当你真正为自己工作时When You Truly Work for Yourself
Nivi： 摘自4月2日的推文："当你真正为自己工作的时候，你就不会有爱好，不会有周末，也不会有假期，但你也不会觉得那是工作。"
Naval： 这就是为自己工作的悖论，每一位创业者或自雇人士都深有体会：当你开始为自己工作时，你基本上就牺牲了那种工作与生活的平衡。
你牺牲了工作与生活的界限。不再有朝九晚五，不再有办公室，没有人告诉你该做什么，也没有剧本可循。与此同时，你也没有什么东西可以"关掉"。你无法把它关掉。你就是这家公司，你就是这个产品，你就是这份工作。你就是这个实体本身，而你在乎它。
如果你在做真正属于自己的事，你会非常在乎，所以你无法把它关掉。这就是创业者的诅咒。但创业者的好处在于：如果你做得对，如果你的出发点正确，或者是在用正确的方式为正确的人做事，并且你能把没有达成目标的压力放到一边——这种压力真实存在，也确实难以放下——那么这一切就不像是工作。
而那正是你效率最高的时候。你基本上只以产出论英雄，也只需要达到你自己设定的标准。所以这会令人极度兴奋、极度自由。这也是为什么很久以前我就说过，尝过自由的滋味会让你再也无法被雇佣。
而这正是那种自由的滋味。它让你在经典意义上变得"无法被雇佣"——那种朝九晚五、照本宣科、有老板管着的雇佣关系。但一旦你挣脱了这一切，一旦你走过了那条没有安全网的钢丝，没有老板，没有工作——顺便说一句，这种情况甚至可能发生在创业公司里的小团队中，只要你高度自驱。在外人看来，你会得到一堆巨大的"负面"：没有周末、没有假期、没有休息时间、没有工作与生活的平衡。但同时，当你在工作的时候，它并不像工作。这是你满怀动力去做的事，而这本身就是回报。
总的来说，我确实认为这是一扇单向门。一旦人们体验过为自己在乎的事、和真正喜欢的人、以自驱的方式去工作，他们就再也无法被雇佣了。他们回不到那种有经理、有老板、有定期汇报、朝九晚五，还要"某天某周到场、坐在工位上、按时通勤"的正常工作。
Nivi： 我觉得这条推文里还藏着一层含义，我猜是有意为之的。它开头说"当你真正为自己工作的时候"，我猜大多数人会把它理解成"你是自己的老板"。但我的另一种读法是：你在为自己而工作。
也就是说，你的劳动是你是谁、你是什么的表达。这是自我表达。而要把这件事想明白并不容易。
Nivi: From April 2nd: “When you truly work for yourself, you won’t have hobbies, you won’t have weekends, and you won’t have vacations, but you won’t have work either.”
Naval: This is the paradox of working for yourself, which every entrepreneur or every self-employed person is familiar with, which is that when you start working for yourself, you basically sacrifice this work-life balance thing.
You sacrifice this work-life distinction. There’s no more nine-to-five. There’s no more office. There’s no one who’s telling you what to do. There’s no playbook to follow. At the same time, there’s nothing to turn off. You can’t turn it off. You are the business. You are the product. You are the work. You are the entity, and you care.
If you’re doing something that’s truly yours, you care very deeply, so you can’t turn it off. And that’s the curse of the entrepreneur. But the benefit of the entrepreneur is that if you’re doing it right, if you’re doing it for the right reasons or the right people in the right way, and if you can set aside the stress of not hitting your goals, which is real and hard to set aside, then it doesn’t feel like work.
And that’s when you’re most productive. You are basically only measured on your output. And you’re only held up to the bar that you raised for yourself. So it can be extremely exhilarating and freeing. And this is why I said a long time ago that a taste of freedom can make you unemployable.
And so this is exactly that taste of freedom. It makes you unemployable in the classic sense of nine-to-five and following the playbook and having a boss. But once you have broken out of that, once you’ve walked the tight rope without a net, without a boss, without a job—and by the way, this can even happen in startups in a small team where you’re just very self-motivated. You get what look like huge negatives to the average person that you don’t have weekends, you don’t have vacations, and you don’t have time off, you don’t have work-life balance. But, at the same time, when you are working, it doesn’t feel like work. It’s something that you’re highly motivated to do and that’s the reward.
And net-net, I do think this is a one-way door. I think once people experience working on something that they care about with people that they really like in a way they’re self-motivated, they’re unemployable. They can’t go back to a normal job with a manager and a boss and check-ins and nine-to-five and “Show up this day, this week, sit in this desk, commute at this time.”
Nivi: I think there’s a hidden meaning in the tweet too, which I’m guessing is intentional. It starts off with “When you truly work for yourself,” which I’m guessing most people are going to take that to mean “You’re your own boss.” But the other way that I read it is that you are working for yourself.
So your labor is an expression of who and what you are. It’s self-expression. And that’s not an easy thing to figure out.