我为什么要放弃最好的东西而选择正确的东西
简悦花园Why I'm Ditching the “Best” Things for the Right Things
我为什么要放弃 "最好的" 东西而选择 "正确的" 东西？
For most of my teen and adult life, I've been almost obsessed with finding the “best” of anything. The best laptop, the best smartphone, the best camera, pen, notebook, blogging site, app, and on and on. It felt like a mission and my life wouldn't be complete until I accomplished it. And I'm not the only one. If you think of a product, app, or service that you've needed recently, do a quick search online for “best [name of thing here]“. There are thousands upon thousands of search results. We've been trained in this age of rapidly improving technology and an abundance of choice to seek out the best of the best, the most highly rated, the 5-star product. Recently, though, I've realized that the best thing isn't always the right thing. And because what's “best” is so subjective, the best thing might end up being the wrong thing.\ 在我青少年和成年生活的大部分时间里，我几乎痴迷于寻找 "最好" 的东西。最好的笔记本电脑、最好的智能手机、最好的相机、钢笔、笔记本、博客网站、应用程序，等等。这感觉就像一项任务，不完成它，我的人生就不完整。我不是唯一一个这样的人。如果你想到自己最近需要的产品、应用程序或服务，请在网上快速搜索 "最佳 [此处事物名称]"。搜索结果成千上万。在这个技术日新月异、选择繁多的时代，我们被训练去寻找最好中的最好、评价最高的、五星级的产品。但最近我意识到，最好的东西并不总是正确的。因为什么是 "最好" 是如此主观，最好的东西最终可能是错误的东西。
In some cases the best thing is the right thing. But not always. If the best thing were always the right thing, why are there so many brands, businesses, and apps and services that all advertise similar things but all claim to be the best in some way? Why is there so much variety in the market? Because there is no one best or right thing for any one person or situation.\ 在某些情况下，最好的事情就是正确的事情。但并非总是如此。如果最好的东西总是正确的东西，那么为什么会有那么多品牌、企业、应用程序和服务都在宣传类似的东西，却都声称自己在某些方面是最好的？为什么市场上会有这么多五花八门的东西？因为对于任何一个人或任何一种情况来说，都没有最好或最正确的东西。
The right car for one person might be an old beat-up sedan while for another it's a pickup truck and for another it's a minivan. Even within these categories, there are other needs that define what's right for one person or another. One family might decide that a newer minivan is right for them because of certain features. Another family might decide that an older minivan is the right choice for them because of price and availability. You could argue that the newer minivan is the “best” minivan because it has lower miles, a better warranty, and more features. But that's simply one angle, one side of the story. You could also argue that the older minivan is better because it will depreciate less, cost less to purchase and insure, and any recalls or manufacturer issues may have been fixed already.\ 对一个人来说，合适的汽车可能是一辆破旧的轿车，而对另一个人来说，合适的汽车可能是一辆皮卡，对另一个人来说，合适的汽车可能是一辆小型货车。即使在这些类别中，也有其他需求决定了什么车适合什么人。一个家庭可能会因为某些功能而决定选择较新的小型货车。另一个家庭可能会因为价格和可用性而决定选择较旧的小型货车。你可以说，较新的小型货车是 "最好的" 小型货车，因为它的里程数更低、保修期更长、功能更多。但这只是一个角度，故事的一个侧面。你也可以说，旧的小型货车更好，因为它的折旧更少，购买和投保成本更低，而且任何召回或制造商问题都可能已经解决。
This is precisely why there are so many millions of articles claiming to have the top 10 best of this product or the top 5 best of that service or why restaurants claim to have the best dish this side of the Mississippi. And some of those claims may be right. Let's use cameras as another example, as there is much debate online about what the best camera is for any given task or situation. And there are many articles written about which camera is the best for filming, vlogging, or landscape photography, or portraits, etc.\ 正因为如此，才会有数以百万计的文章声称自己拥有该产品的十大最佳，或该服务的五大最佳，或餐馆声称自己拥有密西西比河这边最好的菜肴。其中有些说法可能是对的。我们再以相机为例，网上有很多关于什么是最适合任何特定任务或情况的相机的争论。有很多文章都在讨论哪种相机最适合拍摄、视频录制、风景摄影或人像摄影等。
If you were to take a point and shoot camera purchased from a big box store and compare the images against a high-end DSLR camera with a professional-level lens, there's no way the point and shoot camera would stand a chance in image quality. Does that mean the DSLR camera is the right camera for everybody? Absolutely not! Go to any major event (graduation, birthday parties, etc.) and the amount of people using a DSLR camera kit on Auto mode will show this to be true. These people have simply purchased the “best” camera only to waste thousands of dollars of imaging potential on a job that is probably better suited for a smartphone camera.\ 如果将从大卖场购买的傻瓜相机与配备专业级镜头的高端数码单反相机进行图像对比，傻瓜相机在图像质量上毫无优势可言。这是否意味着单反相机适合所有人？绝对不是！去参加任何大型活动（毕业典礼、生日派对等），在自动模式下使用数码单反相机套件的人数就能证明这一点。这些人只是购买了 "最好的" 相机，却在可能更适合智能手机相机的工作上浪费了数千美元的成像潜力。
There are a few lessons I've learned over the years of searching for the best thingamajig.\ 多年来，我一直在寻找最好的东西，并从中汲取了一些经验。
- If you don't need it in the first place, it doesn't matter how great it is.\ 如果你一开始就不需要它，那么它再好也没用。
- If you don't know how to use it and don't already have plans to learn, you'll never use all of its “best” features.\ 如果你不知道如何使用它，也没有学习的计划，那么你将永远无法使用它的所有 "最佳" 功能。
