坚持做一件事情很难。

在今年1月1日，我立下一个目标，就是坚持每天写一篇博客。到2月2日，我却总共只写了16篇博客。连我设定的目标的一半都没达到，平均下来几乎是每两天写一篇博客。虽然中途遇到的事情很多，但写博客本身并不消耗我什么时间，我分析了很多原因，以下是我觉得最重要的几点：

  1. 没有压力，因为不写博客也不会怎么样。我总是想起知乎上有一个帖子是这么说的，假如拿把枪抵在一个学生的头上，那他大概率是能考上清华的。如果我今天不写博客，我的生活几乎不会有什么影响。但是我总是想起罗振宇老师，10年来每天都坚持发60秒的语音，这让我感到非常敬佩。有的时候回首生活中的很多事情，一件事情中途坚持不做一两天确实不会怎么样，但是一旦养成随时都可以不坚持的习惯，长期以来的影响就会非常大。2024年的1月1日，我立下的目标是每天坚持跑4公里，当时我在4公里内的配速基本上可以控制在4分40秒左右，如果遇到身体状况不佳，总时间也能控制在20分钟以内。但是我现在哪怕拼尽全力，每公里的配速也基本上需要5分20秒左右，这就是不坚持带来的代价。第1天不坚持，感觉确实没有什么影响，第2天不坚持也感觉似乎生活没有什么变化；但是当这样的次数累积到一定的时候，发现自己明显不如当初了。这可能就是马克思主义哲学所说的事物的发展是量变和质变的辩证统一吧，没有量变就没有质变，对于很多成功的人，大多数其他人只看到了他身上的质变，却忽视了他夜以继日的量变。
  2. 不能给自己一天要做的重要事情进行合理的排序。总是让一些莫名其妙、可做可不做的事情，放在了很多重要的事情前面。说的直白一些，就是想逃避那些重要的事情，但是那些重要的事情总是要来的。如果那些重要的事情不做，那些事情并不会消失，最后拖着就会酿成更大的灾难。还是老话说的好呀，早死比晚死痛快一些。如果那些事情总是要面对的，早点面对比晚面对来的好。
  3. 很多事情其实是可以不做的。但是却一直占用了我大量的时间，更重要的是占用了我大脑更多的注意力。我觉得这个注意力甚至比时间还宝贵，因为大脑一旦开始思考一件事情，就无法思考其他的事情了。这有点类似于经济学上的成本的概念，做一件事情的成本是做另外一件事情带来的好处。假如我总是每天把自己的注意力放在俄乌战争，比特币，中美贸易战这种跟我自己生活毫无瓜葛的事情上，我就无法思考写毕业论文，申请博士，找到好工作这些事上了。老话说的好，这就是太监操着皇帝的心。
  4. 人生最重要的事情是做减法，一个人能否成功不在于他多少件事情开了多少个头，而在于他结了多少个尾。每个人的精力总是有限的，开始多少件事情不重要，完成多少件事情才重要。有些人一辈子只做出了一件非常微小的成就，但也足以他们名垂青史了。在这个知识大爆炸的时代，更重要的是把自己的注意力集中在某一个细分领域上，才能做出成果。

It’s difficult to keep doing one thing.

On January 1st this year, I set a goal to write a blog every day. However, by February 2nd, I had only written 16 blogs in total. I didn’t even reach half of my set goal, with an average of almost one blog every two days. Although I encountered many things in the middle, writing a blog itself didn’t take much of my time. I analyzed many reasons, and the following are the most important points I think:

  1. There is no pressure because not writing a blog won’t have any consequences. I always remember a post on Zhihu that said if a gun were held to a student’s head, there’s a high probability that he could get into Tsinghua University. If I don’t write a blog today, my life will hardly be affected. But I always think of Mr. Luo Zhenyu, who has persisted in sending 60 - second voice messages every day for 10 years, which I greatly admire. Sometimes when looking back on many things in life, not persevering in doing something for a day or two really doesn’t seem to matter. But once the habit of not persevering at any time is formed, the long - term impact will be significant. On January 1st, 2024, my goal was to run 4 kilometers every day. At that time, I could basically control my pace within 4 minutes and 40 seconds per kilometer for 4 kilometers. Even if I was not in good physical condition, the total time could still be controlled within 20 minutes. But now, even if I try my best, my pace per kilometer is basically around 5 minutes and 20 seconds. This is the price of not persevering. Not persevering on the first day doesn’t seem to have any impact, and not persevering on the second day also seems to make no difference in life. But when the number of such times accumulates to a certain extent, I find that I’m obviously not as good as I was at the beginning. This is probably what Marxist philosophy means by the dialectical unity of quantitative and qualitative changes in the development of things. Without quantitative changes, there will be no qualitative changes. For many successful people, most others only see the qualitative changes in them but ignore their day - and - night quantitative changes.
  2. I can’t reasonably prioritize the important things I need to do in a day. I always put some inexplicable things that can be done or not in front of many important things. To put it bluntly, I want to avoid those important things, but those important things will always come. If those important things are not done, they won’t disappear, and finally, procrastinating will lead to greater disasters. As the old saying goes, it’s better to die early than late. If those things always have to be faced, it’s better to face them earlier.
  3. Many things actually don’t need to be done. But they have been taking up a lot of my time, and more importantly, they have occupied more of my brain’s attention. I think this attention is even more precious than time because once the brain starts thinking about one thing, it can’t think about other things. This is a bit similar to the concept of cost in economics. The cost of doing one thing is the benefit of doing another thing. If I always focus my attention on things like the Russia - Ukraine war, Bitcoin, and the China - US trade war, which have nothing to do with my own life, I can’t think about things like writing a graduation thesis, applying for a doctorate, and finding a good job. As the old saying goes, it’s like a eunuch worrying about the emperor’s affairs.
  4. The most important thing in life is to do subtraction. Whether a person can succeed does not depend on how many things he starts, but on how many things he finishes. Everyone’s energy is always limited. It’s not important how many things one starts, but how many things one completes. Some people have only achieved one very small accomplishment in their lives, but it’s enough for them to go down in history. In this era of knowledge explosion, it’s more important to focus one’s attention on a certain specific field in order to achieve results.