TED演讲：“假精致”正在毁掉年轻人的生活
之前我刷过一段时间小红书，看到上面有很多生活博主，很奇怪的是明明大家都是白领，工资也不是很多，为什么他们要买几千块一只的炒锅，租单间还装上洗碗机，口红一整套地剁手，这种常人眼中精致的生活，令人羡慕但也充满了负担。
当数以百万计的新生一代进入了老年，口袋空空，谋生的选择越来越少，生活压力自然越来越大。在这场深刻的谈话中，作者伊丽莎白·怀特就经济问题展开了坦诚的谈话，并就如何在有限的收入下过上富有质感的生活提出了切实可行的建议。
时长：18：17
You know me. I am in your friendship circle hidden in plain sight. My clothes are still impeccable -- bought in the good years when I was still making money. To look at me you would not know that my electricity was cut off last week for nonpayment, or that I meet the eligibility requirements for food stamps. But if you paid attention, you would see that sadness in my eyes -- hear that hint of fear in my otherwise self-assured voice.
你了解我。我就藏在你的朋友圈里。我的衣服还是完美无缺的——是在我赚钱的好年头买的。看看我，你不会知道我上周因为欠费而断电，也不会知道我符合领取食品券的资格要求。但是如果你注意了，你会看到我眼中的悲伤——从我自信的声音中听到恐惧的暗示。
These days I'm buying the $1.99 trial-size jug of Tide to make ends meet. I bet you didn't know laundry detergent came in that size. You invite me to the same expensive restaurants the two of us have always enjoyed, but I order mineral water now with a twist of lemon, not the 12-dollar glass of chardonnay. I am frugal in my menu choices.
这几天我买了一罐1.99美元的汰渍来维持生计。我打赌你不知道洗衣粉有这么大。你邀请我去我们两个一直喜欢的昂贵的餐厅，但我现在点的矿泉水是柠檬汁，而不是12美元一杯的霞多丽。我的菜单选择很节俭。
Meticulous, I count every penny in my head. I demur dividing the table bill evenly to cover desserts and designer coffees and second and third glasses of wine I did not consume.
一丝不苟，我把脑子里的每一分钱都数了。我反对平分餐桌账单，以支付甜点、咖啡以及第二杯、第三杯我没有消费的葡萄酒。
I am tired of trying to fake appearances. A friend told me that I'm broke not poor, and there is a difference. I live without cable, my gym membership and nail appointments. I've discovered I can do my own hair. There is no retirement savings, no nest egg. I exhausted that long ago. There is no expensive condo to draw equity and no husband to back me up.
我厌倦了假扮。一个朋友告诉我，我破产了，虽然看起来不穷，但还是有区别的。我的生活没有有线电视，我也不办健身房会员和指甲预约了。我发现我可以自己做头发。没有退休储蓄，没有储蓄。我早就精疲力尽了。我没有昂贵的公寓来筹集资金，更没有一个好丈夫来搭救自己。
Months of slow pay and no pay have decimated my credit. Bill collectors call constantly, reading verbatim from a script before expressing polite sympathy for my plight and then demanding payment arrangements I can't possibly meet. Friends wonder privately how someone so well educated could be in economic free fall.
几个月的低薪和无薪已经毁了我的信用。收银员不停地打电话，逐字逐句地读话术，然后礼貌地同情我的困境，然后要求我按规定还款，即使我根本不可能做到。朋友们私下里想知道，一个受过良好教育的人，怎么也会有经济落魄的时候。
I'm still as talented as ever and smart as a whip, but work is sketchy now, mostly on and off consulting gigs. At 55 I've learned how to fake cheeriness, but there are not many opportunities for work anymore. I don't remember exactly when it stopped, but I cannot deny now having entered the uncertain world of formerly and used to be. I'm not sure anymore where I belong.
我仍然像以前一样有天赋，聪明得像鞭子一样，但现在的工作还很粗略，大多是断断续续的咨询工作。55岁时，！，但现在工作的机会已经不多了。我不记得它是什么时候停下来的，但我不能否认我现在已经进入了一个从前不甚熟悉的世界。我再也不确定我属于哪里。
What I do know is that dozens of online job applications seem to just disappear into a black hole. I'm wondering what is to become of me. So far my health has held up, but my body aches -- or is it my spirit? Homeless women used to be invisible to me but I appraise them now with curious eyes, wondering if their stories started like mine.
