Chance events play a much larger role in life than many people once imagined.

偶然事件对于命运的改变，比许多人以前想象的要大得多。

Most of us have no difficulty recognizing luck when it’s on conspicuous¹ display, as when someone wins the lottery². But randomness⁴ often plays out in subtle ways, and it’s easy to construct narratives⁵ that portray⁶ success as having been inevitable⁷. Those stories are almost invariably misleading, however, a simple fact that has surprising implications for public policy.

当好运以非常引人注目的方式降临，比如有人中了彩票，我们大部分人不难看出来。但这种偶然因素往往以不易察觉的方式起作用，因此人们容易构建出一种逻辑，将成功描绘为必然的。然而，这些成功故事几乎都不可避免地存在误导性，而这样一个简单的事实，会对公共政策产生令人意外的后果。

Consider the history of the Mona Lisa, perhaps the most famous painting in the world. After having languished⁸ in obscurity for most of its early existence, Leonardo da Vinci’s work was pushed into the spotlight⁹ in 1911 when it was stolen from the Louvre.

来看看《蒙娜丽莎》(Mona Lisa)的历史吧。这或许是世界上最知名的一幅画。在诞生之初的大多数时间里，莱昂纳多·达芬奇(Leonardo da Vinci)的这幅画作一直默默无闻。直到1911年，它从卢浮宫被盗，方才突然成为众人关注的焦点。

The widely publicized theft remained unsolved for two years until Vincenzo Peruggia, an Italian maintenance worker at the Louvre, was apprehended¹⁰ after trying to sell the painting to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. His arrest provoked a second wave of publicity¹¹, with images of the Mona Lisa splashed around the world.

两年后，这桩广为人知的盗窃事件终于告破。当时，卢浮宫的意大利维修工温琴佐·佩鲁贾(Vincenzo Peruggia)试图将这幅画卖给位于意大利佛罗伦萨的乌菲齐美术馆(Uffizi Gallery)，随即被捕。此人归案再次引发人们对《蒙娜丽莎》的广泛关注，它的图片出现在世界各地的媒体上。

In the years since, the painting has come to represent Western culture itself. Yet had it never been stolen, most of us would know no more about it than we do of the two obscure Leonardo da Vinci canvases from the same period that hang in an adjacent gallery at the Louvre. Like Kim Kardashian, apparently¹², the Mona Lisa is famous largely for being famous.

在之后的多年里，这幅画逐渐成为西方文化本身的代表。但是，如果不是因为当初被盗，我们大多数人对它的了解，不会比莱昂纳多·达芬奇同一时期创作的另外两幅鲜为人知的油画更多。后二者就挂在卢浮宫内与《蒙娜丽莎》相邻的展厅内。显然，就像金·卡戴珊(Kim Kardashian)一样，《蒙娜丽莎》之所以这么出名，很大程度上就是因为大家知道了它的存在。

As in the art world, so too in the world of work. Almost every career trajectory¹³ entails¹⁵ a complex sequence of steps, each of which depends on those preceding it. If any of those earlier steps had been different, the entire trajectory would almost surely have been different, too.

职场和艺术界是一样的。几乎每个人的事业轨迹都是由一系列复杂的步骤组成，其中的每一步都取决于前面迈出了什么样的步伐。如果早前的步伐中有任何一步是另外一个样子，几乎可以肯定，整个轨迹也会因之不同。

Inevitably¹⁶, some of those initial steps will have been influenced by seemingly trivial random³ events. So it is reasonable to conclude that virtually all successful careers entail¹⁴ at least a modicum¹⁷ of luck.

而在最初的步伐中，有些不可避免地会受到看似微不足道的偶然事件的影响。所以我们可以得出这样一个合理的结论：所有成功的职业生涯至少都包含些许的运气成分。

One’s date of birth can matter enormously, for example. According to a 2008 study, most children born in the summer tend to be among the youngest members of their class at school, which appears to explain why they are significantly less likely to hold leadership positions during high school and thus, another study indicates, less likely to land premium¹⁸ jobs later in life. Similarly, according to research published in the journal Economics Letters in 2012, the number of American chief executives who were born in June and July is almost one-third lower than would be expected on the basis of chance alone.

