渣翻，惨不忍睹，求指教。

One idea I’ve been pondering over lately is to what extent reading about self-improvement is a complement versus a substitute for taking self-improvement action.

最近我一直在思考一件事情：对自我提高来说，看书看到什么程度是补充，什么程度是替代呢？

Complements and substitutes are terms that come from economics. A complement to a product is something you buy more of when you buy the product. Think popcorn and movies. The more movies you go to, the more likely you are to buy popcorn (at least here in North America). Wine and fine dining. Cars and gasoline. These are all complements.

补充和替代是来自经济学的词汇。补充是你在买一个物品的时候额外购买的部分。想想爆米花和电影，看的电影越多，越有可能购买爆米花（至少在北美是这样）。酒和正式餐厅，汽车和汽油，这些都是补充。

The standard view of self-improvement writing, whether it’s fitness books, cookbooks, business books or popular psychology is that it should assist with personal development. That is to say, the more books you read, the more likely you are to actually work on improving yourself.

一般来说，不管是健康书籍、菜谱、商业账簿，还是大众心理学，它们都应该对个人提升有所帮助。也就是说，看越多的书，越有可能真的去提高自己。

The alternative view, of course, is that reading isn’t a complement but a substitute.

当然了，还有另外一种看法：阅读不是补充而是替代。

Substitutes, again from economics, are products that compete with each other. When you go to the movie theater, each movie acts as a partial substitute of the others. If you go to see one, you forego the other. Similarly, Italian wines and French wines are substitutes, as is gasoline from different gas stations.

在经济学中，替代意味着两者的相互竞争。当你去电影院的时候，每一部电影都有可能被其他的替代，看这部就等于放弃了另一部。同样的，意大利酒和法国酒，这个加油站和其他加油站。

Here the theory is that what we really want out of personal development, both in active efforts and passive consumption, is that good feeling that we’re doing something to improve our situation. It’s an anxiety-reducing effect that the challenges we’re facing are somehow being dealt with, even if they aren’t being resolved immediately. Since both reading and doing something alleviate this tension, they are substitutes, and consuming one will decrease consumption of the other.

有研究表明，我们从个人提升中想要的是正在做事以及改善现状的感觉，不管通过主动努力还是被动消费。这对减轻焦虑很有帮助，毕竟我们面对的挑战正在被处理，哪怕不是立刻解决。既然阅读和做事能够减轻压力，那么它们就是替代性行为，也就是说做其中一样会减少做另外一样的可能。

Which Dominates: The Substitute or Complement?

哪个占有优势，补充还是替代？

My own feeling is that both of these effects exist, and which dominates won’t be a universal consideration but will depend on a lot of factors.

我感觉两者都存在，哪个占优势不是放之四海皆准而是随一堆因素而定。

One factor probably has to do with the material itself. Some types of self-improvement probably work as substitutes. They provide a large emotional payoff (and, thus, work well in anxiety-reduction), but they may be weak on substantial follow-up. Being weak on the latter, they don’t make good complements.

其中一个因素可能和材料有关。有些类型的自我提升本来就是替代性的。它们提供大量的情绪性报酬（当然，对降低焦虑非常有帮助），但对后续行为影响较弱，也就是说不能产生好的补充。

Another factor, however, is probably the nature of the self-improvement task itself. Some types of self-improvement work are probably particularly difficult, emotionally unrewarding and complicated. Because the anxiety-reduction from working in those areas is so hard to come by, it might be easier to seek it from consuming self-improvement material passively instead.

另一个因素有可能是自我提升这件事本身。有些类型的自我提升非常困难，情绪上没有回报还复杂。在做这件事的时候很难降低焦虑感，而通过消费自我提升的材料则更容易。

While I’d like to think I avoid the worst of the self-help vapidness of the former, I admit that many of the self-improvement problems I focus on here are exactly the kind of nebulous, hard-to-work-on, abstract categories that may encourage substitution.

我自认为避免了乏味自助最坏的方面，但还是要承认，我专注的很多自我提升的问题正是那种模糊的，难以解决的，抽象的，很可能导致替代的类型。

As an example, compare what I write to a cookbook. The latter has a quite straightforward application, and therefore is more likely to serve as a complement to actual cooking. Of course it’s not a pure effect—some people buy cookbooks to alleviate the anxiety that they don’t cook enough, or need to learn to cook, and then don’t actually use them. But I imagine this is not the majority.