我所知道的是，数十份在线求职申请似乎只是消失在一个黑洞中。我在想我会怎么样。到目前为止，我的健康状况还不错，但我的身体很痛，还是我的精神不好？我以前看不见无家可归的妇女，但现在我用好奇的眼光来评价她们，想知道她们的故事是不是和我有着一样的开头。
I wrote this piece a year ago. It's a composite of my story and other women I know. I wrote it because I was tired of pretending I was all right when I wasn't. I was tired of faking normal. I wasn't seeing myself in the popular press. Nobody I knew was traveling the world or buying a condo in Costa Rica. Very few of my friends had set aside the 15 to 20 percent experts tell us we need to maintain our standard of living in retirement.
我一年前写的这篇文章。这是我的故事和我认识的其他女人的经历合成的。我写这篇文章是因为我厌倦了在不舒服的时候假装自己没事。我厌倦了假装正常。我没在大众媒体上露面。我认识的人没有一个是环游世界或在哥斯达黎加买公寓的。我的朋友中很少有人把15%到20%的钱存起来，即使专家告诉我们退休后这样可以保持生活水平。
My friends, many in their 50s and 60s, were looking at a downward mobility, a work-for-life proposition, just a job loss, medical diagnosis or divorce away from insolvency. We may not have hit rock bottom, but many of us saw a sequence of events where rock bottom was possible for the first time.
我的朋友们，很多五六十岁的人，看着都在向下流动，他们还在用工作换生活，仅仅是失业、医疗诊断或者离婚、远离破产就已经让他们精疲力尽。我们可能还没有触底，但我们中的许多人看到了一系列事件，在这些事件中，触底是第一次可能的。
And the truth is, it really doesn't take much. The median household in the US only has enough savings to replace one month of income. Forty-seven percent of us cannot pull together 400 dollars to deal with an emergency. That's almost half of us. A major car repair and we're standing on the abyss. You wouldn't know it to look around you -- I'm not the only one in this situation.
事实上，这并不需要太多。在美国，中等家庭如果没有收入的话,他们的储蓄只够应付一个月。我们47%的人不能凑400美元来应付紧急情况。差不多是我们的一半。一次重大的汽车修理，就能让我们站在深渊上。你不会知道，环顾四周，在这种情况下的人并不只有我一个。
There are people in this room who are in the same predicament, and if it's not you, it is your parents or your sister or maybe your best friend. We get good at faking normal. Shame keeps us silent and siloed. When I first decided I was going to come out with my story, I did a website and a friend noticed that there were no photos of me -- it was all kind of cartoons like this. Even as I was coming out, I was still hiding.
这个房间里也有人陷入同样的困境，如果不是你，那就是你的父母或姐姐，或者也许是你最好的朋友。我们擅长假装正常。羞耻使我们保持沉默和孤立。当我第一次决定要发表我的故事时，我做了一个网站，一个朋友注意到没有我的头像——都是这样的漫画。就在我出来的时候，我还是躲着。
We live in a world where success is defined by income. When you say that you have money problems, you're announcing pretty much that you're a loser. When you're a graduate of Harvard Business School as I am, you're some kind of double loser.
我们生活在一个成功是由收入决定的世界。当你说你有金钱问题时，你几乎是在宣布你是个失败者。当你像我一样是哈佛商学院的毕业生时，你是个双重失败者。
We boomers hear a lot about how we have underfunded our retirement; how it's all our fault. Why on earth would we draw down our 401(k) plan to cover the shortfall on our mother-in-law's nursing home care, or to pay for our kid's tuition, or just to survive? We're accused of being poor planners and deadbeats -- all that money we spent on lattes and bottled water. To shame and blame is so deliciously tempting.
我们这些人在婴儿时期就经常听到我们的退休资金不足；这都是我们的错。为什么我们要制定401（k）计划来弥补岳母养老院的不足，或者支付孩子的学费，或者仅仅为了生存？我们被指责为没有计划的人和无能者——因为我们花了太多钱在拿铁和瓶装水上。羞耻和责备是如此诱人。
Many of us don't even wait for others to do it we're so busy doing it to ourselves. I say let's own our part: we all could have saved more. I know I could have saved more, and if you were to rifle through my life over the last 30 years, you would see more than one dumb thing I have done financially.
我们中的很多人甚至都不等别人来做，而是忙着自己去做。我说让我们自己承担自己的责任：我们都可以存更多的钱。我知道我本可以攒更多的钱，如果你在过去30年里用枪指着我的生活，你会看到我在经济上做过不止一件蠢事。
I can't change that now and neither can you, but let's not mix up individual, isolated behavior with the systemic factors that have caused a 7.7-trillion-dollar retirement income gap.
