指尖阅读—你的生涯你做主（九）

Sixty to Zero

"Year after year, decade after decade, we have been problems paperd over and tough choices kicked down the road, even as foreign competitors outpaced us. Well, we have reached the end of that road," said President Barack Obama in 2009, at a press conference annnouncing that the federal goverment was loaning $77billion to GM and Chrysler ( and granting access to a line of credit to Ford) to prop up the companies as they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. For older Amercians who grew up enchanted by the grandeur of Detroit, President Obama's announcement neatly summed up three decades of decay and disillusionment

What happend? Many things. But the overriding problem was this: The auto industry got too comfortable. As Intelcofounder Andy Grove once famously proclaimed,"Only the paranoid survive." Success, he meant, is fragile - and perfection, fleeting. The moment you begin to take success for granted is the moment acompetitor lunges for your jugular. Auto industry executives, to say the least,were not paranoid.

Instead of listening to a customer base that wanted smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, the auto executives built bigger and bigger. Instead of taking seriously new competition form Japan, they staunchly insisted (both to themselves and to their customers) that MADE IN THE USA automatically meant "best in the world." Instead of trying to learn from their competitors' new methods of" lean manufacturing," they clung stubbornly to their decades-old practices . instead of rewarding the best people in the organization and firingthe worst, they promoted on the basis of  longevity and nepotism. Instead of moving quickly to keep up with the changing market, executives willingly embraced "death by committee." Ross Perot once quipped that if a mansaw a snake on the factory floor at GM, they'd form a committee to analyze whether they should kill it.

寒号鸟因为贪图一时的安逸而在冬雪中死亡；蝗虫因为享受一时的舒适而于冰封中销声匿迹；游鱼因为渴求一时的美味而终究命丧锅底…‥

它们都因为贪图安逸付出了极大的代价。由此可见，安逸是生命的麻醉剂，让你在不知不觉中毁掉自己；安逸是充满诱惑的洞天福地，让你在无声无息中湮灭灵魂。安逸使人生懒惰之心，起散漫之意，不思进取，不念成败。在人生道路上，我们到想披荆斩棘，获得永恒，必须做到不贪图安逸。