From: the 7 habits Of highly effective people
Author: Steven R covey
Translator: 一切都还不晚
译文仅供个人学习，不用于任何形式商业目的，转载请注明原作者、文章来源、翻译作者，版权归原文作者所有。
This Personality Ethic, I began to realize, was the subconscious source of the solutions Sandra and I were attempting to use with our son. As I thought more deeply about the difference between the Personality and Character Ethics, I realized that Sandra and I had been getting social mileage out of our children's good behavior, and, in our eyes, this son simply didn't measure up.
我开始意识到，人格魅力就是曾经我们试图用来解决我们儿子的问题的解决方案，这种方法就是存在于我们的潜意识里。随着我对于人格魅力与性格伦理二者区别的深入思考，我领会到我的妻子和我已经从孩子们的良好行为中获得了社交突破，同时在我们的眼中，这个儿子还没有达到期望。
Our image of ourselves, and our role as good, caring parents, was even deeper than our image of our son and perhaps influenced it. There was a lot more wrapped up in the way we were seeing and handling the problem than our concern for our son's welfare.
我们总想做一个好的、有关爱之心的父母，维持良好的形象，甚至远远超过了我们对孩子的期望，这一心理也影响了我们对待孩子们的看法。在维护这个形象的过程中我们做了很多的努力，甚至远超过了我们应该对孩子带来福祉所做的努力。
As Sandra and I talked, we became painfully aware of the powerful influence of our own character and motives and of our perception of him. We knew that social comparison motives were out of harmony with our deeper values and could lead to conditional love and eventually to our son's lessened sense of self-worth. So we determined to focus our efforts on us—not on our techniques, but on our deepest motives and our perception of him.
当我和妻子交流这件事时，我们感到有些悲伤，我们意识到我们自己的品格与动机已经深深的影响了我们对待他的看法。我们明白了，社交比较动机是不符和我们内心的价值观的，我们给他们的爱是有条件的，最终导致了我们的儿子自我评价很低。因此，我们决定从自身去努力，不是去寻找技巧，而是从我们内心最深处的动机与对他的看法上下功夫。
Instead of trying to change him, we tried to stand apart—to separate us from him—and to sense his identity, individuality, separateness, and worth.
我们不再试图去改变他，而是试着站到一旁，把我们与他区分开来，同时努力发现他自己的特色、个性、独立性以及价值。
Through deep thought and the exercise of faith and prayer, we began to see our son in terms of his own uniqueness. We saw within him layers and layers of potential that would be realized at his own pace and speed. We decided to relax and get out of his way and let his own personality emerge.
通过深入的思考以及对信念与祷告的实践，我们开始发现儿子身上的一些独特之处，我们也看到隐藏在他身上的诸多潜能，这些都在他自己的节奏下一一展现。我们心中的石头落下了，并决定让他随着自己的个性去发展。
We saw our natural role as being to affirm, enjoy, and value him. We also conscientiously worked on our motives and cultivated internal sources of security so that our own feelings of worth were not dependent on our children's “acceptable” behavior.
我发现当我们开始承认他，让他快乐，展现他的价值时，我们也找到了我们存在的本质。与此同时，我们也认真的处理我们的动机，培养我们的内心的安全感，以便让我们的价值感不是基于孩子们的可以被接受这一行为了。
As we loosened up our old perception of our son and developed value-based motives, new feelings began to emerge. We found ourselves enjoying him instead of comparing or judging him.
随着我们丢掉那些看待儿子的陈旧看法，同时建立起基于价值的动机时，全新的感受涌上心头，我们发现我们能够开始让他快乐，这取代了之前的将他与他人对比，以及给他下定论。
We stopped trying to clone him in our own image or measure him against social expectations. We stopped trying to kindly, positively manipulate him into an acceptable social mold. Because we saw him as fundamentally adequate and able to cope with life, we stopped protecting him against the ridicule of others.
我们不再试图让他成为我们的翻版的，不再以他是否达到社会期望来衡量他，我们也不再试图用看似亲切的，积极的方法操纵他成为一个被社会认可的人。正因为我们能从根本上认为他已经能够应对生活了，因此我们也不再因为他会被人嘲笑而去保护他。
He had been nurtured on this protection, so he went through some withdrawal pains, which he expressed and which we accepted, but did not necessarily respond to. “We don't need to protect you,” was the unspoken message. “You're fundamentally okay.”
由于曾经一直处在我们的保护伞下，因此这个过程中他经历了一些痛苦，他向我们诉说他的痛苦，但是我们仅仅倾听他的诉说，并没有给他想要的回应。“你不再需要我们的保护”，这句话的潜台词是“现在的你是能行的，你再也不能依赖我们的保护了”。
As the weeks and months passed, he began to feel a quiet confidence and affirmed himself. He began to blossom, at his own pace and speed. He became outstanding as measured by standard social criteria—academically, socially and athletically—at a rapid clip, far beyond the so-called natural developmental process.
随着时间的推移，他开始感到相当的自信并且认可他自己。他开始在他的节奏之下绽放光芒，如果以当时的社会标准来衡量他，那么不论是在功课上、社交上，还是在体育运动上，他都是杰出的。而这一切都发生在快速转变之间，远远超过了所谓的自然发展进程。
As the years passed, he was elected to several student body leadership positions, developed into an all-state athlete and started bringing home straight A report cards. He developed an engaging and guileless personality that has enabled him to relate in nonthreatening ways to all kinds of people.
几年之后，他当选为学生团体的带头人，成为州的运动员，而且不断的在功课上获得优秀，不仅如此他还锻炼出坦诚、朴实的性格，这使他能够与周围不同性格的人相处融洽。
Sandra and I believe that our son's “socially impressive” accomplishments were more a serendipitous expression of the feelings he had about himself than merely a response to social reward. This was an amazing experience for Sandra and me, and a very instructional one in dealing with our other children and in other roles as well. It brought to our awareness on a very personal level the vital difference between the Personality Ethic and the Character Ethic of success. The Psalmist expressed our conviction well: “Search your own heart with all diligence for out of it flow the issues of life.”
我的妻子和我始终坚信，我们的儿子能取得这些成绩，更多的是因为他遵从了内心的感受而获得的惊喜，而不是仅仅是对社会奖励的一种回应。这对妻子和我来说真的是一种非常特殊的体验，这在我们教育其他子女以及在其他的角色中都很有指导意义。这也提醒了我们，人格魅力与性格伦理对个人的成功是有着天壤之别的，下面的赞美诗很好的表达了我们的信念：“努力遵从你的内心吧，以此来解决生活中的问题。”
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