The Road to Happiness
If you look around at the men and women whom you can cll happy,you will see that they all have certain things in common. The most important of these things is an activity which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence. Women who take an instinctive pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekens to voluntary and unremunerated toil in their gardens, and when the spring comes ,they experience all the joys of having created beauty..
The whole subject of happiness has , in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion.Perhaps those who have seen rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recovery, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill.But when things are normal a man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that really matter. If a man delights in his wife and children,has success in work,and finds pleasure in the alternation of day and night,spring and autumn,he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be. If, on the other hand ,he finds his wife fateful, his children’s noise unendurable, and the office a nightmare; if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen------------a different diet, or more exercise, or what not
Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced,would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.
通往幸福的路(罗素)
如果观察一下周围那些你可称之为幸福的男男女女,你就会发现他们都具有某些共同之处.其中最为重要的就是投身于一种活动,最终这种活动满满的构建起某些 你乐见其成的事物。生性喜爱孩子的妇女能够从抚养子女中获得这种满足感。艺术 家、作家 和科学家 如果对自己的工作感到满意，也能以同样的方式得到快乐。不过，还有很多是较低层次的快乐。许多在城里工作的人到了周末自愿地在自家的庭院里无偿地劳动，春天来时，他们就可尽情享受自己创造的美景所带来的快乐.
在我看来,关于幸福的整个论题向来都被弄得过于严肃了.人们过去一直认为,没有生活理论或者宗教信仰，人就不可能幸福。也许，那些因不好的生活理论 而郁郁寡欢的人们需要一种更好的理念帮助他们重新快活起来，正如你生病之后需要服用补药一样。但是，正常情况下，一个人无需补药也会身体健康，没有理论也能生活幸福。真正重要的倒是一些简单的事情。如果一个人家庭和睦，事业有成，并且从昼夜交替和春秋轮回中也得获得快乐，那么不管他的人生哲学如何，他都会感到幸福。相反，如果他厌恶自己的妻子，觉得孩子们的吵闹难以忍受，工作如同噩梦，如果他白天盼望夜晚，而到了晚上又期待着天明，那么，他所需要的就不是新的人生哲学，而是一种新养生之道????改变饮食习惯，多多锻炼，诸如此类。
人是一种动物，他的幸福更多地取决于其生理状况而非思想 状况。这是一种庸俗的结论，然而我无法使自己质疑它。我确信，不幸福的商人与其想方设法改变人生哲学来使自己幸福，还不如每天步行六英里更有效果。 |
