruel. It’s just that our concepts of working hard and talents have been seriously wrong.
天賦的確是一種稀缺品，但天賦不是少數人的專利。
Indeed, talents are scare. But they do not only belong to an extremely limited number of people.
並不是只有“數學好”、“能講6國語言”才叫天賦。
It’s not that only being good at math or speaking 6 languages are talents.
“擅長料理”、“聲音好聽”、“會講段子”、“身材好顏值高”都是天賦。
Being good at cooking, having a nice voice, knowing how to make jokes or even being in good shape are also talents.
關鍵看你怎麼用它們。
What’s critical is how you use them to serve your purpose.
你真正應該做的，不是無限量地堆積未經思索的努力，而是尋找能發揮自己天賦的地方，然後在那裏做精準的努力。
What you should do is not accumulating unfiltered hard work without thinking, but trying to find out where your very talent can be fully exploited and working hard on the specific direction.
這樣的努力纔是有效的努力。
This and only this is the kind of working hard that does promise you results.
不管你多麼努力地去囤積磚頭，你也終究只是在囤積磚頭，造不出一棟大廈；
No matter how diligently you keep accumulating bricks, bricks are ultimately merely bricks. They won’t become a skyscraper.
要讓磚頭變成大廈，你必須做點別的什麼。
If you want the bricks to become a skyscraper, you must do something else.
這就好像是人體的腫瘤，它努力地生長，努力地集聚着能量，但它帶來的只能是死亡。
This is just like a tumor in a human’s body. It works so hard to grow, so hard to collect energy. But it only promises death.
沒錯，
Yes,
唯一值得
努力的，是認清你自己，然後認清自己和世界的合作關係。
the one and only thing that deserves your hard work, is seeing yourself for who you truly are and trying to understand in what ways you can cooperate with this world.