- Always consider personal need, skill level, taste, budget, and any other personal considerations before you simply pursue the “best” of something.\ 在单纯追求 "最好" 的东西之前，一定要考虑个人需求、技能水平、品味、预算以及其他任何个人因素。
Let me explain number 3 a bit further. Going back to my camera example, the “best” camera for filming probably costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and is only available to huge studio productions. Would it make the home videos of my daughter singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star any cuter? Definitely not! And on top of that, it's tremendously outside any budget I could dream of, I'd have no idea how to use it, and no reason to even use it when my smartphone does a fine job of capturing the moment.\ 让我进一步解释一下第 3 点。回到摄像机的例子，"最好的" 摄像机可能要花费数十万美元，而且只有大型制片厂才能使用。它能让我女儿唱《一闪一闪小星星》的家庭录像变得更可爱吗？肯定不会！此外，它远远超出了我的预算，我根本不知道如何使用它，甚至没有理由使用它，因为我的智能手机就能很好地捕捉瞬间。
Another great example is food. If a restaurant claims to have the best cherry pie in the state, no amount of “best-ness” is going to make me like that cherry pie. There's nothing wrong with the cherry pie except the fact that I simply don't like cherry pie.\ 另一个很好的例子是食物。如果一家餐厅声称它的樱桃馅饼是全州最好吃的，那么再多的 "最好吃" 也不会让我喜欢上这个樱桃馅饼。樱桃馅饼没有任何问题，只是我根本不喜欢樱桃馅饼。
All of this has brought me to my realization that I no longer want the “best” thing for the job. I want the “right” thing for a given job.\ 这一切让我意识到，我不再想要 "最好" 的工作。我想要的是适合特定工作的 "正确" 的东西。
I learned this with my blog publishing tool. Most mainstream things you read online about blogging tell you to use Wordpress as your blogging platform. A huge percentage of sites and blogs on the Internet run on Wordpress. This is because Wordpress is a free, powerful tool with lots of customization options. However, after years of using it for this blog and other projects, I realized that although many claimed it to be the “best” platform for blogging, it wasn't right for me. So I searched. I'll admit, I started with “best blogging platforms” and went from there. But after a while, I started thinking about what was right for me and my situation and my needs. What did I really need out of a blogging platform? What were my requirements? And instead of listening to all the “experts” spouting off their list of the top 5 best blogging sites, I conducted a search for all the sites I could use. Then I meticulously compared features and tested platforms until I found the one that was right for me. This is where you're reading this blog right now, a publishing tool called write.as. I'm not going to claim that it's the best platform for blogging, but for the simplicity and ease of use that I was looking for, it's definitely the right fit for me.\ 我从我的博客发布工具中学到了这一点。你在网上读到的大多数关于博客的主流信息都告诉你使用 Wordpress 作为你的博客平台。互联网上很大一部分网站和博客都使用 Wordpress。这是因为 Wordpress 是一个免费的、功能强大的工具，有很多自定义选项。然而，经过多年在博客和其他项目中的使用，我意识到，虽然很多人都声称 Wordpress 是 "最好的" 博客平台，但它并不适合我。于是我开始寻找。我承认，我是从 "最佳博客平台" 开始搜索的。但过了一段时间，我开始思考什么才适合我、我的情况和我的需求。我真正需要的博客平台是什么？我的要求是什么？我没有听那些 "专家" 大谈他们列出的五大最佳博客网站，而是搜索了所有我可以使用的网站。然后，我仔细比较了各种功能，测试了各种平台，直到找到最适合我的那个。这就是你现在正在阅读这篇博客的地方，一个名为 write.as 的发布工具。我不敢说它是最好的博客平台，但就我所追求的简单易用而言，它绝对是最适合我的。
And the same goes for many things in my life now. I wear Lem's Primal 2 shoes because after years of looking for the “best” shoe, I finally found the right shoe. They fit so snug on my feet and are a great casual wear almost everywhere shoe. They're right for me right now. I use notion.so to organize a lot of my notes and lists not because it's the best tool out there for doing such things, but because it's the tool that finally fit my style of note-taking, organization, and productivity.\ 现在我生活中的很多事情也是如此。我穿 Lem's Primal 2 鞋，因为在寻找" 最好 " 的鞋多年之后，我终于找到了合适的鞋。这双鞋非常贴合我的双脚，几乎在任何地方都能轻松穿着。这双鞋非常适合现在的我。我用 notion.so 整理我的很多笔记和清单，并不是因为它是最好的工具，而是因为它最终适合我做笔记、整理和提高工作效率的风格。
Yes, there are always things that work or look or taste better than others in most cases for most people, but remember the three lessons when considering the next right thing:\ 是的，对于大多数人来说，在大多数情况下，总有一些东西比其他东西更好用、看起来更好看、味道更好，但在考虑下一件正确的事情时，请记住这三点教训：
- If you don't need it in the first place, it doesn't matter how great it is.\ 如果你一开始就不需要它，那么它再好也没用。
- If you don't know how to use it and don't already have plans to learn, you'll never use all of its “best” features.\ 如果你不知道如何使用它，也没有学习的计划，那么你将永远无法使用它的所有 "最佳" 功能。
- Always consider personal need, skill level, taste, budget, and any other personal considerations before you simply pursue the “best” of something.\ 在单纯追求 "最好" 的东西之前，一定要考虑个人需求、技能水平、品味、预算以及其他任何个人因素。
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