“No person is free who is not master of themselves.” — Epictetus

“没有谁可以自由自在地掌握自己。” —史诗般

I’ve tried a number of multi-year experiments to boost my willpower:

我尝试了许多多年的实验来提高自己的意志力：

• giving up coffee and alcohol放弃咖啡和酒精
• running 10k every day每天运行10k
• taking cold showers instead of hot ones洗冷水而不洗热水

And yet by far the easiest thing I’ve done to strengthen my will was to quit saying certain 4-letter English words.

但是到目前为止，我为增强意志力所做的最简单的事情就是放弃说某些4个字母的英语单词。

Five years ago, I decided that going forward, I would refrain from saying any cuss word that you couldn’t find in the Old Testament.

五年前，我决定继续前进，我不会说任何在旧约中找不到的客气话。

My commitment was immediately put to the test. I was at my brother’s house (a no-shoes household), and we had dimmed the lights so we could watch a movie. I was walking back to his living room with a bowl of freshly-popped popcorn, when suddenly a solid wood table leg appeared out of the shadows.

我的承诺立即受到考验。 我当时在我哥哥的家(一家无鞋之家)，我们已经调暗了灯光，以便可以看电影。 我正带着一碗刚爆米花的爆米花回到他的客厅，突然从阴影中露出一条实木桌腿。

I stubbed my toe so hard that the entire table screeched across his hardwood floor.

我用力地so着脚趾，整个桌子都划破了他的硬木地板。

My family went silent. They glanced down at my gushing pinky toe. Then up at my face.

我的家人沉默了。 他们瞥了一眼我涌出的小指脚趾。 然后抬起我的脸。

“Woah!” my brother’s wife said. “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“哇！” 我哥哥的妻子说。 “那不疼吗？”

I just stood there, squeezing my popcorn bowl. Through my clenched teeth — and without really thinking about it — I said: “Not if you’re tough.”

我只是站在那儿，挤压我的爆米花碗。 我咬紧牙关，没有真正考虑，但我说：“如果你很坚强，那就不行。”

I don’t know what came over me. In truth, my toe hurt like crazy. Whatever it was, that night a family-wide meme was born.

我不知道发生了什么事。 实际上，我的脚趾像疯了似的受伤了。 不管是什么，那天晚上，一个全家人的模因诞生了。

Ever since, whenever someone in our family gets injured somehow, they jokingly reply to inevitable questions about pain with “Not if you’re tough.” Then everybody laughs.

从那时起，每当我们家庭中的某人因某种原因受伤时，他们都会开玩笑地回答关于疼痛的不可避免的问题，“如果你很坚强，那就不要。” 然后大家都笑了。

If this had happened before I’d taken my vow of profanity silence, I would have no doubt jumped up and down shouting curse words. But instead, a serene side began to emerge and take hold of my personality.

如果这是在我发誓亵渎自己的誓言之前发生的，我无疑会大声疾呼诅咒之词。 但是，相反，平静的一面开始浮现并掌握了我的个性。

用“别名”代替亵渎 (Substituting profanity with “aliases”)

Darn. Heck. Shoot. There were softer versions of pretty much every cuss word out there, and I quickly adopted these.

真是 哎呀 射击。 那里几乎所有的客气话都有较柔和的版本，我很快就采纳了这些。

But one word was missing. The big one that everyone uses as a verb, adjective, and even a noun — sometimes all in the same sentence. And no, “fudge” wasn’t going to cut it for me.

但是一个字不见了。 每个人都把它当作动词，形容词甚至是名词来使用，有时甚至都用同一句话。 不，“软糖”不会帮我削减它。

Fortunately, my wife and I had just binge-watched the entire series of Battlestar Galactica over one rainy winter in Shanghai.

幸运的是，我和我的妻子刚刚在一个多雨的冬天观看了整个太空堡垒卡拉狄加的整个系列。

Battlestar Galactica features a civilization that is technologically advanced, but also brooding, alcoholic, and potty-mouthed. And instead of omitting the f-word from the show entirely, like similarly gritty — yet still PG-13 — shows did, the writers decided to make up their own f-word so that the actors could freely say on TV: frak.

太空堡垒卡拉狄加的特色是技术先进的文明，但也令人沉思，酗酒和and口。 作家并没有像完全一样坚韧不拔(但仍然是PG-13)那样完全从节目中省略了f词，而是决定编造自己的f词，以便演员可以在电视上自由地说： frak 。

When you first watch the show, and notice them saying “frak,” it’s quite cheesy. The characters say things to one another like “Frak you!”, “What the frak?” and even “Go frak yourself.”

当您第一次观看该节目时，注意到他们说“ frak”，这很俗气。 角色互相说出一些东西，例如“ Frak you！”，“ What the fak？”。 甚至“自己动摇”。

And of course, this was before the term “fracking” — the environmentally questionable act of pumping high-pressure fluid into the ground to extract oil and natural gas — had entered popular lexicon.

当然，这是在“水力压裂”一词进入流行词典之前进行的。“水力压裂”是将高压流体泵入地下以提取石油和天然气的行为，对环境有问题。

This made use of the word “frak” even more absurd. And that absurdity lended it a certain humor. A certain power.

这使“ frak”一词更加荒谬。 那种荒谬使它显得有些幽默。 一定的力量。

So with this final addition to my array of cuss word aliases, I had everything I needed to go profanity-free.

