实用！“磕盐人”和“考试人”的心理建设太重要了 How to get rid of the anxiety caused by comparisons

平均绩点、保研排位、工作面试、甚至考试复习进度似乎都能轻而易举地引起人们的互相比较。
把自己与他人相对比，在恰当的情形下会激发动力。但在很多时候，比较会引发更多负面情绪。

而且，活在比较之中可能是很多人成长中的背景色。

When we are kids, we are constantly being compared to others. Our parents may compare us to our siblings. Our teachers probably compared us to other students. Kids compared us to other kids.

小时候，我们经常被人拿来和别人比较。我们的父母可能会把我们和兄弟姐妹们相比，老师可能会把我们和其他学生相比，小孩儿会把我们和其他小孩儿相比。

Those comparisons created either a sense of humiliation or a sense of pride. Either way, it has become second-nature. Everything we’d done has been followed by looking around and seeking validation.

这些比较产生了一种羞辱感或者自豪感。不论如何，拿自己和他人作比较已经成了自然而然的事情。我们每做完一件事，就会四下观察，从别人身上寻找一种确认感。

国外知乎Quora上，网友Miranda Young叙述的初中经历可能会让很多人有同感。

During junior high, there was one girl who was super smart, A++++ student. Teachers adored her, praised her, she received awards, special privileges, had opportunities presented to her and no one else, etc.

初中的时候，有一个超级聪明的女孩，老是拿一堆A+。老师们喜欢她，表扬她，她因此能得到奖励和特权，有机会也给她而不会给别人，等等等等。

We all knew she was special and we were not. The message of recognition for her exceptional intelligence was translated differently to the rest of the youth. I had a teacher once say “if more students were like her, we would have a more productive school”, even though those were the words spoken, I interpreted them as “she is a good student, you are not. You are the reason why this school isn’t living up to its potential”.

我们都知道她很特别，自己却资质平平。对于剩下的年轻小孩来说，对她非凡聪明才智的认可可能会被理解成另一番意思。曾经有一位老师说过：“要是能有更多学生跟她一样的话，咱们学校可就会更厉害了。”原话虽然听不出来啥，但我的理解却是：“她是个好学生，你不是。你就是我们学校没能发挥潜力的原因。”

受到这种不当比较的困扰，答主思考出了几个应对的办法：客观地观照自身的感受等等。

❶ Acknowledge there are people out there who are better, smarter, prettier, richer, nicer, etc. more than you.

要承认世界上就是有人比你更厉害、更聪明、更漂亮、更富有、更友好等等。

❷ Acknowledge how you feel when you compare, or someone else compares you to someone else.

对于自己比较或者被人拿去和别人比较时的情绪，要承认并接纳它们的存在。

❸ Do not try to be more like the smartest student, be the smartest version of you.

不要费力不讨好地去追赶那个最聪明的学生，要去成为最聪明的那个你。

❹ Increase self-esteem. Usually, when I feel good about myself, I tend not to be as affected by someone else’s success.

树立自信和自我满足。通常来说，如果我对自己感到满意，我就不会那么容易受到其他人成功的影响。

有人认为基础教育阶段的学生更容易陷入被比较的漩涡，压力来自父母、同学、老师等等。

那，是不是人的年纪越大，就越能挣脱将自己与他人比较的枷锁呢？

答案是否定的。

著名科学期刊《自然》杂志在其官网职业专栏刊登了一篇在读博士学生的文章，读者发现，原来“奔三”的博士候选人们也逃不开与他人作比较的烦恼。

作者的焦虑源泉来自于和其他博士生比较时，自己的研究项目进展缓慢。

Midway through my psychology PhD program at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, I felt that I lacked whatever magical ability is required to finish and publish a project. It seemed as though other graduate students were authoring several papers in the time it took me to complete a single experiment. I worked as hard as I could, but my progress seemed to be incremental compared with theirs.

