走进哈佛大学 第20期:幸福课

 Do you want to take time to stop andbreathe in this fast-paced and competitive world? If your answer is yes, youmay be interested in the “happiness course” at Harvard. The ^happiness course”or positive psychology¹ is now the most popular course at Harvard in recentyears. It adds to the Harvard spirit a new luminescent spot, that is, to live ahappy life.

在这个节奏很快、竞争很激烈的世界，你是否想停下来喘口气呢？如果你的回答是肯定的，你也许会对哈佛的“幸福课”感兴趣。“幸福课”，或积极心理学，是哈佛近几年最受欢迎的课。它给哈佛精神增添了一个新的亮点，就是“幸福地生活”。

In his class，BenShahar does notteach his students how to become successful. Instead, he teaches how to behappy in a simple way. In his first lecture, only 8 students came and two leftmidway. Then 400 came to his second lecture, and 850 to the third. By now, atleast one fifth of Harvard College’s undergraduate populations of about 6,500are in this class.

在本-沙哈尔的课上，他会深入浅出地教学生如何幸福，而不是教学生如何成功。第一节课，只有8个学生来上课，还有两个中途就走了。第二节有400名学生，第三节有850名学生。到现在，至少有1/5的哈佛本科生，也就是6500名学生选这门课。

It is an astonishing scene in thehard-driving academic atmosphere of Harvard. Most students see it as a braincandy. Ben argues that if the course seems easy, it is because it holds suchgreat relevance² to students5 own lives. “Most things we find interesting, wealso find easy,” he said.

这在学术气氛很浓的哈佛里面算是令人惊讶的一幕。很多学生觉得这门课很简单，像饭后甜点。本说这门课简单是因为它和学生的生活密切相关。他说，“很多我们认为有意思的东西，也是我们觉得简单的东西。”

Indeed, being happy is closely related toeveryone’s life. People can put up with being poor, but few can bearunhappiness. Nowadays, in particular, people feel a lot of pressure, and manyfeel unhappy even if they are successful. At Harvard, many students havepsychological problems, such as severe anxiety, emotional disturbance³, anddepression. This problem is not only nagging⁴ Harvard, but the whole United States.Compared to the 1960s, now people are richer and richer, but the frequency rateof depression is 10 times higher. The age of onset⁵ has dropped from 29.5 yearsold in the 1960s to 14.5 today. According to a research conducted by HarvardUniversity, 80% of Harvard students feel at least very dismayed and depressedonce each year, 47% feel too dejected to do anything, and 10% confess that theyhave thought about killing⁶ themselves.

确实，幸福和每个人的生活紧密相连。人们可以忍受贫穷，但几乎没人可以受得了不幸福。尤其现在人们感到了很多压力，很多人即使成功了也感到不幸福。在哈佛，很多学生都有心理问题，比如过度焦虑、情绪紊乱、抑郁。这个问题并不是仅仅困扰哈佛，也困扰了整个美国。和20世纪60年代相比，现在人们越来越富裕了，但抑郁症的患病率却髙出10倍，发病率也从20世纪60年代的29.5岁下降到今天的14.5岁。哈佛大学的一项调査研究显示，每年有80%的学生至少有过一次感到非常沮丧、消沉；47%的学生感到因为太沮丧而无法正常做事；10%的学生称他们曾经考虑过自杀。

What causes this phenomenon? If you arelooking for answers, you can go to BenShahar5s class. He will teach you how tolead a better life. Here are some tips from Ben-Shahar: expressing gratitude;thinking about your family and friends; simplifying your life; learning to sayno to something; finding what you enjoy most and what you are good at; givingup perfectionism and learning to “fail to do something”.

是什么造成了这种现象？如果你在寻找答案，你可以去听听本-沙哈尔的课。他会教你如何更好生活。下面是本-沙哈尔给出的一些提示：表达感激：想想你的家人和朋友；简化生活；学会说不；找到自己喜欢和擅长的东西：放弃完美主义，“学会失败”。

1 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

2 relevance   

n.中肯，适当，关联，相关性

参考例句：

• Politicians' private lives have no relevance to their public roles.政治家的私生活与他们的公众角色不相关。
• Her ideas have lost all relevance to the modern world.她的想法与现代社会完全脱节。

3 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。

4 nagging   

adj.唠叨的，挑剔的；使人不得安宁的v.不断地挑剔或批评（某人）( nag的现在分词 )；不断地烦扰或伤害（某人）；无休止地抱怨；不断指责

参考例句：

• Stop nagging—I'll do it as soon as I can. 别唠叨了—我会尽快做的。
• I've got a nagging pain in my lower back. 我后背下方老是疼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 onset   

n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始

参考例句：

• The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
• Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。

6 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。