中國網站品牌欄目（頻道）
生活中選擇太多，讓我不知所措。于是我想出了一個好辦法：讓別人來幫我作選擇。選炸面圈，挑衣服，選圖書……諸如此類的事情我都交給了陌生人去做。也許最后選出的東西并不是我想要的，但至少我不用再大傷腦筋唯恐選錯了。
By T. M. Shine 谷子琮 選注
These days, there are so many choices to labor through, from the most basic, such as paper or plastic at the grocery checkout counter, to the nearly suicide-inducing, such as the friends-and-family plan or unlimited texting.[1]
In these tough times, the abundance of life-changing decisions—finances, health care, career moves—can be overwhelming.[2] But don’t take it from me. Ask the guy who wrote the book The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making. That would be Scott Plous, a psychology professor at Wesleyan University. “There’s no question that we have more choices than ever before,” Plous agreed. “And decisions are generally harder and more time-consuming when there are lots of alternatives.”[3]
Even Steve Jobs, whose technology allows us the misery of 18,000 music selections in our pockets, has to counteract so many choices by wearing the same outfit—blue jeans, black turtleneck, New Balance sneakers—every single day of his life.[4] With every move you make, you’re bombarded with predicaments from the banal to the extraordinary,[5] and you obviously can’t trust yourself to make the right decisions anymore—look where that’s gotten you.
I know I’m not alone in this. We’re all feeling a little needy[6]. Whom can we turn to? Friends and family always have their own agendas; therapists are useless. So, who’s left?
Strangers, of course. They’re everywhere.
“Excuse me,” I said to the woman behind me one morning in the queue at Dunkin’ Donuts[7]. “I’m currently asking strangers to make all my decisions. Would you mind picking out a dozen doughnuts[8] for me?”
“I’ll order two, but then you’re on your own,” she said.
“Never mind.”
Everyone knows the first two doughnuts are the easy ones.
“I’ll do it, but you’ll have to tell me what you like,” a gangly woman who had overheard theprevious exchange said.[9]
“Thanks, but that kind of defeats my purpose,” I responded. “As long as you’re paying,” a thick-armed guy shrugged[10] at me just as it was his turn to order.
He attacked the chore with glee.[11] His choices were a blur of glaze and frosting.[12] He stopped only once, looked back at me and said, “Sprinkles, two sprinkles,” and they fell into the box with the majesty of a fireworks grand finale.[13]
It was a win-win, a successful random act of indecision[14] (RAI). And I was striking a blow for[15] science. “Your experiment will reveal how much pleasure in a dessert[16] comes from it simply being a dessert, rather than a dessert that you would have chosen,” Plous had observed. “In many cases, the difference in benefit between two choices is smaller than we’d guess.”
This may be the best idea I’ve ever had. For two weeks, I relinquished[17] control over my decisions. I turned the reins over[18] to perfect strangers.
At a Starbucks, I was perspiring heavily from a bike ride when I started to ask the woman beside me what I wanted to drink.[19] She cut me off midway through my spiel about how I was conducting a social experiment and whatnot.[20]
“Just have a water,” she said, snatching a bottle from the front case and thrusting it at me.[21]
She herself ordered something that took the barista[22] 11 moves to make, but I was suddenly a model of simplicity: a sweaty man drinking cold water.
Moments later, I asked a man at the newsstand if I should become a night shaver instead of a morning shaver.[23] I always wanted to be a night shaver—go to bed cleanly shaven and wake up with sexy stubble that would be alluring until at least noon and...[24]
“Absolutely not,” the gentleman said.
I’m sure he’s right.
Later in the day, when I asked a sandy-haired woman at Old Navy to pick out a shirt for me,[25] she quickly devoted herself to the cause.
“I want you to have a crisper, cleaner look,” she exclaimed.[26]
I was still feeling crisp and clean when I stopped at the library. The mission: to give a stranger the chore of selecting a book for me to read.
“You sure? Picking out a book... that’s kind of an intimate decision,” the chosen one said. She was sitting at a tiny table with a little boy and looking up at me as if I were one more irritation[27] in an already long day. But once I said I was positive, she popped up as if she’d just adopted me.[28]
“Follow me,” she said. With the little boy in hand, she cut across the library with the supermarket stride of a mom who just realized she’d forgotten the Fruit Roll-Ups two aisles back.[29] We were headed deep into the bowels[30]—past the self-helps, beyond the reference books, even. Then she stopped, pivoted[31], dropped a 4-pound book in my hands and said,
“Here.”
