“It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so。”—William Shakespeare

“事情本无好坏之分，关键在于你怎么想”——莎士比亚

爱思英语编者按：有些事总是被认为是好的，而有些事总是被认为是坏的。有三件事听起来很坏，却能真正帮助你。好好地利用这三件事给我带来了很多帮助。仔细想想，看看它们对你现在的处境是否有帮助。

Some things are often deemed to be bad. Some things are often deemed to be good

Here are three things that may sound bad but can actually be good for you. Three things that I have learned to make better use of or strengthen a bit since that would help me out. Think about them. Then add and subtract as you see useful for your life and situation right now while using your own common sense

1. Selfishness
自私

Selfishness is rarely seen as something positive. The word may fill your head with images of greedy and soulless Montgomery Burns-like people

自私很少被认为是好的品质。一提到这个词，你脑海中可能就浮现出类似于Montgomery Burns那样贪婪、无情的人。

However, personal development is in a way pretty selfish. You are trying to make yourself and your life better. But the thing is that by focusing on helping yourself first you can become stronger and help others in a better way too

然而，个人提升在某种程度确实是一件很自私的事。你总是试图让你和你的生活更好些。事实上，通过优先关注自己的事不仅会让你变得更强大，而且还可以更好的帮助别人。

If you just focus on other people and not on yourself then you risk burning out. Or people may take advantage of you as you set no limits or boundaries. You become the “nice guy/girl” who is always out there to help people but think little about yourself which in the long run can become pretty unhealthy

如果你只关注别人的事，那你就有被“耗尽”的可能。因为你对事情没有约束和限制，被人很可能会利用你。你成了“好好人”，因为你总是在帮人忙这忙那，却很少考虑你自己。长期来说，这样是很不好的。

And selfishness and helping others often go hand in hand anyway. I did for example improve my health and increased my energy levels last year. This also gave me the extra energy to work on an free ebook – that will, if everything goes as planned, be up on the blog very soon – besides writing the usual articles. So that is a win-win

话又说回来，自私和帮助别人也并不矛盾。举例来说，去年一年，我努力使自己更健康也更有精力了。这使我在除却写平常的一些文章外还有多余的精力去完成一本免费的电子书(若不错意外，明年就可与大家见面了)。所以这是双赢。

2. Lazyness
懒惰

Being lazy isn’t all that bad. Being lazy about stuff that is irrelevant or not that important will help you quite a bit to free up time and minimize unnecessary stress. Getting the most stuff done isn’t the best option. Getting the most important things done will improve your life and world the most

懒惰也并非都是坏事。对一些无关紧要的事懒惰会为你节省很多时间，减少不必要的压力。做完最多的事并非是最好的选择，做完最重要的事才是最佳选择。它能最大限度地提升你的生活和你生活的世界。

So, as I wrote a few weeks ago, set limits for checking inboxes, Twitter etc. Use your laziness and come up with ideas on how to make things as simple as you can in your daily life. Find the smartest path instead of thinking there is some reward for doing things in the most roundabout and complicated way

所以，在几个星期前我就建议，要对你每天查看邮箱或Twitter的次数做一个限制。在日常生活中，要利用你的懒惰来想一些点子，好让有些事情尽可能简单。找一种最聪明的方法解决问题，而不是想着如果绕一些弯子或用一些很复杂的方法会获得奖励。

This also makes it easier to really relax when you relax and work in focused way when you are working. Be smart and balance life and take advantage of laziness instead of making things into an unnecessarily big struggle

这样做可以让你更容易在该放松的时候彻底放松，在该工作的时候专注工作。要生活地既聪明又平衡，尽量利用懒惰的优势，不要做不必要的巨大努力。

3. Ruthlessness
冷酷无情

Adding a bit of ruthlessness has, in just the right amount, been very helpful for me. It allows me to cut out the unnecessary instead of wimping around and trying to everything to fit in somehow. If you have problems with putting a stop to something or making decisions then a little bit more ruthlessness may be what you need

多一点恰当的冷酷对我非常有帮助。它让我剔除了一些不必要的事，而不是犹犹豫豫，并试着以某种方式适应它。如果你对停止做某些事或做某个决定感到困难，那么一点点的冷酷就是你所需要的。

Because at some point you have to make harder decisions and cut out stuff you may not want to. Otherwise you won’t be able to find the time and energy you need. This may mean to skip some social engagements or cutting down on the TV-shows you follow from 10 hours a week to 2 hours a week. Not always fun, but you have to be the boss of your life. You have to make the decisions and say no both to yourself and to others if necessary

到了某些时候，你必须做出一些对你来说更困难的决定或是放弃一些你不想放弃的事，因为否则你将无法腾出你所需要的时间和精力。这可能意味着，你将砍掉一些社会交际时间或是将每周花10小时看你所热衷的TV秀减至每周2小时。这也许并不好过，但你是自己生活的主人。你必须做决定，如果需要，你要向自己或是别人说“不”。