我现在无法改变这一点，你也无法改变，但我们不要把个人孤立的行为与造成7.7万亿美元退休金差距的系统因素混为一谈。
Millions of boomer-age Americans did not land here because of too many trips to Starbucks. We spent the last three decades dealing with flat and falling wages and disappearing pensions and through-the-roof cost on housing and health care and education. It used to not be like this. We all remember the three-legged retirement income stool which had the savings and pension and social security. Well, that stool has gone wobbly.
数百万出于生育高峰期的美国人因为去星巴克的次数太多而没能来这里。在过去的三十年里，我们一直致力于解决工资持平、甚至不断下降、养老金不断消失的问题，以及住房、医疗保健和教育等方面的成本居高不下的问题。以前不是这样的。我们都记得三条腿的退休收入凳子，上面有储蓄、养老金和社会保障。嗯，那凳子摇摇晃晃的。
Take savings -- what savings? For many families, there's just nothing left to save after the bills have been paid. The pension leg of the stool has also gone wobbly. We can remember when many people had pensions. Today only 13 percent of American workers are employed by companies that offer them. So what did we get instead? We got 401(k)-type plans and suddenly responsibility for retirement planning got shifted from our companies to us.
拿储蓄来说——储蓄什么？对许多家庭来说，付账后就没什么可存的了。凳子的养老腿也不稳了。我们还记得很多人都有养老金的时候。如今，只有13%的美国工人受雇于提供这些服务的公司。我们得到了什么？我们有401（k）型计划，突然退休计划的责任从公司转移到了我们身上。
We got the reigns but we also got the risk, and it turns out that millions of us just aren't that good at voluntarily investing over 40 years. Millions of us just aren't that good at managing market risk. And really the numbers tell the story. Half of all American households have no retirement savings at all. That would be zero. No 401(k), no IRA, not a dime.
我们有统治权，但也有风险，结果发现，我们中的数百万人在40年的时间里并不擅长自愿投资。我们数百万人只是不擅长管理市场风险。事实上，数字说明了一切。一半的美国家庭根本没有退休储蓄。那就是零。没有401（k），没有爱尔兰共和军，一分钱也没有。
Among 55-to-64-year-olds who do have a retirement account, the median value of that account is 104,000 dollars. Now, 104,000 dollars does sound better than zero, but as an annuity, it generates about 300 dollars. I don't have to tell you that you can't live on that.
在有退休账户的55至64岁人群中，该账户的中值为10.4万美元。现在，10.4万美元听起来确实比零美元好，但作为一种年金，它能产生大约300美元。不需要我提醒你都知道，你不能靠这个生活。
With savings down, pensions becoming a relic of the past and 401(k) plans failing millions of Americans, many near-retirees are dependent on social security as their retirement plan. But here's the problem. Social security was never supposed to be the retirement plan. It's not nearly enough. At best it replaces something like 40 percent of your pre-retirement income.
随着储蓄减少，养老金成为过去的遗物，401（k）计划令数百万美国人破产，许多接近退休的人依赖社会保障作为他们的退休计划。但问题是。社会保障从来就不应该是退休计划。这还远远不够。它顶多能替代你40%的退休前收入。
Things have changed a lot from when social security was introduced back in 1935. Then, a 21-year-old male had a 50 percent chance of living until he was 65. So he retired at 60, did a little fishing, kissed his grandkids, got his gold watch -- he'd be dead within five years of receiving benefits. That's not the pattern today. If you're in your late 50s and in good health, you're going to live easily another 20 or 25 years. That's a really long time to make ends meet if you are broke.
与1935年推出社会保障制度时相比，情况发生了很大变化。然后，一个21岁的男性有50%的机会活到65岁。所以他60岁退休了，去钓鱼，吻了他的孙子孙女，得到了他的金表——他在领取福利金后5年内就死了。这不是今天的模式。如果你已经50多岁了，身体健康，你将轻松地再活20或25年。如果你破产了，那你得花费很长一段时间来维持收支平衡。
So what's the play if you've landed here and you're 50 or 55 or 60? What's the play if you don't want to land here and you're 22 or 32? Here's what I've learned from my own experience. The cavalry's not coming. There is no big rescue, no prince charming, no big bailout in the works.