比如，一个人的出生日期就可以产生非常大的影响。2008年的一项研究显示，大多数出生在夏天的孩子往往是班上最小的学生，而这似乎解释了为何他们在很大程度上不太可能在高中期间担任领导角色，因此就像另一项研究显示的，也就不太可能在以后的生活中获得优质工作机会。2012年刊登于《经济学快报》杂志(Economics Letters)的一项研究也显示，出生在6月和7月的美国企业首席执行官比单就概率计算应该出现的人数少了将近三分之一。

Even the first letter of a person’s last name can explain significant achievement gaps. Assistant professors in the 10 top-ranked American economics departments, for instance, were more likely to be promoted to tenure¹⁹ the earlier the first letter of their last names fell in the alphabet, a 2006 study found. Researchers attributed this to the custom in economics of listing co-authors’ names alphabetically²⁰ on papers, noting that no similar effect existed for professors in psychology²¹, whose names are not listed alphabetically.

就连姓氏的首字母也有可能是人们取得的成就天差地别的原因。比如，2006年的一项研究发现，对于美国最顶级的十个经济学院系的助理教授来说，其姓氏首字母在字母表中的位置越靠前，就有可能越早获得终身教职。研究人员将其中的原因归为经济学领域的一种惯例，即发表论文时按姓氏首字母对共同作者进行排序。这项研究还指出，心理学领域的教授发表论文时排名不按姓氏字母顺序，就不存在类似的效应。

To acknowledge the importance of random events is not to suggest that success is independent of talent and effort. In highly competitive arenas²², those who do well are almost always extremely talented and hard-working. As Charlie Munger, the vice²³ chairman of Warren E. Buffett’s holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, has said, “The safest way to get what you want is to try and deserve what you want.”

认可偶然事件的重要性，不是为了证明成功不依赖于天赋和努力。事实上，在竞争极为激烈的领域，表现好的人几乎总是极具天赋而又非常勤勉的人。就像沃伦·E·巴菲特(Warren E. Buffett)的控股公司伯克希尔-哈撒韦(Berkshire Hathaway)的副董事长查理·芒格(Charlie Munger)曾经说过的，“要得到自己想要的东西，最稳妥的办法就是努力让自己变成值得拥有那一切的人。”

Perhaps the most useful advice for someone who aspires²⁴ to material success is to develop expertise²⁵ at a task that others value. Such expertise comes not from luck but from thousands of hours of assiduous effort.

对于渴望获得物质成功的人士来说，最有用的建议或许是在被他人看重的某一领域掌握自己的专长。这种专长不可能来自运气，而是要靠成千上万个小时的刻苦努力。

But talent and effort are not enough. Luck also matters. Even the most able, industrious²⁶ people in South Sudan have little chance at success. Success is not guaranteed for deserving people in wealthy countries with highly developed legal and educational institutions and other infrastructure²⁷, but it’s substantially more likely.

但光有天赋和努力是不够的。运气也很重要。即便是最有能力、最勤勉的人，在南苏丹获得成功的机会也微乎其微。并不是说，在拥有高度发达的法律、教育体系及其他基础设施的富裕国家，理应获得成功的人就一定能成功，但他们的几率会大很多。

Being born in a good environment is one of the few dimensions of luck we can control — that is, at least we can decide how lucky our children will be. But as a nation, we’ve been doing a bad job of it for at least a generation. The luckiest are getting luckier even as their numbers shrink. The unlucky population is growing, and its luck is getting worse.

