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Had I instead spent that hour each day learning the latest techniques for mastering the problems of autocorrelation in regression analysis, I would have badly misspent (滥用；虚度；浪费) my life. I apply the tools of econometrics a few times a year, but I apply my knowledge of the purpose of my life every day. It’s the single most useful thing I’ve ever learned. I promise my students that if they take the time to figure out their life purpose, they’ll look back on it as the most important thing they discovered at HBS (我向我的学生们保证，如果他们花时间去思考自己的人生目标，当他们回头看时，会认为这是他们在哈佛商学院发现的最重要的事情。). If they don’t figure it out, they will just sail off (出海，航行) without a rudder ( 船舵) and get buffeted (被冲击的) in the very rough seas of life. Clarity about their purpose will trump (胜过) knowledge of activity-based costing, balanced scorecards, core competence, disruptive innovation (颠覆式创新), the four Ps, and the five forces. 明确人生目标是最值得花时间，最重要的。

My purpose grew out of my religious faith, but faith isn’t the only thing that gives people direction. For example, one of my former students decided that his purpose was to bring honesty and economic prosperity to his country and to raise children who were as capably (又能力的) committed to (致力，从事) this cause (事业，目标), and to each other, as he was. His purpose is focused on family and others—as mine is.
The choice and successful pursuit of a profession is but one tool for achieving your purpose. But without a purpose, life can become hollow (空洞的).

Allocate Your Resources

Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy.

I have a bunch of “businesses” that compete for these resources: I’m trying to have a rewarding relationship with my wife, raise great kids, contribute to my community, succeed in my career, contribute to my church, and so on. And I have exactly the same problem that a corporation does. I have a limited amount of time and energy and talent. How much do I devote to each of these pursuits?

Allocation choices can make your life turn out to be very different from what you intended. Sometimes that’s good: Opportunities that you never planned for emerge. But if you misinvest your resources, the outcome can be bad. As I think about my former classmates who inadvertently (无意地，不经意地) invested for lives of hollow unhappiness (空洞的不快乐的生活), I can’t help believing that their troubles relate right back to a short-term perspective.

他们的问题与他们的短视有关。

See you tomorrow