Why I’m Ditching the “Best” Things for the Right Things
为什么我要放弃”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.
在我青少年时期和成年后的大部分时间里，我几乎痴迷于寻找任何东西的“最佳”。最好的笔记本电脑、最好的智能手机、最好的相机、笔、笔记本、博客网站、应用程序等等，不胜枚举。这感觉就像一项使命，只有完成它，我的人生才算完整。而且我并非孤例。如果你想到最近需要的产品、应用程序或服务，不妨在网上快速搜索一下“最佳[此处填写产品名称]”。你会发现成千上万条搜索结果。在这个科技飞速发展、选择琳琅满目的时代，我们已经习惯于寻找最好的、评分最高的、五星级的产品。然而，最近我意识到，最好的东西并不总是最合适的。而且，由于“最好”的定义非常主观，最好的东西最终可能反而是错误的东西。
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，最好的选择就是正确的选择。但并非总是如此。如果最好的选择总是正确的选择，为什么会有那么多品牌、企业、应用程序和服务，它们宣传的都是类似的东西，却都声称自己在某些方面是最好的？为什么市场上会有如此多的选择？因为对于任何一个人或任何一种情况来说，都不存在唯一最好的选择。
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.
对某些人来说，合适的车可能是一辆老旧的轿车；对另一些人来说，可能是一辆皮卡；而对还有一些人来说，则是一辆小型货车。即使在这些车型类别中，不同的人对合适的车也有不同的需求。有的家庭可能因为某些功能而选择较新的小型货车；有的家庭则可能因为价格和供应情况而选择较旧的小型货车。你可能会说，较新的小型货车是“最好的”，因为它里程数更低、保修期更长、功能更多。但这只是其中一个角度，故事的一面。你也可以说，较旧的小型货车更好，因为它贬值更快、购买和保险成本更低，而且任何召回或制造商问题可能都已经解决。
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.
正因如此，才会有数以百万计的文章声称拥有某款产品十大最佳、某项服务五佳，或者餐厅宣称拥有密西西比河以东最好的菜肴。其中一些说法或许不无道理。我们不妨以相机为例，网上关于哪种相机最适合特定任务或场景的讨论层出不穷。也有许多文章探讨哪款相机最适合拍摄视频、vlog、风景照或人像等等。
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.
如果你拿一台从大型超市买来的傻瓜相机，再把它拍出的照片和一台配备专业镜头的高端单反相机拍出的照片做个对比，傻瓜相机在画质上根本没法比。但这是否意味着单反相机适合所有人呢？当然不是！去参加任何大型活动（毕业典礼、生日派对等等），你就会发现很多人都在使用单反相机套装的自动模式，这足以证明这一点。这些人只是花了几千美元买了所谓的“最好的”相机，却把原本可能更适合用智能手机拍摄的场景，白白浪费了其强大的成像能力。
There are a few lessons I’ve learned over the years of searching for the best thingamajig.
多年来，在寻找最佳小玩意儿的过程中，我总结出了一些经验教训。
- 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，那么它再好也无济于事。 - 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，你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.
在追求某件事物的“最好”之前，务必考虑个人需求、技能水平、品味、预算以及任何其他个人因素。
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.
让我再详细解释一下第三点。以我之前提到的相机为例，最好的拍摄相机可能要花费几十万美元，而且只有大型工作室才能用得起。它能让女儿唱《一闪一闪小星星》的家庭录像更可爱吗？当然不会！更重要的是，它远远超出了我的预算，我根本不知道怎么用，而且既然我的智能手机就能很好地记录下那一刻，我又何必用它呢？
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.
食物也是个很好的例子。如果一家餐厅声称拥有全州最好的樱桃派，再怎么“最好”也无法让我喜欢上它。樱桃派本身并没有什么问题，只是我不喜欢樱桃派而已。
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”的方案，而是想要“最合适”的方案。
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.
我从使用博客发布工具的过程中体会到了这一点。网上大多数关于博客的主流文章都建议你使用 WordPress 作为博客平台。互联网上很大一部分网站和博客都运行在 WordPress 上。这是因为 WordPress 是一款免费、功能强大的工具，拥有丰富的自定义选项。然而，在用它运营这个博客和其他项目多年后，我意识到，尽管许多人声称它是“最佳”博客平台，但它并不适合我。于是我开始寻找。我承认，我最初是从搜索“最佳博客平台”开始的。但过了一段时间后，我开始思考什么才是真正适合我、适合我的情况以及适合我的需求的。我真正需要什么样的博客平台？我的要求是什么？与其听信那些“专家”们列出的五大最佳博客网站，我不如自己搜索所有可能使用的网站。然后，我仔细比较各个平台的功能，并进行测试，直到找到最 适合 我的那个。你现在正在阅读这篇博客的地方，是一个叫做 write.as 的发布工具。我并不认为它是最好的博客平台，但就我所追求的简洁性和易用性而言，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”的鞋子多年后，我终于找到了合适的。它们非常贴合我的脚型，而且几乎在任何场合都适合休闲穿着。它们现在正适合我。我用 notion.so 来整理我的笔记和清单，并不是因为它是最好的工具，而是因为它最终完美契合了我的记笔记、整理和效率提升方式。
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，在大多数情况下，对大多数人来说，总有一些东西比其他东西更好用、更好看或更好吃，但在考虑下一步该做什么时，请记住以下三个原则：
- 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，那么它再好也无济于事。 - 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，你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.
在追求某件事物的“最好”之前，务必考虑个人需求、技能水平、品味、预算以及任何其他个人因素。