01 in life we are happiest when...

A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration.

一个男人和他的女朋友结婚，举行了一场盛大的结婚庆典。

All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake of the festivities and celebrations. All had a wonderful time.

所有的朋友和家人都来到结婚典礼上参加欢宴和庆祝活动。大家都过得很开心。

The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom¹ was very dashing in his black tuxedo². Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.

穿着白色婚纱的新娘漂亮迷人，穿着黑色礼服的新郎英俊潇洒。每个人都能看出他们彼此的爱是真诚的。

A few months later, the wife came to the husband with a proposal, "I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage," she offered. "Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together."

几个月后，妻子走近丈夫提议说：“我刚才在杂志上看到一篇文章，说的是怎样巩固婚姻。”她说：“我们两个人都各自把对方的小毛病列在一张纸上，然后我们商量一下怎样解决，以便使我们的生活更幸福。”

The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought about this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with.

丈夫同意了。于是他们各自走向不同的房间去想对方的缺点。那一天余下的时间里，他们都在思考这个问题，并且把他们想到的都写下来。

The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided³ that they would go over their lists.

第二天早上，吃早饭的时候，他们决定谈谈彼此的缺点。

"I'll start," offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it, enough to fill 3 pages. In fact, as she started reading the list of the little annoyances⁴, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husband's eyes.

“我先开始吧。”妻子说。她拿出她的单子，上面列举了很多条，事实上，足足写满了三页。当她开始念的时候，她注意到丈夫眼里含着泪花。

"What's wrong?" she asked. "Nothing," the husband replied, "keep reading your list."

“怎么啦?”她问。“没什么，”丈夫答道，“继续念吧。”

The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly⁵ placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it.

妻子又接着念。整整三页都念完之后她把单子整齐地放在桌上，两手交叉放在上面。

"Now, you read your list and then we'll talk about the things on both of our lists," she said happily.

“现在该你念了，然后我们谈谈所列举的缺点。”她高兴地说。

Quietly the husband stated, "I don't have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don't want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn't want to try and change anything about you."

丈夫平静地说：“我什么也没写，我觉得像你这样就很完美了，我不想让你为我改变什么。你很可爱迷人，我不想让你改变。”

The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.

妻子被丈夫的诚实和对她深深的爱和接纳感动了，她转过头去哭起来。

In life, there are enough times when we are disappointed, depressed⁶ and annoyed. We don't really have to go looking for them. We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light and promise. Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when we can look around us, and see the wondrous⁷ things before us?

生命中我们有很多的失望、沮丧和烦恼，我们根本不需要寻找。我们美妙的世界充满了美丽、光明、希望。但是，当我们放眼四周时，为什么浪费时间寻找不快、失望和烦恼，而看不到我们面前的美好事物呢？

1 groom   

vt.给（马、狗等）梳毛，照料，使...整洁

参考例句：

• His father was a groom.他父亲曾是个马夫。
• George was already being groomed for the top job.为承担这份高级工作，乔治已在接受专门的培训。

2 tuxedo   

n.礼服，无尾礼服

参考例句：

• Well,you have your own tuxedo.噢，你有自己的燕尾服。
• Have I told you how amazing you look in this tuxedo?我告诉过你穿这件燕尾服看起来很棒吗？

3 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

4 annoyances   

n.恼怒( annoyance的名词复数 )；烦恼；打扰；使人烦恼的事

参考例句：

• At dinner that evening two annoyances kept General Zaroff from perfect enjoyment one. 当天晚上吃饭时，有两件不称心的事令沙洛夫吃得不很香。 来自辞典例句
• Actually, I have a lot of these little annoyances-don't we all? 事实上我有很多类似的小烦恼，我们不都有这种小烦恼吗？ 来自互联网

5 neatly   

adv.整洁地，干净地，灵巧地，熟练地

参考例句：

• Sailors know how to wind up a long rope neatly.水手们知道怎样把一条大绳利落地缠好。
• The child's dress is neatly gathered at the neck.那孩子的衣服在领口处打着整齐的皱褶。

6 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

7 wondrous   

adj.令人惊奇的，奇妙的；adv.惊人地；异乎寻常地；令人惊叹地

参考例句：

• The internal structure of the Department is wondrous to behold.看一下国务院的内部结构是很有意思的。
• We were driven across this wondrous vast land of lakes and forests.我们乘车穿越这片有着湖泊及森林的广袤而神奇的土地。