|
免费订阅:[QQ英语]每日精彩抢"鲜"看！ 了解更多海外生活，来出国论坛聊聊！>>>
Why Some People Are Most Likely to Succeed?
为什么,他们容易成功？
你可能像李嘉诚一样拥有不断超越的“超人”素质；
你的身上可能潜藏着乔丹那般不为人知的特殊天分；
你可能拥有布兰妮那种由内到外的“露骨”力；
你可能具有老干妈一样一穷二白的人生基础；
他们都靠这些，而成功了，
你呢？……
You don’t get as successful as Gregg and Drew Shipp by accident. Shake hands with the fraternal1 twins, and it’s clear you’re in the presence of people who thrive on their drive. But that wasn’t always the case. The twins’ father founded a perfume company, a glamorous business that spun off the kinds of glamorous profits that made it possible for the Shipps to amble2 through high school, coast into college and never much worry about getting the rent paid or keeping the fridge filled. But before they graduated, their sense of drift began to trouble them. At about the same time, their father sold off the company.
That did it. By the time they got out of school, both Shipps had entirely transformed themselves, changing from boys who might have grown up to live off the family’s wealth to men consumed3 with going out and creating their own. Now, the Personal Fitness club that they own is sprawling4, and the brothers are about to move a third time.
Why are some people born with a fire in the belly, while others — like the Shipps — need something to get their pilot light lit? And why do others never get the flame of ambition going?
Ambition, linked with genes?
Anthropologists, psychologists and others have begun looking more closely at these issues, seeking the roots of ambition in family, culture, gender, genes and more. They have by no means thrown the curtain all the way back, but they have begun to part it.
Many animals are known to signal their ambitious tendencies almost from birth. Even before wolf pups are weaned5, they begin sorting themselves out into alphas and all the others. The alphas are quicker, more curious, greedier for space, milk, Mom — and they stay that way for life. Alpha wolves wander widely, breed annually and may live to a geriatric6 10 or 11 years old. Lower-ranking wolves enjoy none of these benefits — staying close to home, breeding rarely and usually dying before they’re 4.
Humans often report the same kind of temperamental determinism. Families are full of stories of the inexhaustible7 infant who grew up to be an entrepreneur, the phlegmatic8 child who never really showed much go. But if it’s genes that run the show, what accounts for the Shipps, who didn’t encourage themselves until their growing up? And what, more tellingly, explains identical twins — precise genetic templates of each other who ought to be temperamentally identical but often exhibit profound differences in their advancements?
Geneticist Dean Hamer of the National Cancer Institute says, “that still leaves a great deal that can be determined by experiences in infancy, subsequent upbringing and countless other imponderables9.”
Secrets of Ambition:
the Upper Middle Class
There are no hard rules for the kinds of families that turn out the highest achievers. Most psychologists agree that parents who set tough but realistic challenges, applaud10 successes and go easy on failures produce kids with the greatest self-confidence. What’s harder for parents to control but has perhaps as great an effect is the level of privilege into which their kids are born.
Just how wealth or poverty influences drive is difficult to predict. Grow up in a rich family, and you can inherit either the tools to achieve (think both Presidents Bush) or the indolence11 of the aristocrat. Grow up poor, and you can come away with either the motivation to strive (think Bill Clinton) or the inertia12 of the hopeless.
On the whole, studies suggest it’s the upper middle class that produces the greatest proportion of ambitious people — mostly because it also produces the greatest proportion of anxious people.
Anthropologists divide families into four categories13: poor, struggling but getting by, upper middle class, and rich. For members of the first two groups, who are fighting just to keep the electricity on and the phone bill paid, ambition is often a luxury. For the rich, it’s often unnecessary. It’s members of the upper middle class, reasonably safe economically but not so safe that a bad break couldn’t spell catastrophe, who are most driven to improve their lot. “It’s called status anxiety,” says anthropologist Lowe, “and whether you’re born to be concerned about it or not, you do develop it.”
High Achievers = Stress-related Ills
But a yearning for supremacy can create its own set of problems. Heart attacks, ulcers14 and other stress-related ills are more common among high achievers — and that includes nonhuman achievers. The blood of alpha wolves routinely shows elevated levels of cortical15 hormone, the same stress hormone that is found in anxious humans. Alpha chimps16 even suffer ulcers and occasional heart attacks.
“Everyone has ambition,” says Edward Lowe. “Societies have to provide alternative ways for people to achieve.”
Ultimately, it’s that multiplicity17 of possible rewards — that makes dreaming big dreams and pursuing big goals worth all the bother. Ambition is an expensive impulse, one that requires an enormous investment of emotional capital. Like any investment, it can pay off in countless different kinds of coin. So, please recognize the riches when they come your way.
|
希望与其他英语爱好者进行交流？点击进入外语论坛>>>
  |
|
频道精彩内容推荐新闻·焦点
| 关于腾讯 | About Tencent | 服务条款 | 广告服务 | 腾讯招聘 | 腾讯公益 | 客服中心 | 网站导航 | |
| Copyright © 1998 - 2008 Tencent Inc. All Rights Reserved |  |
| 腾讯公司 版权所有 | |