如果你在这里上岸，你是50岁，55岁，60岁，会发生什么？如果你不想在这里上岸，你是22岁或者32岁，又会发生什么？以下是我从自己的经历中学到的。骑兵不来了。没有大规模的救援，没有白马王子，现在没有大规模的救援。
To have a shot at something other than being old and poor in America, we're going to have to save ourselves and each other. I've had to come out of the shadows, stand here openly, and I'm inviting you to do so as well. I'm not going to tell you that it's not easy.
在美国，要想尝试达成一件事情，而不是成为一个又老又穷的人，我们就必须拯救自己和彼此。我必须走出阴影，公开地站在这里，我也邀请你这么做。我不会告诉你这不容易。
I ventured though to tell my story because I thought it would make it a little easier for people to tell theirs. I think it's only through our strength in numbers that we can begin to change the national "la-la" conversation that we are having on this retirement crisis. With so many of us shell-shocked and adrift about what has happened to us, we're going to have to build up from the grassroots, forming what I think are resilience circles.
我大胆地讲我的故事，因为我认为这会使人们讲自己的故事更容易一些。我认为只有通过我们在人数上的优势，我们才能开始改变我们在这场退休危机中的全国性“拉拉”谈话。我们中的很多人对自己的遭遇感到震惊和飘忽不定，我们将不得不从基层做起，形成我认为的弹性圈。
These are small groups of people coming together to talk about what has happened to them, to share resources and information and to begin to figure out a way forward. I believe from this base that we can find our voices again and sound the alarm -- start pushing our institutions and policymakers to go hard on this retirement crisis with the urgency it deserves.
他们是一小群人，聚集在一起谈论发生在他们身上的事情，分享资源和信息，并开始寻找前进的道路。我相信，从这个基础上，我们可以再次找到自己的声音，敲响警钟——开始推动我们的机构和政策制定者，以应有的紧迫感，在这场退休危机上下功夫。
In the meantime -- and there is an "in the meantime" -- we're going to have to adopt a live-low-to-the-ground mindset, drastically cutting back on our expenses. And I don't mean just living within our means. A lot of people are already doing that. What is called for now is to, in a much deeper way, ask ourselves what it really means to live a life that is not defined by things. I call it "smalling up."
同时，还有一个“同时”，我们将不得不采取一种低投入的心态，大幅削减开支。我的意思不只是量入为出。很多人已经这样做了。现在需要做的是，以更深层的方式，扪心自问，生活在一个没有事物定义的生活中到底意味着什么。我称之为“简化”。
Smalling up is figuring out what you really need to feel contented and grounded. I have a friend who drives really beat-up, raggedy cars, but he will scrimp and save 15,000 dollars at one point to buy a flute because music is what really matters to him. He smalled up.
简化就是要弄清楚你真正需要的是满足感和踏实感。我有一个朋友开着破烂不堪的汽车，但他会省吃俭用，一度省下15000美元买一支长笛，因为音乐对他来说才是最重要的。他看起来简化了。
I've had to also let go of magical thinking -- this idea that if I just was patient enough and tightened my belt that things would go back to normal. If I just sent in one more CV or applied to one more job online or attended one more networking event that surely I'd get the kind of job I was used to having. Surely things would return to normal. The truth is I'm not going back and neither are you. The normal that we knew is over.
我也不得不放弃那些神奇的想法——如果我有足够的耐心，勒紧腰带，一切就会恢复正常。如果我只是多发了一份简历，或是在网上申请了一份工作，或是参加了一次社交活动，我肯定会得到一份我曾经做过的工作。事情肯定会恢复正常。事实是我不会回去，你也不会。我们所知道的一切都结束了。
In this new place that we are, we're going to be asked to do things that we don't want to do. We're going to be asked to take assignments that we think are beneath our station and our talent and our skill. I have had to get off my throne. Last year, a good friend of mine asked me if I would help her with some organization work. I assumed she meant community organizing along the lines of what President Obama did in Chicago. She meant organizing somebody's closet. I said, "I'm not doing that." She said, "Get off your throne. Money is green."
在这个新的地方，我们会被要求做一些我们不想做的事情。我们将被要求接受那些我们认为有损我们地位、才能和技能的任务。我不得不放弃我的王位。去年，我的一个好朋友问我是否愿意帮她做一些组织工作。我以为她是指按照奥巴马总统在芝加哥所做的方式组织社区。她是说整理别人的衣柜。我说，“我不会那么做的。”她说，“离开你的宝座。钱才是通行证。”
It's not easy being part of the advance team that is ushering in this new era of work and living. First is always hardest. First is before there are networks and pathways and role models ... before there are policies and ways to show us how to go forward. We're in the middle of a seismic shift, and we're going to have to find bridgework to get us through.