用我写的菜谱来打个比方。菜谱有着直接的应用步骤，因此更可能促进大家动手去下厨。当然不完全是这样，有些人购买菜谱只是为了减轻不会做菜的焦虑，或者需要学着做菜，之后不会再去看它们。我猜大部分人不会这么做。

On the other hand, consider improving your ability to learn effectively, combat procrastination or improve your career. These are all hard pursuits that, even when you’re doing them right, have mixed emotional payoffs in the short-term. As such, I can imagine people consuming self-improvement material here as a way to get that emotional payoff more reliably than doing the actual work.

另一方面，提高学习效率、战胜拖延或者提升职业生涯，这些都很难获得，哪怕你做得都对，在短期内只能获得混杂的情感报酬（完全读不通）。因此我可以想象大家正消费自我提升材料来获得情感报酬，而不是去做实际工作。

Note: Let me be clear that I don’t think anyone is actually conscious of this distinction, even if they abuse it. What probably happens, psychologically, is that there’s a desire to improve something, or more accurately, a desire to feel like things are going to be improved. When this desire is strong enough, it can trigger motivation to do something about it. Sometimes that manifests as taking action. Sometimes that manifests as buying a book that you tell yourself you’ll use, but never do.

小贴士：我要指明的是不是每个人都意识到这个特点，哪怕他们正到处滥用。用心理学上的说法，最有可能的是改善的愿望，更确切地说，事情似乎将被改善的愿望。当这种愿望足够强烈的时候会触发做点什么的动机，有时候以行动呈现，有时候只是购买可能会用的书，而实际上从未用过。

The Problem with Substitution

替代的问题

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who is doing her doctorate in clinical psychology. I mentioned another friend of ours who was having some anxiety and who I was trying to offer encouragement.

我曾和一位在临床心理学读博的朋友聊过，说有个朋友有点焦虑，然后我尝试着鼓励他。

To my surprise, she told me that this was likely harmful in the long-run. The best treatment doesn’t get patients to reduce their anxiety by consoling them, but by confronting that anxiety, which will increase it in the short-run, but has the long-term effect of reducing the intensity of anxiety the next time it comes up.

惊讶的是，她告诉我长期来看这样做对他是有害的。最好的方法不是通过安慰减轻他们的焦虑，而是帮他们直面焦虑。在短期内这会使焦虑增加，但长期来看，这能减轻焦虑再次到来时的强度。

The problem here was, again, one of substitution. By offering consolation, you are escaping from your anxiety. It provides short-term relief, but it only reinforces the pattern that created the anxiety in the first place.

问题再次回到了替代。通过提供安慰，你从焦虑中逃离。你能获得短暂的安慰，但是增强了起初产生焦虑的模式（感觉不太对）。

This is the problem with the substitution effect in self-improvement. If you are using reading a blog like this, buying books or doing “research” as a way of reducing the tension you feel that something needs to be improved, that can be potentially harmful. Without doing something and solving the underlying issue, consuming more information is counterproductive.

这就是替代在在自我提升中产生的问题。在有事情需要改善时，如果通过阅读像我这样的博客，买书，或者做研究来减轻压力，这可能有害。不去做事和解决潜在问题，而仅仅吸收更多的信息是不会产生创造力的。

When to Decide If You Need a Break?

I’ve experienced self-improvement both as complements and as substitutes in my own life.

在生活中，我经历了自我提升作为补充和替代的两方面。

The key difference, it seems to me, is a question about how much effort are you expending to actively work on the areas you’re reading about. If the answer is low or zero, and it has been for some time, but the amount of time you’re spending consuming information is significant, you may be having some kind of substitution effect.

对我来说，最大的不同是你需要在这件事情上花费多少努力。有时候答案是0或者很少，但更多时候花在吸收信息上的时间非常多，我有可能做了代替性的努力。

I’ve had success in cutting down my consumption. That tends to increase angst about whatever issue you wanted to use the material to solve, momentarily, but that same energy can hopefully be redirected towards taking some action.

我成功地降低了吸收信息的数量。这可能增加焦虑，不知道用什么材料来解决问题，但同样的能量很有可能直指行动。

Similarly, I’ve had times when I’ve been engaged in a lot of action and really benefited from having complementary material guide me through. Unfortunately, this isn’t an area I can give an easy prescription to read less or read more. Both might be useful! Instead, you need to look more closely at yourself–what are you using the time you spend reading books and blogs on. Is it a substitute for real action or a complement to it. Only you can decide.

我曾经在大量行动的同时，从补充性的资料中有所收伙。不幸的是，这不是一个我能简单给出多读或少读建议的领域。两者都可能是有用的。你需要审视自己，看书看博客时你在做什么，是为了行动的补充性阅读，或者仅仅是替代？只有你能确定。