La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

242愛的鼓勵 7訂閱站台

這十多年來真是個老師氾濫的時代，歌手與樂手稍為資深，便自稱「老師」，而社會上一般懂得人情世故的人，也都懂得投其所好，然後相互吹捧。而為這些「老師」服務的專業人士，也就自然成為「老師」或甚至是「大師」了。所以美髮師、化妝師、命理師、風水師，這些人也都是「老師」，或者是「大師」；至於是「老師」還是「大師」，端視其所服務的演藝人員是否大牌而定。起初在綜藝節目裡聽到主持人稱三十出頭歲的化妝師為「大師」，還覺得其中有點戲謔的趣味，因為與那化妝師相應的飄飄然的神情，二者構成詼諧的喜劇。

銷售人員也大都成為「老師」了，電視購物或是特定的廣告節目裡，也都有「老師」來教你如何選購某類商品，及應注意事項。

座談節目當道，「老師」更是不可或缺的頭銜。這些「老師」不但教你如何利用時間、規劃人生、經營婚姻、教育子女、投資理財、減肥養生、趨吉避凶、上天下海、飛天遁地、穿越時空、遨遊宇宙... 無所不能。

不僅台灣「老師」當道，中國也不惶多讓。除了較多人熟知的：開出租車的叫「師父」外，幾乎所有需要一些技能的工作的工作人員都是「師父」。在我前往中國旅遊的途中，在紫禁城與天壇都有人稱我「師父」，要我幫忙照相。但是「我不是什麼師父，只是來遊覽的。」或許這麼回答是失禮了！但是「君子所爭，名實而已。」「聲聞過情，君子恥之。」面對這種情形，我當如何自處，這又是另一個應好好思考的問題。在中國，稱他人「師父」，或許就和台灣稱人「先生」一樣吧。

這些老師或許都有獨到之處，也有值得我麼學習之處，但是這不是一種常態嗎？兩千五百年前的孔子就說了：「三人行，必有我師。」我們的周遭，就有許多值得學習與效法的對象，他們通常沒有「老師」或「大師」的頭銜。（或者正是因為這句話造成了「老師」、「師父」這樣稱呼的流行？）

真正的行家鮮少給人關於他們專業領域上的建議。或許也可以反過來看，給人專業建議，很少是該領域真正的行家。而以下這篇選自英國衛報的專欄"This column will change your life"的文章更是有趣，博克曼又一次提醒，真正的行家絕不是那些在教人們如何精進某一技能的人。舉例來說，研究「時間管理」的專家，可以提出無懈可擊的方法來利用時間，但這些方法大部分的人都無法運用，或無法長期的運用該方法。然而，真正的時間管理專家，他可能是一個成功的企業家、學者、工程師、業餘生態觀察家、義消或家庭主婦，他們充分的利用時間，打理好每一件需要去注意的事情。所以「時間管理的專家」通常只能教別人成為「時間管理專家」，至於如何有效管理或利用時間恐怕就無能為力了。



This column will change your life:
True masters will rarely give advice about their field

I'm not endorsing the odious saying 'those who can't do, teach', but then again...

Oliver Burkeman
The Guardian, Saturday 26 September 2009

Illustration: Tobias Hickey

When I was around 15 or 16, it was considered hilarious to tell the careers adviser at my school – a hardworking teacher, who didn't deserve such aggravation – that you were interested in pursuing a career as a careers adviser. We never actually did this, of course, because we were cowards as well as irritating smart alecks. But it was fun to imagine what might have happened: would it have triggered some kind of mental short circuit, causing wisps of smoke to emerge from both ears? Or maybe careers advisers are trained for precisely this eventuality. Perhaps it's a fabled rite of passage among careers advisers, something that grizzled ex-careers advisers swap stories about: the first time you advise someone on how to become a careers adviser.

I'm reminded of this every time I encounter another book or television show full of advice – self-help advice, financial advice, anything – by someone whose profession is dispensing advice. I don't mean any offence towards careers advisers in particular; nor am I endorsing the odious saying that "those who can't do, teach". (And yes, if you count this column as advice, maybe I'm being hypocritical, too.) But there's something jarring about being told, say, how to manage your time by someone who spends their life immersed in time-management systems: the rest of us don't have time to live like that, which is kind of the whole point. Or take the pop-psychology cliché of discovering your "life purpose". This might be a valid notion, but the people recommending it are almost always coaches and authors who've decided that their life purpose is helping other people discover their life purpose – which seems, somehow, like a dodge.       


The blogger Ben Casnocha calls these people "meta-careerists". "The best advice on networking will come from someone who is not a professional networker," he writes. "The best advice on entrepreneurship will come from someone whose entrepreneurship is not selling books and workshops about entrepreneurship." And it'll be harder to obtain, because they'll be busy doing whatever it is that they do: true masters are rarely persuaded to write books about their field. My local chain bookshop has a display table dedicated to books on how to write – "So You Want To Be A Writer?" it says, on a little sign – but I've never heard of any of the authors. Which is, surely, an issue.      


Even when advice comes from an unimpeachable, highly experienced source, there are complications. Someone who's dedicated their life to promoting stress-reduction techniques, for instance, might know the subject inside out – but since stress reduction is all they do, they risk losing touch with the vital question of how to integrate it into a messy, complex, ordinary life. See also: chefs who write recipe books of "everyday dishes" that take two hours to prepare. Or Buddhist monks who write pop-meditation books, however well-meant, from monasteries expressly designed to be conducive to meditation. (We think of monkish, renunciate lifestyles as tough going – no alcohol, no sex, no entertainment – but in some ways they're surely easier than normal life: all the most alluring distractions are removed.) It might still be great advice. But it needs to be consumed advisedly.        


oliver.burkeman@guardian.co.uk        

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/26/change-your-life-advice        

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The story was taken from the website of The Guardian at above-stated URL.  The copyrigth remains with the Guardian.  The author and the Guardian are not involved with, nor endorse the production of this blog.