英語美文朗讀 第372期 The Secret Of Happiness(上)

1. YOU MUST ACCEPT IMPERFECTION AND FLAWS

 

1.你必須接受不完美和瑕疵

 

Many people believe that if they just collect a house, a spouse, a car, and 2.5 children, everything will be "perfect". Life has a checklist. Problems don't go away; they change and evolve. And the quicker we accept that the point of life is progress, and not perfection, the sooner we can all order a pizza and go home. Perfection is an idealization. It's something that is approached but never reached. Whatever your conception of "perfect" is in your pretty little head, it is in itself, an imperfect concept. There is no perfect. There is only what you wish in your head.

很多人相信，如果他們買了房子，找到了伴侶，有一輛車，生了幾個(gè)孩子，一切事情就會(huì)變得“完美”。生活有一個(gè)任務(wù)清單。問題不會(huì)消失；他們會(huì)改變，會(huì)進(jìn)化。我們?cè)娇斓媒邮苌畹闹攸c(diǎn)不在于完美，而在于進(jìn)步，我們就能早點(diǎn)輕松地生活。完美是一個(gè)理想化的概念。這是我們可以不斷接近，但永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)達(dá)成的事物。無論你腦袋里對(duì)于“完美”的概念是什么，它只存在于你的腦袋里，一個(gè)不完美的概念。世界上不存在完美。只有你腦海里對(duì)自己的期望。

 

We don't get to decide what perfection is. We don't know. All we can know is what is better or worse than what is now. And even then we're often wrong. When we let go of our concept of what is perfect and what "should" be, we relieve ourselves of the stress and frustration of living up to some arbitrary standard. And usually this standard isn't even ours! It's a standard we adopted from other people. Accepting imperfection is hard, because it forces us to accept that we have to live with things we don't like.

我們沒辦法決定什么是完美。因?yàn)槲覀儾恢馈Ｎ覀冎恢朗裁词潜痊F(xiàn)在更好的或者更壞的。即使如此，我們的想法也經(jīng)常是錯(cuò)誤的。當(dāng)我們放下了我們對(duì)于“完美”的定義和生活“應(yīng)該”怎么過的想法，我們就把自己從要以一個(gè)主觀標(biāo)準(zhǔn)來生活的壓力和挫敗中解放出來。這個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)甚至不來源于我們自己！這個(gè)標(biāo)準(zhǔn)是我們從其他人那得來的。接受不完美是很艱難的，因?yàn)檫@迫使我們要去接受并適應(yīng)我們不喜歡的事情。

 

2. YOU MUST TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR PROBLEMS

2.你必須對(duì)自己的問題負(fù)起責(zé)任

 

Blaming the world for our problems is the easy way out. It's tempting and it can even be satisfying. We're the victims and we get to be all emo and indignant at all of the terrible injustices that have been inflicted upon us. We wallow in our imagined victimhood so as to make ourselves feel unique and special in ways we never got to feel unique and special anywhere else. But our problems are not unique. And in ourselves we are not all that special. The beauty of accepting the imperfection of your own knowledge is that you can no longer be certain that you're not to blame for your own problems.

將自己的問題歸咎于這個(gè)世界是一種輕松的方式。這很誘惑，甚至可以使你滿足。我們是受害者，我們可以對(duì)我們?cè)馐艿目膳碌牟还氖虑楦械郊?。我們沉湎于自己幻想出的受迫害情景，好讓我們感受到一種不能從其他地方感受的感覺，我們是獨(dú)一無二的，是特別的。但我們的問題不是獨(dú)一無二的。并且我們也并不是那么特別。接受自身不完美的美好之處在于，你不再確定自己的問題不歸咎于自身。

 

Are you really late because of traffic? Or could you have left earlier? Is it really the incompetence of your manager that lost you your promotion? Or was there something more you could have done? The truth is usually somewhere around "both", - although it varies from situation to situation. But the point is that you can only fix your own imperfections and not the imperfections of others. So you may as well get to work on them. Blaming others for the problems in your life may give you a smidgen of short-term relief, but ultimately it implies something entirely insidious: that you are incapable of controlling your own fate. And that's the most depressing assumption of all to live with.

你真是是因?yàn)榻煌▎栴}而遲到嗎？還是你本可以早點(diǎn)出發(fā)？你沒有升職真的是因?yàn)榻?jīng)理的失職嗎？還是你自己本來能做更多的事得到升職？事情的真相可能是兩方面的原因都存在，-雖然這會(huì)因?yàn)榍闆r不同而不同。但重點(diǎn)在于你只能完善自己不完美的地方而不是別人的。所以你也許該開始行動(dòng)了。把自己生活的問題歸咎于其他人身上或許可以給你一點(diǎn)短暫的解脫，但這最終暗示了一些隱藏的問題：你無法掌控自己的命運(yùn)。而這是所有你可能要接受的事情中最令人沮喪的一個(gè)假設(shè)。

 

3. YOU MUST FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY

3.你必須感受自己的恐懼，并無論如何也要做下去

 

Bravery is not the absence of fear. Bravery is feeling the fear, the doubt, the insecurity, and deciding that something else is more important. IF we identify with our moment-to-moment emotional states and sensitivities, our happiness will surge and crash like a deregulated Wall Street derivatives orgy. For those of you who don't know anything about Wall Street: that's really bad. We want sturdy, resilient happiness. Not derivatives orgies.

勇敢不是不害怕。勇敢是感知恐懼，懷疑，不安全感并認(rèn)為相比這些，其他的更為重要。如果我們感知我們每時(shí)每刻的敏感的情緒波動(dòng)，我們的幸福會(huì)像不受管制的華爾街衍生品*狂歡一樣激增或陡降。告知給那些不了解華爾街的人：這種情況非常糟糕。我們想要堅(jiān)定，堅(jiān)韌的幸福。而不是衍生品狂歡。

 

True, long-lasting, kid-tested-and-mother-approved happiness, is not derived from our immediate emotional states - being constantly greedy is not only impossible but it would be unbearably annoying - but rather is derived from the deeper values we define for ourselves. Our Ultimate Life Satisfaction is not defined by what we do and what happens to us, but why we do what we do and why it happens to us.

真實(shí)的，持久的，有保障的幸福并不來源于我們瞬間的感情狀態(tài) - 對(duì)幸福太貪心不僅不可能得到幸福，而且會(huì)承受無法忍受的厭煩 - 而來源于我們?yōu)樽约憾x的深層價(jià)值。我們根本的生活滿意度并不由我們做了什么和什么事情在我們身上發(fā)生決定，而是由為什么我們會(huì)做這些事和為什么這些事會(huì)在我們身上發(fā)生決定。