a short guide to happiness.docx

1、a short guide to happinessA Short Guide to a Happy Life（有种感觉叫快乐）by Anna Quindlen Im not particularly qualified by profession or education to give advice and counsel. Its widely known in a small circle that I make a mean tomato sauce, and I know many inventive ways to hold a baby while nursing, altho

2、ugh I havent had the opportunity to use any of them in years. I have a good eye for a nice swatch and a surprising paint chip, and I have had a checkered but occasionally successful sideline in matchmaking. (事实上，我不论在专业上还是学历水平上都不太够资格给人提供建议或指点迷 津。在我的社交圈里，我以会做番茄酱而出名;我知道许多抱着婴儿哺乳的创新招式，虽然已经多年没有用过这门技艺;我选购手

3、表很有一套，也很会替车子挑选补 漆的颜色，我替人做媒偶尔也有成功的时候。）But Ive never earned a doctorate, or even a masters degree. Im not an ethicist, or a philosopher, or an expert in any particular field. Each time I give a commencement speech I feel like a bit of a fraud. Yogi Berras advice seems as good as any: When you come to

4、a fork in the road, take it! （可是，我没修过博士，连硕士学位也没有。我既非哲人高士，也非心理学家， 更谈不上学有专精。每次获邀在典礼上致词，总免不了有一些招摇撞骗的感觉。但是我喜欢前纽约扬基棒球队球员约吉.贝拉说过的一句话：“要是前面是岔路，挑 一路走上去就是了！”所以我还是大着胆子写了。） I cant talk about the economy, or the universe, or academe, as academicians like to call where they work when theyre feeling kind of grand

5、. Im a novelist. My work is human nature. Real life is really all I know. （我无法像学术专家那样讲述经济宇宙或学术方面的话题;我是一个小说，我 所从事的是人性方面的工作，真实的人生，是我所知的一切。）Dont ever confuse the two, your life and your work. Thats what I have to say. The second is only a part of the first. Dont ever forget what a friend once wrote to

6、Senator Paul Tsongas when the senator had decided not to run for reelection because hed been diagnosed with cancer: No man ever said on his deathbed I wish I had spent more time at the office.(我最想告诉你的就是千万别以为你的工作就是你的人生，前者只是后者的一部 分。请把这个小故事谨记在心：我有个朋友，写了封信给因为罹患癌症而决定放弃竞选连任参议员的保罗.聪格斯（Paul Tsongas),信上说：“我从

7、没听过哪过人在临终时感叹说，但愿自己当初多腾点时间来处理公事。” ) Dont ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: If you win the rat race, youre still a rat. Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: Life is what happens to you while youre busy making other plans

8、.(我也永远记得我父亲在去年寄给我的明信片上的话：“在老鼠赛跑中跑第一名 又怎么样呢？老鼠还是老鼠。”约翰.列侬（John Lennon) 在达科他州遭枪击身亡之前写下之句话：“在你忙于做一些所谓人生计划的时候，生命正从你身边悄悄流逝。”) Thats the only advice I can give. After all, when you look at the faces of a class of graduating seniors, you realize that each student has only one thing that no one else has. Wh

9、en you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. （这是我唯一能给各位的忠告。毕竟，当你看着一群应届毕业生的脸孔里，你会 发现，每一个毕业生身上，只有一样东西是其他人所没有的。在你离开校园的同时，也有千百万人拿到跟你一模一样的学位;在你找到工作的同时，也有千百万人即 将用与你

10、相似的方式谋生。） But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life. Your particular life. Your entire life. Not just your life at a desk, or your life on the bus, or in the car, or at the computer. Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but

11、 your soul.(但是，你是唯一能够统管自己人生的人-这是你个人的人生，你整个的人 生;它不只是办公桌上的人生，搭公车,开车上下班的人生，或是坐在电脑屏幕前的人生而已;它不光是包括你意识上的人生，还包括你心灵真正所属的人生;不单 指你的银行存款，还涉及你的灵魂。) People dont talk about the soul very much anymore. Itso much easier to write a resume than to craft a spirit.But a resume is cold comfort on a winter night,or when