在纽约伊萨卡的康奈尔大学攻读心理学博士的中途，我感到自己缺乏完成和发表一个项目所需的任何神奇能力。就好像其他的研究生们在我完成一个实验的时间里就写了好几篇论文。我已经很尽力地在努力工作了，但与他们相比，我的进步似乎还只是寸进。

求助了导师，人家给她点出了她的研究的特殊之处——比方说研究对象不同、分析方法不同、乃至技能组合的差异都会导致最终耗时的巨大差异。

When I shared these concerns with my adviser, she had a different take on the situation. “You’re not doing anything wrong,” she assured me, “you’re just pursuing a different kind of research.”

导师听了我说的这些担忧之后，对于这个情况，她给了一个不同的角度：“你啥也没做错啊。” 她叫我放心：“你只是做的研究本就与人家的不同。”

Some researchers mine Twitter for data or collect responses from thousands of online participants over the course of just a couple of days. But lifespan researchers often collect more detailed and open-ended responses from one person at a time.

有些研究人员就是花几天时间在推特上挖数据或者是在网络上搜集数千个研究被试者的反馈。但是那些花上将近一辈子来做某项研究的研究人员通常一次需要从一个被试者那里搜集更具体的且未经引导的反馈数据。

A project I am working on, for example, involves analyzing interviews with 138 people recruited from our local community. Recording, transcribing and coding so much interview data can take months, if not years.

比方说我正在做的一个项目就需要我分析对本地社区招募的138个参与者的采访。要录音、要转写、然后还要给这些采访数据编码，要花上数月甚至数年。

The research I do differs from most social-science research in other ways, too — from the funding, personnel and equipment needed to collect new data, to the skills, permissions and access required to obtain and analyze them.

我的研究跟大多数社会科学的研究也有其他方面的不同——资金方面、人员方面、搜集数据所要用到的设备、以及获取和分析这些数据所需要的技能、许可、准入等等。

当然，“与人比较”本身并不是一件坏事。疏导得当，兴许是一剂助力。

Quora答主Venus Souls就细数了这其中的道理。

Comparing yourself to others is not necessarily a bad thing.

把自己与他人做比较并非一定是坏事。

When you catch yourself comparing yourself to others, get curious about the feeling that is being triggered. Is it jealousy? Is it obsession? Is it admiration? Is it love? Is it inspiration? Your triggered feelings will give you a clue as to what is going on within you.

当你发觉自己在和别人作比较，那你就得知道当下你的情绪是什么样的。是嫉妒吗？是迷恋？是倾慕？是爱？还是启发？了解自己被激发出来的情绪有助于你发掘自己脑子里的真正想法。

Most likely, you are jealous because you wish you had what it takes to achieve what the other has achieved or to have what they have. Get curious and figure out why you still don’t have it and what would it take to get there.

大概率你会产生嫉妒感，因为你希望拥有那些能帮助你取得类似他人成就的资源，或者是直接拥有这些成就。动动脑子想想看，为什么你还没能取得这些成就，以及要怎样做才能获得它们。

It is never a good idea to make yourself wrong for comparing yourself to others or to make yourself wrong for not getting where you wish to be.

永远不要觉得把自己跟别人作比较是一件坏事，也不要因为自己没能达到预期的成就而懊恼。

But if all this comparison mounts to is bitter jealousy, then your problem is bigger than a simple comparison. Always bear in mind that your only competition is the one in the mirror and—believe me—it is the toughest competition of all.

不过，如果这种比较激发的是仇愤的嫉妒感，那你的问题可能比一个单纯的比较大得多。要记住，你永远是在跟“镜中人”比较——相信我，这才是最难的竞争。

“打工人”也好，“考试人”也罢，与人竞争时是难免会陷入比较的。

根据自身实际情况，筛选有可比较性的对手，可以帮助节省一大部分情绪精力。

接着，正确处理比较时的感觉和情绪，承认它们的存在，而后置之一旁。

最后，集中精力与“镜中你”对话，去发现进步。

Notes

exceptional [ɪkˈsepʃənl] adj 杰出的；优秀的；卓越的
open-ended adj 无限制的；无确定目标的；无期限的
incremental [.ɪŋkrə'ment(ə)l] adj. 增加的；渐进的
(someone's) take on (something) 某人对某事的态度、看法
assure [əˈʃʊr] v.确保；使确信
trigger ['trɪɡər] v.触发；发动

（来源：中国日报双语新闻微信   编辑：陈月华）