因此，在我的一系列cuss别名中添加了最后的内容之后，我便拥有了避免亵渎行为所需的一切。

Just like how the Mr. Robot protagonist Elliot Alderson would later condition himself to hear the words “Evil Corp” whenever someone uttered “E Corp”, I conditioned myself to hear the Battlestar Galactica “frak” in place of other people’s f-bombs.

就像机器人主人公埃利奥特·奥尔德森先生后来说出“邪恶公司”这样的条件来形容自己，只要有人说出“ E Corp”，我就使自己能够听到太空堡垒卡拉狄加的“恐怖”来代替其他人的炸弹。

Over time, I reached for these aliases less and less. Sure, there were occasions where I would shout, “Oh, frak! Our production servers are down!” But more often than not, I would just respond to bad situations with stoic silence.

随着时间的流逝，我越来越少地使用这些别名。 当然，有时候我会大喊：“哦，老兄！ 我们的生产服务器宕机了 ！” 但是，我常常会以坚忍的沉默来应对恶劣的情况。

明天减少@@ $ (A less %@$ed-up tomorrow)

Quitting cussing wasn’t all that hard to do. And in addition to strengthening my willpower, it seems to have made my day-to-day outlook a bit brighter.

放弃批评并不是一件容易的事。 除了增强我的意志力外，这似乎使我的日常前景更加光明。

There isn’t much solid research about the role of profanity in human psychology. There are a few one-off studies that suggest that people who cuss frequently might be smarter or perceived by others as being more honest. These conclusions seem counter-intuitive to me, but I’ll keep an open mind in case more studies support this.

关于亵渎在人类心理学中的作用的研究还不多。 有一些一次性研究表明，经常吵架的人可能更聪明，或者被别人认为更诚实 。 这些结论对我来说似乎是违反直觉的，但是如果更多的研究支持这一点，我将保持开放的态度。

I personally don’t feel I’ve lost any of my dynamic range as a result of not cussing. Not that there’s anything wrong with cussing, or that it should be censored in any way. People cuss. No big deal. As of 2017, we’ve got bigger issues to worry about.

我个人不觉得我没有因失去兴趣而失去任何动态范围。 并不是说骂人有什么问题，或者应该以任何方式对其进行审查。 人民风俗。 没什么大不了的。 截至2017年，我们还有更大的问题要担心。

On the contrary, I think that cuss words can often add a valuable dramatic effect.

相反，我认为客气话常常可以增加宝贵的戏剧效果。

Back in 1934, Hollywood studios asked the producers of the 1934 film “Gone with the Wind” to change the now-famous line: “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn” to “Frankly, my dear, I don’t care.”

早在1934年，好莱坞电影制片厂就要求1934年电影《乱世佳人》的制片人改变现在著名的电影：“坦率地说，亲爱的，我不该死”改为“坦率地说，亲爱的，我不走”不在乎。”

But the producers successfully argued that the word “damn” was necessary to convey the extent of the emotion, and it was left in the film.

但是制片人成功地辩称，“该死”这个词是传达情感程度所必需的，它留在了电影中。

Producers also successfully advocated for the right to use the word “hell” in Captain Kirk’s famous line, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” This was one of the first times the word “hell” had been used like this on broadcast television. It was in the classic 1967 Star Trek episode “City on the Edge of Forever.” (By the way, if you haven’t seen this episode, it’s on Netflix and you should totally watch it).

制片人还成功提倡在柯克船长的著名台词“让我们滚蛋”中使用“地狱”一词的权利。 这是广播电视首次使用“地狱”一词的时候之一。 这是经典的1967年《星际迷航》中的情节“永远的边缘之城”。 (顺便说一句，如果您还没有看过此剧集， 那么它就在Netflix上 ，您应该完全观看)。

One side benefit of not cussing is that I no longer have to self-censor my speech around polite company, or in front of kids. Profanity doesn’t just “slip out” in casual banter like it used to.

不骂人的一个好处是，我不再需要自我审查有关礼貌公司或孩子面前的讲话。 亵渎不仅像过去那样在休闲玩笑中“溜走”。

I can now just say what’s on my mind, confident that, while some people may take issue with my ideas, they probably won’t flinch at the words I use.

现在，我可以说出我的想法，并相信，尽管有些人可能对我的想法持怀疑态度，但他们可能不会对我使用的词感到畏缩。

If you want to learn more about little hacks like this one that you can use to improve your willpower — and thus your productivity — I recommend reading this book by Stanford psychology professor Kelly McGonigal:

如果您想更多地了解像这样的小技巧，可以用来提高意志力，从而提高生产力，我建议您阅读斯坦福大学心理学教授凯利·麦格尼加尔的这本书 ：

The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of…Edit descriptionamzn.to

意志力的本能：自我控制的工作 原理，重要性 以及您可以做什么以获取更多…… 编辑描述 amzn.to

I plan to continue exploring habits that can boost my willpower. For as the great poet once wrote:

我计划继续探索可以增强我的意志力的习惯。 正如伟大的诗人曾经写道：

“Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.”―William Shakespeare, Othello

“这本身就是我们如此或如此。 我们的身体就是我们的花园，而我们的意愿就是园丁。”-奥赛罗威廉·莎士比亚

Thanks for reading! If you liked this article, click the ? below so other people will see this here on Medium.

谢谢阅读！ 如果您喜欢本文，请单击“？”。 下面，以便其他人可以在Medium上看到。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/i-havent-said-a-cuss-word-in-5-years-here-s-how-this-boosted-my-willpower-3e7ecc98e006/