为什么拖延症患者会拖延，真的是大家说的“懒癌”吗，还是别有隐情 ...
pro-cras-ti-na-tion |prəˌkrastəˈnāSHən, prō-| 拖延
noun 名词
the action of delaying or postponing something: your first tip is to avoid procrastination.
延迟或推迟某事的举动：我们给出的第一条建议是避免拖延
Who would have thought that after decades of struggle with procrastination, the dictionary, of all places, would hold the solution.
在与拖延症旷日长久的抗争中，谁能想到偏偏在字典里，就有解决的方法。
Avoid procrastination.So elegant in its simplicity.
避免拖延。真是简单而优雅的的解决方案。
While we’re here, let’s make sure obese people avoid overeating, depressed people avoid apathy, and someone please tell beached whales that they should avoid being out of the ocean.
既然说开了，那我们就顺便让超重的人避免暴饮暴食，让抑郁的人避免顾影自怜，和搁浅的鲸鱼说一声它们应该好好在海洋里呆着。
No, “avoid procrastination” is only good advice for fake procrastinators—those people that are like, “I totally go on Facebook a few times every day at work—I’m such a procrastinator!” The same people that will say to a real procrastinator something like, “Just don’t procrastinate and you’ll be fine.”
不，“避免拖延”这种口号只会对假拖延症患者起效 —— 就是那些整天说着，“我每天上班都要刷好几次脸书 —— 我有拖延症！” 的人，那种人还会给真正的拖延症患者瞎提建议，“你不拖延就没事啦。”
The thing that neither the dictionary nor fake procrastinators understand is that for a real procrastinator, procrastination isn’t optional—it’s something they don’t know how to not do.
字典和假拖延症患者都无法理解的是，对于一个真正的拖延症患者，拖不拖延不是由拖延症患者说了算的 —— 他们对拖延真的无计可施。
In college, the sudden unbridled personal freedom was a disaster for me—I did nothing, ever, for any reason. The one exception was that I had to hand in papers from time to time. I would do those the night before, until I realized I could just do them through the night, and I did that until I realized I could actually start them in the early morning on the day they were due. This behavior reached caricature levels when I was unable to start writing my 90-page senior thesis until 72 hours before it was due, an experience that ended with me in the campus doctor’s office learning that lack of blood sugar was the reason my hands had gone numb and curled up against my will. (I did get the thesis in—no, it was not good.)
大学的时候，突如其来的自由对我来说是场灾难 —— 我整日无所事事，漫无目的。唯一能让我动起来的理由是我得时不时的交作业。一开始我在死线的前一个晚上开始写，渐渐发现熬夜通宵也能做完，然后发现死线当天的早上再开始写也来得及。事态发展夸张到在毕业论文截止前72小时我才开始动笔写90页的毕业论文，最后进了校医办公室，这才知道我的手发麻和蜷缩是因为低血糖犯了。
Even this post took much longer than it should have, because I spent a bunch of hours doing things like seeing this picture sitting on my desktop from a previous post, opening it, looking at it for a long time thinking about how easily he could beat me in a fight, then wondering if he could beat a tiger in a fight, then wondering who would win between a lion and a tiger, and then googling that and reading about it for a while (the tiger would win). I have problems.
就连写这篇文的时间也超出了我的预期，因为我花了大把时间坐在电脑面前看上一篇文里面的图片 。我打开图，定定的盯着图心想，他不费吹灰之力就能把我打趴在地，然后我开始好奇他能不能干掉一头老虎，之后我的思绪游荡到狮子和老虎谁的武力值更胜一筹，接着我开始谷歌狮子和老虎的资料并全部读了一遍（老虎会赢）。我知道我这个人有问题。
To understand why procrastinators procrastinate so much, let’s start by understanding a non-procrastinator’s brain:
要知道为什么拖延症患者会大事拖小事也拖的症结所在，我们先来看看不拖延人士的大脑构造：
Pretty normal, right? Now, let’s look at a procrastinator’s brain:
挺正常的，对吧？那我们来看看拖延症患者的大脑：
Notice anything different?
找到不同了吗？
It seems the Rational Decision-Maker in the procrastinator’s brain is coexisting with a pet—the Instant Gratification Monkey.
