英語美文朗讀 第360期 Being Happy Or Having Meaning In Life(下)

The third pillar of meaning is also about stepping beyond yourself, but in a completely different way: transcendence. Transcendent states are those rare moments when you're lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, your sense of self fades away, and you feel connected to a higher reality. For one person I talked to, transcendence came from seeing art. For another person, it was at church. For me, I'm a writer, and it happens through writing. Sometimes I get so in the zone that I lose all sense of time and place. These transcendent experiences can change you. One study had students look up at 200-feet-tall eucalyptus trees for one minute. But afterwards they felt less self-centered, and they even behaved more generously when given the chance to help someone.

 

第三根人生意義的支柱，也和走出自我有關(guān)，但用的方式完全不同：超然。超然的狀態(tài)是很少見的時刻，在這個時刻中，你超脫了日常生活的喧囂擾攘，自我感正在漸漸消褪，你會感覺到和更高的現(xiàn)實產(chǎn)生連結(jié)。跟我談過的其中一個人說，超然來自于欣賞藝術(shù)。另一個人則認為，超然是在教堂中。對我來說，我是作家，而超然是透過寫作發(fā)生的。有時候我太投入會有一種忘我的境界。這些超然的經(jīng)驗能改變你。有一項研究是讓學生去看200英呎高的尤加利樹，看一分鐘，之后他們會比較不自我中心，若給他們機會去幫助別人，他們連行為都會變得更慷慨。

 

Belonging, purpose, transcendence. Now, the fourth pillar of meaning, I've found, tends to surprise people. The fourth pillar is storytelling, the story you tell yourself about yourself. Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you. But we don't always realize that we're the authors of our stories and can change the way we're telling them. Your life isn't just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you're constrained by the facts.

歸屬感、目的、超然。接著談談我發(fā)現(xiàn)的第四根支柱，它常會令人感到驚訝。第四根支柱就是說故事，你告訴你自己關(guān)于你自己的故事。用你人生中的事件來創(chuàng)造一個故事，能讓你看得更清楚。它能協(xié)助你了解你是怎么變成你的。但我們通常沒發(fā)現(xiàn)，我們故事的作者就是自己，且我們可以改變說故事的方式。你的生命并不只一連串的事件。即便你被事實給限制住，你仍可以編輯、詮釋、再重新述說你的故事。

 

I met a young man named Emeka, who'd been paralyzed playing football. After his injury, Emeka told himself, "My life was great playing football, but now look at me." People who tell stories like this -- "My life was good. Now it's bad." -- tend to be more anxious and depressed. And that was Emeka for a while. But with time, he started to weave a different story. His new story was, "Before my injury, my life was purposeless. I partied a lot and was a pretty selfish guy. But my injury made me realize I could be a better man." That edit to his story changed Emeka's life. After telling the new story to himself, Emeka started mentoring kids, and he discovered what his purpose was: serving others. The psychologist Dan McAdams calls this a "redemptive story," where the bad is redeemed by the good. People leading meaningful lives, he's found, tend to tell stories about their lives defined by redemption, growth and love.

我遇到一位叫做埃梅卡的年輕人，他因為打美式足球而癱瘓。埃梅卡在受傷后，內(nèi)心的對話是這樣的：「我打美式足球的人生是非常棒的，但看看現(xiàn)在的我。」像這樣說故事的人──「我的人生曾經(jīng)很棒，現(xiàn)在卻很糟?！供ぉふf這種故事的人比較容易焦慮和沮喪。埃梅卡有好一陣子就是這樣。但隨時間過去，他開始編造一個不同的故事。他的新故事是：「在我受傷前，我的人生沒有目的。我常去派對，且我是個很自私的人。但受傷讓我明白，我可以成為更好的人。」埃梅卡把他的故事進行改造，從而改變了他的一生。在對自己說完這個新故事之后，埃梅卡開始開導孩童，他找到了他的目的：服務他人。心理學家丹麥亞當斯稱這現(xiàn)象為「救贖的故事」，用好的來救贖不好的。他發(fā)現(xiàn)，過著有意義人生的人，他們說的故事內(nèi)容通常都是他們的人生由救贖、成長、愛來定義。

 

But what makes people change their stories? Some people get help from a therapist, but you can do it on your own, too, just by reflecting on your life thoughtfully, how your defining experiences shaped you, what you lost, what you gained. That's what Emeka did. You won't change your story overnight; it could take years and be painful. After all, we've all suffered, and we all struggle. But embracing those painful memories can lead to new insights and wisdom, to finding that good that sustains you.

