英语美文朗读 第360期 Being Happy Or Having Meaning In Life(下)
第三根人生意义的支柱，也和走出自我有关，但用的方式完全不同：超然。超然的状态是很少见的时刻，在这个时刻中，你超脱了日常生活的喧嚣扰攘，自我感正在渐渐消褪，你会感觉到和更高的现实产生连结。跟我谈过的其中一个人说，超然来自于欣赏艺术。另一个人则认为，超然是在教堂中。对我来说，我是作家，而超然是透过写作发生的。有时候我太投入会有一种忘我的境界。这些超然的经验能改变你。有一项研究是让学生去看200英呎高的尤加利树，看一分钟，之后他们会比较不自我中心，若给他们机会去帮助别人，他们连行为都会变得更慷慨。
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.
归属感、目的、超然。接着谈谈我发现的第四根支柱，它常会令人感到惊讶。第四根支柱就是说故事，你告诉你自己关于你自己的故事。用你人生中的事件来创造一个故事，能让你看得更清楚。它能协助你了解你是怎么变成你的。但我们通常没发现，我们故事的作者就是自己，且我们可以改变说故事的方式。你的生命并不只一连串的事件。即便你被事实给限制住，你仍可以编辑、诠释、再重新述说你的故事。
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轻人，他因为打美式足球而瘫痪。埃梅卡在受伤后，内心的对话是这样的：「我打美式足球的人生是非常棒的，但看看现在的我。」像这样说故事的人──「我的人生曾经很棒，现在却很糟。」──说这种故事的人比较容易焦虑和沮丧。埃梅卡有好一阵子就是这样。但随时间过去，他开始编造一个不同的故事。他的新故事是：「在我受伤前，我的人生没有目的。我常去派对，且我是个很自私的人。但受伤让我明白，我可以成为更好的人。」埃梅卡把他的故事进行改造，从而改变了他的一生。在对自己说完这个新故事之后，埃梅卡开始开导孩童，他找到了他的目的：服务他人。心理学家丹麦亚当斯称这现象为「救赎的故事」，用好的来救赎不好的。他发现，过着有意义人生的人，他们说的故事内容通常都是他们的人生由救赎、成长、爱来定义。
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，是什么让人们改变了他们的故事？有些人向治疗师寻求协助，但你也可以靠自己做到，只要完整地反思你的人生、你的关键经验如何造就了你、你失去了什么、获得了什么。那就是埃梅卡所做的。你不可能一夜就改变你的故事；过程可能要花好几年，且很痛苦。毕竟，我们都曾受过苦，也都在挣扎。但拥抱那些痛苦的记忆，能带来新的洞见与智慧，让你能找到那支撑着你的「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.
归属感、目的、超然、说故事；这些就是意义的四大支柱。在我小时候，我很幸运能够被这四根支柱给围绕着。我父母在蒙特娄的家附近开一间苏菲派的聚会所。苏菲教派是一种和旋转苦行僧及诗人鲁米有关的灵修。每周两次，苏菲教徒会到我们家里，来冥想、喝波斯茶、分享故事。他们的修行也涉及了要透过爱的小举动，来为万物服务，也就是说，即使别人冤枉你，也要仁慈以对。但那给了他们一个目的：去驾驭自我。
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，我离开家去读大学，我的人生中少了苏菲教徒每天的基础练习，感觉像是船的缆绳被解开。我开始寻找有什么能让我的人生值得活。就是这个原因让我踩上这段旅程。现在回头看，我发现那间苏菲房舍有着一种有意义的真实文化。那些支柱是建筑的一部份，而支柱的出现，让我们都能过更有深度的生活。
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.
当然，同样的原则也适用于其他强大的社群──好的和坏的都包含在内。帮派、邪教：这些也是有意义的文化，它们利用这些支柱，给予人们活着和牺牲的意义。但那就是为什么，我们身为一个社会，必须要提供更好的替代方案。我们需要在我们的家庭及习俗制度当中建立这些支柱，来协助人们变成最好的自己。但一定要花心力，才能让人生过得有意义。它是一个持续的过程。随着每一天过去，我们不断地创造我们的人生，扩增我们的故事。有时，我们可能会误入歧途。
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.
每当我遇到这状况时，我会想起我与父亲的一段经历，很有影响力的经历。我从大学毕业后几个月，我父亲罹患了严重的心脏病，本来他应该性命难保。他活下来了，我问他，当他在面对死亡时，脑中想着的是什么，他说，他唯一能想的，就是必须活下来，这样他才能陪伴我弟弟和我，这点让他有意志力能拼命活下来。当他被麻醉准备接受紧急手术时，他做的不是从10开始倒数，他把我们的名字像祈祷文般地覆颂。如果他会死，他希望他在世上说的最后几个字是我们的名字。
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.
我的父亲是个木匠也是个苏菲教徒。他的人生是谦恭的人生，但很美好的人生。躺在那里，面对死亡，他有一个活下去的理由：爱。他在他的家庭中的归属感、他身为一名父亲的目的、他超然的冥想，不断覆颂我们的名字──他说，这些是他活下来的原因。那是他告诉他自己的故事。
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.
那就是意义的力量。快乐来来去去。但当人生真的很美好时，当事情真的很糟糕时，若人生有意义，你就会有可以紧紧抓住的东西。
Thank you.
谢谢。