在拖延症患者的大脑里面，理性决策者和一只宠物住在一起 —— 即时满足猴子。
This would be fine—cute, even—if the Rational Decision-Maker knew the first thing about how to own a monkey. But unfortunately, it wasn’t a part of his training and he’s left completely helpless as the monkey makes it impossible for him to do his job.
看上去很和谐 —— 画面甚至挺可爱 —— 前提是理性决策者懂得如何管一只猴子。不幸的是，理性决策者在管理猴子上一窍不通，面对猴子的干扰，他束手无策。
The fact is, the Instant Gratification Monkey is the last creature who should be in charge of decisions—he thinks only about the present, ignoring lessons from the past and disregarding the future altogether, and he concerns himself entirely with maximizing the ease and pleasure of the current moment. He doesn’t understand the Rational Decision-Maker any better than the Rational Decision-Maker understands him—why would we continue doing this jog, he thinks, when we could stop, which would feel better. Why would we practice that instrument when it’s not fun? Why would we ever use a computer for work when the internet is sitting right there waiting to be played with? He thinks humans are insane.
事实是，即时满足猴子是你绝对不想看到的那种决策者 —— 它只能看懂眼前，不管历史教训也不想未来事，完全沉浸于最简单舒适的快乐中。它不理解理性决策者，理性决策者也不能理解它 —— 它不懂我们为什么要慢跑，为什么不停下来休息，明明休息更舒服。为什么我们要做枯燥乏味的乐器训练？为什么互联网上的乐子唾手可得我们却用电脑来工作？它觉得人类都疯了。
In the monkey world, he’s got it all figured out—if you eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired and don’t do anything difficult, you’re a pretty successful monkey. The problem for the procrastinator is that he happens to live in the human world, making the Instant Gratification Monkey a highly unqualified navigator. Meanwhile, the Rational Decision-Maker, who was trained to make rational decisions, not to deal with competition over the controls, doesn’t know how to put up an effective fight—he just feels worse and worse about himself the more he fails and the more the suffering procrastinator whose head he’s in berates him.
在猴子的世界，本能驱使着一切 —— 饿了吃，困了睡，不用做什么复杂的事，你就是一只成功猴子了。拖延症患者之所以是拖延症患者因为他们生活在人类世界，而即时满足猴子是个极度不合格的向导。理性决策者天生就懂得怎么帮我们理智的做决定，可他在抢夺话语权时却争不过猴子 —— 于是理性决策者屡次失败，然后看到拖延症患者更加水深火热，他自我感觉更差了。
It’s a mess. And with the monkey in charge, the procrastinator finds himself spending a lot of time in a place called the Dark Playground.
日子过的一团糟。尤其是猴子掌管后，拖延症患者发现自己在一个叫黑暗游乐场的地方消磨了好多时间。
The Dark Playground is a place every procrastinator knows well. It’s a place where leisure activities happen at times when leisure activities are not supposed to be happening. The fun you have in the Dark Playground isn’t actually fun because it’s completely unearned and the air is filled with guilt, anxiety, self-hatred, and dread. Sometimes the Rational Decision-Maker puts his foot down and refuses to let you waste time doing normal leisure things, and since the Instant Gratification Monkey sure as hell isn’t gonna let you work, you find yourself in a bizarre purgatory of weird activities where everyone loses.
黑暗游乐园是一个所有拖延症患者都心知肚明的地方。一个你明明该工作了却还在这里玩的地方。在黑暗游乐园得到的快乐从来都不是真正的快乐，因为你在这里不能心安理得的享受，空气中充满了罪恶、紧张、自怨和恐惧，让你在玩的时候心惊胆战。有时候理性决策者会摆出强硬的态度，拒绝在无意义的消遣上浪费时间，即时满足猴子又会跳出来闹事，让你发现自己处于两难的炼狱中，怎么样都是一败涂地的局面。
And the poor Rational Decision-Maker just mopes, trying to figure out how he let the human he’s supposed to be in charge of end up here again.
可怜的理性决策者又消沉起来，并试图弄清楚他管理的人类为什么又双叒失控。
Given this predicament, how does the procrastinator ever manage to accomplish anything?