12、youre sad, or broke, or lonely, or when youve gotten back the chest X ray and it doesnt look so good, or when the doctor writes prognosis, poor.(人们现在很少谈及灵魂了。打一份履历表比打造灵性容易得多。不过，履历青无法在寒冬中给你安慰，也无法让 你在伤心时破产时寂寞时，或拿到刚洗出来 看来病况堪忧的X光片时，或当医生在诊断书写道：“康复可能性渺茫”时，让你得到丝毫的慰藉。) Here is my resume. Its not what my prof

13、essional bio says,proud as I am of all that:(我的履历表如下。虽然这和我工作上用的职业简历大不相同，但它确实是个让我引以为傲的履历表： I am a good mother to three good children. I have tried never to let my profession stand in the way of being a good parent. I no longer consider myself the center of the universe. I show up. I listen. I try to

14、laugh.(我是个好母亲，有三个好儿女。我尽量做到不让事业妨碍我做一个好母亲。我不再把自己当作世界的中心。我人 到心到，我全神聆听，我开怀大笑。) I am a good friend to my husband. I have tried to make my marriage vows mean what they say. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.(我是丈夫的知己，我一直努力让当初在结婚殿堂上许下的誓言名副其实。我人到心到，我全神聆听，我开怀大 笑。) I am a good friend to my friends,and they t

15、o me. Without them I would have nothing of interest to say to anyone,because I would be a cardboard cuout. But I call them on the phone, and I meet them for lunch. I show up. I listen. I try to laugh.(我是朋友们的好伙伴，他们也是我的好伙伴;要是没有这些朋友，我讲的东西一定吸引不了任何人，缺乏朋友扶 持的我就像一个真人大小的人形纸板。我会打电话给他们，还会约他们出来吃午饭。我人到心到，我全神聆听，

16、我开怀大笑。) I would be rotten, or at best mediorce, at my job if those other things were not true. You cannot be really first-rate at your work if your work is all you are.(如果我没有做到以上这些，我的事业一定很糟糕，最 多也不过是平庸而已。如果工作就是你所有的一切，那么你绝对不能成为真正的一流人物。) So I suppose the best piece of advice I could give anyone is pret

17、ty simple:get a life. A real life, not a manic pursuit of the next promotion,the bigger paycheck,the large house. Do you think youd care so very much about those things if you developed an aneurysm one afternoon,or found a lump in your breast while in the shower?(所以我想我能够给各位的最佳赠言，只有简单的四个字：掌握人生。真正的人生，

18、不是关于升迁加薪买大房 子。你想想，如果某天你发现自己得了动脉瘤，或是在洗澡的时候发现胸部有个肿块，你还会认为这些东西有那么重要吗？) Get a life in which you notice the smell of salt water pushing itself on a breeze over the dunes,a life in which you stop and watch how a red-tailed hawk circles over a pond and a stand of pines. Get a life in which you pay attentio

19、n to the baby as she scowls with concentration when she tries to pick up a Cheerio with her thumb and fist finger.(好好掌握人生。所谓人生，是能闻得出拂过沙丘的微风中，吹来了咸水的味道：能够停下来观察红尾老鹰在池塘 和一排松树间盘旋的样子。所谓人生，是指你注意到婴儿噘着嘴，专注而费劲地想用拇指与食指把早餐玉米片拿起来的模样。) Turn off your cell phone. Turn off your regular phone, for that matter. Keep s

20、till. Be present.(把手机关掉，把家中电话也关掉。静一静。活在当下。) Get a life in which you are not alone. Find people you love, and who love you. And remember that love is not leiure, it is work. Each time I look at my diploma,I remember that I am still a student,still learning every day how to be human. Send an e-mail. W

21、rite a letter. Kiss your mom. Hug your dad.(好好掌握人生，不要寂寞地虚度时光。找一个你爱他，他也有穸的对象。记住，爱情不是补充闲暇时光才做的事 情。爱情，得当作事业来经营才行。我每次看到自己的毕业证书，都觉得自己仍然是个学生，仍在每天学习着为人的道理。发个电子邮件，或提笔写封信吧。跟妈妈 亲吻一下。和爸爸拥抱一下。) Get a life in which you are generous. Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring;look at a full m

22、oon hanging silverin a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted. Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around. Take the money you would have spent on beers in a bar and give it to charity. Work in a soup