但，是什么讓人們改變了他們的故事？有些人向治療師尋求協(xié)助，但你也可以靠自己做到，只要完整地反思你的人生、你的關(guān)鍵經(jīng)驗如何造就了你、你失去了什么、獲得了什么。那就是埃梅卡所做的。你不可能一夜就改變你的故事；過程可能要花好幾年，且很痛苦。畢竟，我們都曾受過苦，也都在掙扎。但擁抱那些痛苦的記憶，能帶來新的洞見與智慧，讓你能找到那支撐著你的「善」。

 

Belonging, purpose, transcendence, storytelling: those are the four pillars of meaning. When I was younger, I was lucky enough to be surrounded by all of the pillars. My parents ran a Sufi meetinghouse from our home in Montreal. Sufism is a spiritual practice associated with the whirling dervishes and the poet Rumi. Twice a week, Sufis would come to our home to meditate, drink Persian tea, and share stories. Their practice also involved serving all of creation through small acts of love, which meant being kind even when people wronged you. But it gave them a purpose: to rein in the ego.

歸屬感、目的、超然、說故事；這些就是意義的四大支柱。在我小時候，我很幸運能夠被這四根支柱給圍繞著。我父母在蒙特婁的家附近開一間蘇菲派的聚會所。蘇菲教派是一種和旋轉(zhuǎn)苦行僧及詩人魯米有關(guān)的靈修。每周兩次，蘇菲教徒會到我們家里，來冥想、喝波斯茶、分享故事。他們的修行也涉及了要透過愛的小舉動，來為萬物服務，也就是說，即使別人冤枉你，也要仁慈以對。但那給了他們一個目的：去駕馭自我。

 

Eventually, I left home for college and without the daily grounding of Sufism in my life, I felt unmoored. And I started searching for those things that make life worth living. That's what set me on this journey. Looking back, I now realize that the Sufi house had a real culture of meaning. The pillars were part of the architecture, and the presence of the pillars helped us all live more deeply.

最后，我離開家去讀大學，我的人生中少了蘇菲教徒每天的基礎(chǔ)練習，感覺像是船的纜繩被解開。我開始尋找有什么能讓我的人生值得活。就是這個原因讓我踩上這段旅程?，F(xiàn)在回頭看，我發(fā)現(xiàn)那間蘇菲房舍有著一種有意義的真實文化。那些支柱是建筑的一部份，而支柱的出現(xiàn)，讓我們都能過更有深度的生活。

 

Of course, the same principle applies in other strong communities as well -- good ones and bad ones. Gangs, cults: these are cultures of meaning that use the pillars and give people something to live and die for. But that's exactly why we as a society must offer better alternatives. We need to build these pillars within our families and our institutions to help people become their best selves. But living a meaningful life takes work. It's an ongoing process. As each day goes by, we're constantly creating our lives, adding to our story. And sometimes we can get off track.

當然，同樣的原則也適用于其他強大的社群──好的和壞的都包含在內(nèi)。幫派、邪教：這些也是有意義的文化，它們利用這些支柱，給予人們活著和犧牲的意義。但那就是為什么，我們身為一個社會，必須要提供更好的替代方案。我們需要在我們的家庭及習俗制度當中建立這些支柱，來協(xié)助人們變成最好的自己。但一定要花心力，才能讓人生過得有意義。它是一個持續(xù)的過程。隨著每一天過去，我們不斷地創(chuàng)造我們的人生，擴增我們的故事。有時，我們可能會誤入歧途。

 

Whenever that happens to me, I remember a powerful experience I had with my father. Several months after I graduated from college, my dad had a massive heart attack that should have killed him. He survived, and when I asked him what was going through his mind as he faced death, he said all he could think about was needing to live so he could be there for my brother and me, and this gave him the will to fight for life. When he went under anesthesia for emergency surgery, instead of counting backwards from 10, he repeated our names like a mantra. He wanted our names to be the last words he spoke on earth if he died.

每當我遇到這狀況時，我會想起我與父親的一段經(jīng)歷，很有影響力的經(jīng)歷。我從大學畢業(yè)后幾個月，我父親罹患了嚴重的心臟病，本來他應該性命難保。他活下來了，我問他，當他在面對死亡時，腦中想著的是什么，他說，他唯一能想的，就是必須活下來，這樣他才能陪伴我弟弟和我，這點讓他有意志力能拼命活下來。當他被麻醉準備接受緊急手術(shù)時，他做的不是從10開始倒數(shù)，他把我們的名字像祈禱文般地覆頌。如果他會死，他希望他在世上說的最后幾個字是我們的名字。

 

My dad is a carpenter and a Sufi. It's a humble life, but a good life. Lying there facing death, he had a reason to live: love. His sense of belonging within his family, his purpose as a dad, his transcendent meditation, repeating our names -- these, he says, are the reasons why he survived. That's the story he tells himself.

我的父親是個木匠也是個蘇菲教徒。他的人生是謙恭的人生，但很美好的人生。躺在那里，面對死亡，他有一個活下去的理由：愛。他在他的家庭中的歸屬感、他身為一名父親的目的、他超然的冥想，不斷覆頌我們的名字──他說，這些是他活下來的原因。那是他告訴他自己的故事。

 

That's the power of meaning. Happiness comes and goes. But when life is really good and when things are really bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.

那就是意義的力量?？鞓穪韥砣ト?。但當人生真的很美好時，當事情真的很糟糕時，若人生有意義，你就會有可以緊緊抓住的東西。

 

Thank you.

謝謝。