这种困境下，拖延症患者怎么可能完成任何事情？
As it turns out, there’s one thing that scares the shit out of the Instant Gratification Monkey:
事实证明，即时满足猴子怕一样东西怕的要命：
The Panic Monster is dormant most of the time, but he suddenly wakes up when a deadline gets too close or when there’s danger of public embarrassment, a career disaster, or some other scary consequence.
恐慌怪兽大部分时间都在休眠状态，但在死线临近，可能会在公众场合丢脸，事业出现危机，或者可能发生其他可怕后果时，他就会醒过来。
The Instant Gratification Monkey, normally unshakable, is terrified of the Panic Monster. How else could you explain the same person who can’t write a paper’s introductory sentence over a two-week span suddenly having the ability to stay up all night, fighting exhaustion, and write eight pages? Why else would an extraordinarily lazy person begin a rigorous workout routine other than a Panic Monster freakout about becoming less attractive?
即时满足猴子的意志通常是不可动摇的，但它可以被恐慌怪兽吓跑。不然你要怎么解释同一个人，用两周的时间都写不出论文的介绍开场白，突然之间能够通宵达旦，不顾疲倦的写出八页纸？一个超级懒人如果不是怕被人嫌弃身材走样，怎么能够严格执行健身计划？
And these are the lucky procrastinators—there are some who don’t even respond to the Panic Monster, and in the most desperate moments they end up running up the tree with the monkey, entering a state of self-annihilating shutdown.
这种拖延症患者算幸运的 —— 还有一些拖延症患者连恐慌怪兽也救不了他们，遇到极度绝望的境地时他们要么选择和猴子一起逃到树上，要么开始自怜自艾的自我封闭。
Quite a crowd we are.
人类真是千奇百怪啊。
Of course, this is no way to live. Even for the procrastinator who does manage to eventually get things done and remain a competent member of society, something has to change. Here are the main reasons why:
当然，这样过日子是不行的。即使拖延症患者最后把任务完成了，维持了表面的体面，整件事情的意义还是大不一样。下面细细分解：
1) It’s unpleasant. Far too much of the procrastinator’s precious time is spent toiling in the Dark Playground, time that could have been spent enjoying satisfying, well-earned leisure if things had been done on a more logical schedule. And panic isn’t fun for anyone.
1）拖延的经历不愉快。 太多拖延症患者把宝贵的时间虚耗在黑暗游乐园了，假如事情能够按计划有条理的进行，他们本可以享受干完活后应得的心满意足和闲暇安逸时光。 谁都不喜欢被恐惧支配着干活。
2) The procrastinator ultimately sells himself short. He ends up underachieving and fails to reach his potential, which eats away at him over time and fills him with regret and self-loathing.
2）拖延症患者会自己看扁自己。 完成的任务并没有达到预期的高度也没有反应出拖延症患者的真实水平，长期以往就会悔恨和自厌会蚕食拖延症患者的整个心灵。
3) The Have-To-Dos may happen, but not the Want-To-Dos. Even if the procrastinator is in the type of career where the Panic Monster is regularly present and he’s able to be fulfilled at work, the other things in life that are important to him—getting in shape, cooking elaborate meals, learning to play the guitar, writing a book, reading, or even making a bold career switch—never happen because the Panic Monster doesn’t usually get involved with those things. Undertakings like those expand our experiences, make our lives richer, and bring us a lot of happiness—and for most procrastinators, they get left in the dust.
3） 必须做的事情或许能完成，但是想做的事情就永远不会去做。 就算拖延症患者正好因职业需求时时有恐慌怪兽在身后监管工作，他人生中其他重要的事情 —— 练出好身材，烹饪美食，学会弹吉他，写书，阅读，甚至进军新的职业领域 —— 永远都不会发生，因为恐慌怪兽通常不会在这些事情上现身。这些事情能增加我们的阅历，让人生更加丰富，也会带来数不尽的快乐 —— 而拖延症患者，就只能与这些美好无缘了。
So how can a procrastinator improve and become happier? See Part 2, How To Beat Procrastination.
拖延症患者怎样改变现状，找到快乐呢? 详情请看第二弹, 怎么打败拖延症.
转载自Why Procrastinators Procrastinate by Tim Urban (Posted October 30, 2013)