I thanked her profusely[32], but I’m not sure it even registered. She just mentally checked me off[33] her list and was on her way. The whole encounter—in fact, the entire day—was astonishing. By dusk, my new life’s course had been set by an entire team of people whose names I didn’t even know.
I was almost giddy[34].
When I told a friend about my experiment and how much I was getting accomplished, she posed an interesting question: “What if you can’t stop?”
In fact, the question was so good that I’ve decided there is no good reason to shut down this adventure after just two weeks. Random Acts of Indecision is not a social experiment. It’s a lifestyle.
As I write these words, I am sitting in a pizzeria eating pizza toppings—mushroom and sausage—chosen by the frail man I had held the door for on my way in.[35] I am wearing a striped shirt picked out by a meticulous woman and, between sips of iced tea, glancing at a book.[36]
The old adage[37] “You have no one to blame but yourself” doesn’t apply to me anymore. In 2010, when things go wrong, I will have no one to blame but each and every one of you.
1. 現在，我們常要費勁地作太多選擇，從最基本的到幾乎讓人“痛不欲生”的，不一而足，前者比如在雜貨店收銀臺前考慮用現金還是信用卡結賬，后者比如選擇“朋友和家人”電話套餐計劃還是無限短信套餐計劃。
2 abundance: 大量，豐富；career move: 職業轉向；overwhelming: 讓人不知所措的。
3. time-consuming: 耗費時間的；alternative: 選擇。
4. Steve Jobs: 史蒂夫?喬布斯，美國蘋果電腦公司首席執行官，該公司產品包括電腦、手機、音樂播放器等；misery: 苦惱，為難；counteract: 對抗；outfit: 一套服裝，喬布斯 平日總是穿著一條藍色牛仔褲、一件黑色高領衫（turtleneck）和一雙新百倫牌運動鞋（New Balance sneakers）。
5. be bombarded with: 不停地遭受；predicament: 困境，窘境；banal: 平庸的。
6. needy: 需要支持的。
7. Dunkin’ Donuts: 唐恩都樂咖啡館，唐恩都樂是全球最大的咖啡和烘焙食品連鎖品牌。
8. doughnut: 炸面圈。
9. gangly: 身材瘦長的；exchange: 交流。
10. shrug: 聳肩（表示不屑一顧或不感興趣）。
11. chore: 瑣碎的事；glee: 歡喜，高興。
12. 他選了一種上面不知是蛋糊還是糖衣的炸面圈。
13. sprinkle: （撒在糕點和甜點上作裝飾用的）糖屑（多為條形或圓粒狀），這里指表面撒 糖屑的面圈；with the majesty of a fireworks grand finale: 像煙花隆重收場時一樣壯麗。
14. random act of indecision: 這里指（自己）不作決定（由他人選取）的隨意行為。
15. strike a blow for: 擁護，為……而戰斗。
16. dessert: 甜品。
17. relinquish: 放棄，自愿交出。
18. turn the reins over: 移交權力。
19. Starbucks: 星巴克咖啡店，星巴克是全球知名的咖啡店連鎖品牌；perspire: 流汗。
20. cut off: 打斷；spiel: 滔滔不絕的描述；whatnot: 諸如此類的東西。
21. snatch: 突然伸手抓取；thrust: 猛塞。
22. barista: 咖啡館店員。
23. newsstand: 報刊攤；night shaver: 晚上刮胡子的人，shave（刮）的過去分詞為shaven。
24. stubble: 短而硬的胡茬子；alluring: 迷人的。
25. sandy-haired: 沙色頭發的；Old Navy: 老海軍，美國著名休閑服飾品牌。
26. crisp: 整潔的；exclaim: 大聲說。
27. irritation: 令人惱火的事。
28. pop up: 突然站起來；adopt: 收養。
29. cut across: 抄近路穿過；supermarket stride: 好像在超市里一樣大踏步地走；Fruit Roll-Up: 水果卷，美國的一種水果味的零食；aisle: 過道。
30. bowels: 內部，深處。
31. pivot: 站在原地轉身。
32. profusely: 一再地。
33. check off: 對……不再考慮。
34. giddy: 頭暈目眩的。
35. pizzeria: 比薩餅店；pizza topping: 比薩餡料；sausage: 香腸；frail: （尤指身體）虛弱的。
36. striped: 有條紋的；meticulous: 極仔細的；sip: 小口喝。
37. adage: 諺語。
（來源：英語學習雜志）
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