本帖最后由 ヮ成熟、羙° 于 2014-2-22 06:13 编辑
幸福的内含
荷叶/译
幸福,攥在你的手心里。
对于多数人来说,争取幸福这一理念很新鲜。我们认为幸福是许多好事降临后的一种感觉,而这些事情往往难以掌控。但事实恰恰相反。幸福在很大程度上是可控的,幸福是一场等待发动的战役,而不是一种坐等的感受。
幸福不是万事如意。幸福需要一颗感恩的心,感谢生活,感谢每一束阳光。
我们多数人把自己和自己认为更加幸福的人做过比较,这些人可能是我们的亲戚,可能是熟人,也可能是刚刚认识的人。我曾经遇到过一个年轻人,我认为他特别成功和幸福。他谈到他爱自己的漂亮的妻子,爱自己的女儿们,他喜欢在自己所爱的城市里做脱口秀主持人这份工作。我记得曾经认为他是那种少有的幸运儿,轻轻松松,万事如意。后来,我们谈到了互联网,他告诉我他从中获益匪浅,因为他可以从中查找关于多样性硬化症的信息,一种困扰着他妻子的可怕的疾病。我感觉自己像个傻瓜,竟然觉得他的生活会无忧无虑。
“人有悲欢离合,月有阴晴圆缺。”有时,遗憾也是生活中的一种美。
几乎每一个人都有对生活的憧憬。当然,问题是很少有人在工作,配偶和孩子等各方面,能够满足这些理想。以我自己为例,我的家族没有过离婚的先例,我认为婚姻是终身的。因此,当我结婚五年,儿子出生三年,和妻子离婚时,我感觉我的世界崩溃了。在自己眼里,我是个失败者。 后来,我再婚了,我对妻子弗兰说,我无法摆脱失败的家庭生活所留下的阴影。她问,现在我们的家庭生活有问题吗?我不得不承认,我们生活得很精彩。“那何不庆祝一下呢?”她说。我决定庆祝一下我们现在的生活,但首先要摆脱对完美家庭的憧憬。
幸福的人看到的总是已有的那半桶水。
看每一件事都关注哪怕是最小的瑕疵,这是破坏幸福最行之有效的方式。正如抬头看一座瓦房,眼睛只注意所缺失的那一片瓦。又如一个秃子告诉我:“每当我进一个房间,满眼见到的只是头发。”一旦你确定了所缺失的那一片瓦是什么,研究一下得到它是否使你真的感觉幸福。然后,你可以采取三种行动:第一,设法得到这片瓦;第二,用另一片瓦替换它;第三,忘记它,把你的注意力转移到并不缺失的那些瓦片上。
幸福与贫富无关。
我研究幸福多年,得出的一个重要结论是:人们的生活环境与幸福并不相关。略加思索,这就会显而易见。我们都知道一些生活相对轻松的人,根本不觉得幸福;而那些历经磨难的人,却通常保持着幸福的心态。
附:原文 The notion that we have to work at happiness comes as news to many people. We assume it's a feeling that comes as a result of good things that just happen to us, things over which we have little or no control. But the opposite is true:happiness is largely under our control. It is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be waited. Most of us compare ourselves with anyone we think is happier--a relative, an acquaintance or, often, someone we barely know, I once met a young man who struck me as particularly successful and happy. He spoke of his love for his beautiful wife and their daughters, and of his joy at being a radio talk-show host in a city he loved. I remember thinking that he was one of those lucky few for whom everything goes effortlessly right. Then we started talking about theInternet. He blessed its existence, he told me, because he could look up information on multiple sclerosis, the terrible disease afflicting his wife, Ifelt like a fool for assuming nothing unhappy existed in his life. Almost all of us have images of how life should be. The problem, of course, is thatonly rarely do people's jobs, spouses, and children live up to these imagined ideals. Here's a personal example: No one in my family had ever divorced. I assumed that marriage was for life. So when my wife and I divorced after five years of marriage and three years after the birth of our son, my world caved in. I was a failure in my own eyes. I later remarried but confided to mywife, Fran, that I could not shake the feeling that my family life had failed.She asked me what was wrong with our family now. I had to admit that, our family life was wonderful. "Then why don't you celebrate it?" she asked. That is what I decided to do. But first I had to get rid of the image of a "perfect" family. One effective way of sabotaging happiness is to look at something and fixate on even the smallest flaw. It'slike looking up at a tiled ceiling and concentrating on the space where onetile is missing. As a bald man told me, "Whenever I enter a room, all Isee is hair." Once you've determined what your missing tile is, explore whether acquiring it will really make you happy. Then do one of three things:get it, replace it with a different tile, or forget about it and focus on thetiles in your life that are not missing. I have spent years studying happiness, and one of the most significant conclusion I've drawn is this; there is little correlation between the circumstance of people's lives and how happy they are. A moment's reflection should make this obvious. We all know people who have had a relatively easy life yet are essentially unhappy.And we know people who have suffered a great deal but generally remain happy. |