23、kitchen. Tutor a seventh-grader.(好好掌握人生，人生应当是慷慨的。看着春天里开得灿烂的杜鹃花;看着寒夜里高悬于漆黑夜空中的一轮明月， 你会发现，人生乃是荣耀，并非你理所应得。你对于人生的感恩，会让你想把这份关切的心意散播出去。就把你原本要拿去酒吧买啤酒的钱捐给慈善事业吧！做做义 工，帮无依无靠的人煮顿饭，帮中学生补习功课吧！) All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good,too,then doing well will never be enough.(我们每个人都希望生活能过得好一些，但如果我们不去亲

24、历这些美好的事情，那我们的内心永远也不会得到真正 的满足。) Live by the words of this poem by Gwendolyn Brooks:葛多文化。布鲁克的这首诗，的确是人生的明灯： EXHAUST THE LITTLE MOMENT SOON IT DIES AND BE IT GASH OR GOLD IT WILL NOT COME AGAIN IN THIS IDENTICAL DISGUISE. 即便是微末的片刻 也要细细品尝 时光稍纵即逝啊 是沙砾也好 是金子也罢毕竟那片刻 再也不会以同样的面目 再度呈现 Life is short. Remember t

25、hat,too.人生苦短。这点也请你牢记在心。 Ive always known this. Or almost always. Ive been living with mortality for decades,since my mother died of ovarian cancer when she was forty and I was nineteen. And this is what I learned from that experience: that knowledge of our own mortality is the greatest gift God ever

26、 give us.我很早就知道这个道理。呃，应该算是早的了。自从我母亲在她40岁，我19岁时因卵巢癌而过世，之后这几十 年来，我一直谨记“人生有时而尽”。这个体验让我学到一个道理：上帝赐给我们最好的礼物，就是让我们知道自己的生命有时而尽。 It is so easy to waste our lives: our days,our hours,our minutes. It is so easy to take for granted the pale new growth on an evergreen,the sheen of the limestone on Fifth Avenue,t

27、he color of our kids eyes, the way the melody in a symphony rises and falls and disappears and rises again. It is so easy to exist instead of live. Unless you know there is a clock ticking. So many of us changed our lives when we heard a biological clock and decided to have kids. But that sound is a

28、 murmur compared to the tolling of mortality.浪费自己的生命真是太容易了：几天，几个钟头，几分钟就这样过去了。枝头的新芽热闹大街上石板路上的光 泽，孩子的眼珠颜色，以及交响乐忽高忽低，消失又再现的美妙旋律，人们都以为是理所当然而不去注意。“存活”在这个世界上比“生活”在这个世界上容易多了 除非你意识到生死的时刻正滴滴答答地走个不停。怪不得许多人听闻生理时钟响起后，便决定要生个孩子;但比起震耳欲聋的生死之钟，生理时钟的声音简直像 是蚊子叫哩！ Maybe you have come to feel the way I have. And youve c

29、ome to feel that way for a very difficult or demanding reason. One way you were walking around worrying about whether you had anything to wear to a party and reminding yourself to buy Kitty Litter or toilet paper. And then you were in the shower lathering up,or you were lying on a doctors table,or t

30、he phone rang. And your world suddenly divided,as my world did many years ago. It divided into before and after.也许你已经感受过我说的这一切，因着某个难以言喻的状况，也许有一天，你边走边想着要穿什么衣服赴宴，又提 醒自己要买点猫砂或卫生纸;下一刻，你或许浑身肥皂泡地站在浴室里，或者躺在医生的诊疗椅上;或者电话响了，然手你的世界便突然分裂伙“之前”，“之后” 两个世界，就像多年前发生在我身上的情况那样。 Before for me was my freshman year of col

31、lege,when I found myself able for the first time in my life to swear at meals and not be reprimanded,to go out at midnight and not have to tell anyone where I was going. After was the beginning of what would have been my sophomore year,when I found myself out of school, making meat loaf and administ

32、ering morphine in a development house in the suburbs.对我而言，“之前”的世界，是大学一年级的时代：有生以来第一次在饭桌上讲脏话而不会被长辈教训，半夜出门 也不用交代自己的行踪。“之后”的世界，则是本应上大二的那一年，我人却不在学校，反而在郊区的医药研究中心里，烹煮碎肉丸子与计算吗啡的用量。 It is amazing how much you can learn in one year. Just like Paul,who was knocked off his mule into the dust on the way to Damascus,and discovered God,I had a rude awakening. Im not sure I learned anything much about mortality,or death, or pain, or even love,although in the years since,I have found that th