作为领导团队的一员，要开创这个工作和生活的新时代是不容易的。第一个总是最难的。首先是在网络、路径和角色模型出现之前......在有政策和方法告诉我们如何做之前。我们正在进行地震式转换，我们必须找到bridgework才能渡过难关。
Bridgework is what we do in the meantime; bridgework is what we do while we're trying to figure out what is next. Bridgework is also letting go of this notion that our worth and our value depend on our income and our titles and our jobs. Bridgework can look crazy or cool depending on how you were rolling when your personal financial crisis hit.
bridgework是我们同时做的事情；bridgework是我们在试图弄清楚下一步是什么的时候做的事情。Bridgework也意味着我们需要放弃这样一种观念，即我们的价值和价值取决于我们的收入、头衔和工作。Bridgework可能看起来很疯狂，也可能很酷，这取决于你在个人金融危机中的表现。
I have friends with PhDs who are working at the Container Store or driving Uber or Lyft, and then I have other friends who are partnering with other boomers and doing really cool entrepreneurial ventures. Bridgework doesn't mean that we don't want to build on our past careers, that we don't want meaningful work. We do. Bridgework is what we do in the meantime while we're figuring out what is next.
我有一些朋友是在集装箱商店工作或开Uber或Lyft的博士，还有一些朋友是与其他新生一代合作并进行非常酷的创业。Bridgework并不意味着我们不想在过去的职业基础上再接再厉，也不想做有意义的工作。是的。Bridgework表示，我们正在想下一步该怎么做。
I've also learned to think strategy not failure when I'm sort of processing all these things that I don't want to do. And I say that that's an approach that I would invite you to consider as well.
当我处理这些我不想做的事情时，我也学会了思考策略而不是沉溺在失败中。我要说的是，我也会邀请你一起来思考这个方法。
So if you need to move in with your brother to make ends meet, call him. If you need to take in a boarder to help you pay your mortgage or pay your rent, do it. If you need to get food stamps, get the darn food stamps. AARP says only a third of older adults who are eligible actually get them. Do what you need to do to go another round. Know that there are millions of us. Come out of the shadows. Cut back, small up; think strategy, not failure; get off your throne and find the bridgework to get your through the lean times.
所以如果你需要和你弟弟一起住才能维持生计，打电话给他。如果你需要一个寄宿生来帮你付房贷或房租，就去做吧。如果你需要买食物券，就买该死的食物券。虽然美国退休人员协会说，只有三分之一的符合条件的老年人真正得到了他们。做你需要做的事，让自己活下去。我知道我们有数百万人。走出阴影。缩衣节食，过简质的生活，把这当做是策略，而非失败。放下你的宝座，找到桥头堡，让你度过困难时期。
As a country, we have achieved longevity, investing billions of dollars in the diagnosis, treatment and management of disease. It's not enough to just live a long time. We want to live well. We haven't invested nearly as much in the physical infrastructure to ensure that that happens. We need now a new way of thinking about what it means to be old in America. And we need guidance and ideas about how to live a richly textured life on a much more modest income.
作为一个国家，我们实现了长寿，在疾病的诊断、治疗和管理上投入了数十亿美元。仅仅活很长时间是不够的。我们想好好生活。我们在物理基础设施方面的投资几乎没法保证这一点。我们现在需要一种新的方式来思考，在美国变老意味着什么。我们需要指导和方法，如何在收入更微薄时过上富有质感的生活。
So I am calling on change agents and social entrepreneurs, artists and elders and impact investors. I'm calling on developers and disrupters of the status quo. We need you to help us imagine how to invest in the services and products and infrastructure that will support our dignity, our independence and our well-being in these many, many decades that we're going to live.
因此，我呼吁变革代理人、社会企业家、艺术家和老年人以及有影响力的投资者。我呼吁开发商和有能力颠覆现状的人。我们需要你帮助我们计划如何投资于服务、产品和基础设施，以支持我们在未来几十年中的尊严、独立和福祉。
My journey has taken me from a place of fear and shame to one of humility and understanding. I'm ready now to link shields with others, to fight this fight, and I'm inviting you to join me.
我的旅程把我从一个恐惧和羞耻的地方带到了一个谦卑和理解的地方。我现在准备好了把盾牌和其他人连在一起，一起战斗，我邀请你加入我。
Thank you.
谢谢您。
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