英语名篇诵读痛苦与成长（打印版）

Pain and Growth

痛苦与成长

Looking back over my life, it seems to me that I have learned the most when I felt the

greatest pain. The death of my dear ones, for example, made me more profoundly aware of the

beauty in nature. My capacity for finding joy in the most ordinary events (watching a flower open,

leaves turning red, a bird taking a bath)seems to deepen each time I live through great sorrow.

Death makes life more precious; frustration makes success more fulfilling , failure makes the

next accomplishment more meaningful.

In order to feel deeply it is necessary to feel everything. It is impossible to choose. You can't

really know how great is your sense of joy at a baby's birth or your satisfaction at succeeding at a

hard job unless you are also deeply aware of the anguish of separation and the pain of failure.

It's through the capacity to feel that we discover ourselves and others and explore the potential

for a full, significant life.

This is an especially crucial issue for parents. Our natural inclination is to try to protect

children from pain. We have the mistaken notion that if a child is happy we are doing a good job;

if a child is sad we are failing as parents. But giving children the message that happy is good and

sad is terrible decreases their capacity to explore the full range of human experiences.

Children need to understand that suffering, frustration and failure are not only inevitable but

helpful. The parents who took a simple puzzle away from a four-year old — because“he gets too

upset and frustrated when he can't get it right immediately” — did the child a great disservice .

Children need to experience such feelings as they grow up; it helps them to develop the patience,

persistence and ability to cope that they'll need when a scientific experiment fails, or a low grade is

received after diligent study. There is nothing so terrible about failing and feeling pain; what hurts

in the long run is not trying because of the fear of pain.

回顾人生，似乎当我感觉到最痛苦的时候学到的东西最多。比如说，亲人的逝去让我

更深刻地意识到大自然的美。我在最普通的事件中找到欢乐的能力（看一朵花开放，看叶

子变红，看鸟洗澡），似乎在每次经历巨大的痛苦之后都变得更强。死亡使得生命更加宝

贵；挫折使得成功更有成就感；失败使得下一次的成就更富有意义。

要感受得深，就有必要感受得多。选择是不可能的。深切体会到分娩的阵痛，才能真

正领悟新生命诞生的巨大喜悦；深切体会到失败的痛楚，才能真正领悟到完成一项艰巨工

作之后的满足。正是通过感受的能力，我们认识自己和别人，探索充实而有意义的生活的

可能性。

对于做父母的，这是特别重要的问题。我们的自然本能是保护孩子免受痛苦。我们有

一种错误的观念，认为如果孩子高兴，我们就做了件好事；如果孩子悲伤，我们当父母的

就失败了。但是给孩子传递快乐是好的、痛苦是可怕的这种信息，就降低了他们全面探索

人类体验的能力。

孩子们需要理解，痛苦、挫折和失败非但是不可避免的，而且非常有益。四岁孩子不

会玩简单的智力玩具，父母就把它拿开——因为担心“他一时做不好就会灰心丧气”，这无

疑是害了孩子。随着孩子们长大，他们需要体验这些难受失败的感觉；这些情感经历能培

养他们的耐心、毅力和能力。科学研究失败时，需要这些能力，勤奋学习了成绩还不好，

也需要这些能力。失败和痛苦没有什么可怕的，从长远看，真正伤人的是因为害怕痛苦而

放弃努力。