出生在一个良好的环境里，是我们所能掌控的为数不多的一项运气——也就是说，我们至少能决定让自己的孩子拥有多大的运气。不过，作为一个国家，我们在这方面做得并不好，至少在这二三十年里是如此。最幸运的人群在变得更加幸运，尽管他们的人数减少了。而不幸人群的基数却在增加，其运气也在变得更差。

These changes have stemmed in part from sharply diminished public support for education. According to a 2015 report by the nonpartisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, for example, state spending per student averaged about 20 percent less in 2014-15 than in the 2007-8 school year. More than 70 percent of students who graduated from four-year colleges in 2015 had student loans that averaged $35,000.

出现这些变化，有一部分原因是教育方面得到的公共支持急剧减少。比如，无党派机构预算与政策重点中心(Center for Budget and Policy Priorities)在2015年发表的一份报告显示，2014至2015学年，各州在每个学生身上的平均支出比2007至2008学年降低了20%。2015年从四年制学院毕业的学生，有超过70%背负着学生贷款，平均额度达3.5万美元。

It’s no surprise, then, that access to the benefits of a college degree continues to depend heavily on family income. According to a study from the Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy, at the University of Pennsylvania, and the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, 77 percent of offspring of families in the top income quartile had earned college degrees by age 24 in 2013, compared with only 9 percent of those from bottom-quartile families. More troubling, the disparity persists even when controlling for precollege academic aptitude²⁸ scores.

因此也就不必奇怪，一个人能否享受大学学位带来的好处，会持续地严重依赖于其家庭收入状况。宾夕法尼亚大学(University of Pennsylvania)高等教育与民主联盟(Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy)和佩尔高等教育机会研究所(Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education)共同进行的一项研究发现，2013年，收入水平处在前四分之一范围内的家庭的子女，有77%在24岁前拿到了大学学位；相比之下，来自后四分之一收入家庭的学生拿到学位的比例只有9%。更让人不安的是，即便排除了大学前的学术能力测验分数的影响，这种悬殊的差距依然存在。

The human tendency to underestimate luck’s role has contributed to this troubling state of affairs by reducing the electorate’s willingness to support the public investments that make economic success possible. But the taxes people want to avoid need not be personally painful.

人们有低估运气的作用的倾向，这帮助促成了如今这种令人不安的状况，因为它降低了选民们支持有可能带来经济成功的公共投资的意愿。但纳税人就是想避开无关个人痛苦的需求。

Evidence from the social sciences demonstrates that beyond a certain income threshold, people’s sense of well-being²⁹ depends much more on their relative purchasing power than on how much they spend in absolute terms. If top tax rates were a little higher, all homes would be a little smaller, all cars a little less expensive, all diamonds a little more modest and all celebrations a little less costly³⁰. The standards that define “special” would adjust accordingly, leaving most successful people quite satisfied.

来自社会科学研究的证据证明，除了一定程度的收入门槛，人们的幸福感更多地取决于他们的相对购买力，而非他们支出绝对值的多少。如果最高税率略微高一些，所有的住宅都会略微小一些，所有汽车都会略微便宜一些，所有的钻石首饰都会略微朴素一些，所有庆祝活动的开支都会略微低一些。定义“特别”的标准会相应地发生改变，让大多数成功人士感觉相当满意。

Happily, there is a simple remedy: Merely prompting people to reflect on their good fortune tends to make them more willing to contribute to the common good, according to a 2010 study published in the journal Emotion. So try to engage your successful friends in discussions about their experiences with luck. In the process, you may increase their willingness to support the kinds of public investments that will enhance the next generation’s odds³¹ of success. And you will almost surely hear some interesting stories.

幸运的是，这里有一个简单的解决之道：2010年发表在《情绪》期刊(Emotion)上的一项研究结果显示，只需敦促人们反思自己获得的好运气，就有可能让他们更愿意为公共利益做贡献。所以尽力让你身边那些比较成功的朋友们谈论自己幸运的经历。在这个过程中，你或许能增加他们支持一些能提高下一代成功几率的公共投资的意愿。而且几乎可以肯定的是，你也会听到一些有趣的故事。