英语小达人 441 The Road to Happiness

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If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy,  只要你观察一下周围那些你可称之为幸福的男男女女，

you will see that they all have certain things in common.  就会看出他们都有某些共同之处。

The most important of these things is an activity  在这些共同之处中有一点是最重要的：那就是活动本身，

which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence.  它在大多数情况下本身就很有趣，而且可逐渐的使你的愿望得以实现。

Women who take an instinctive¹ pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family.  生性喜爱孩子的妇女，能够从抚养子女中得到这种满足。

Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them.  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。

But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure.  不过，还有很多是较低层次的快乐。

Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekends to voluntary and unremunerated toil³ in their gardens,  许多在城里工作的人到了周末自愿地在自家的庭院里做无偿的劳动，

and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty. 春天来时，他们就可尽情享受自己创造的美景带来的快乐。

The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly.  在我看来，整个关于快乐的话题一向都被太严肃的对待过了。

It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion.  过去一直有这样的看法：如果没有一种生活的理论或者宗教信仰，人是不可能幸福的。

Perhaps those who have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recovery,  也许那些由于理论不好才导致不快乐的人需要一种较好的理论帮助他们重新快活起来，

just as you may need a tonic⁴ when you have been ill.  就像你生过病需要吃补药一样。

But when things are normal a man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory.  但是，正常情况下，一个人不吃补药也应当是健康的；没有理论也应当是幸福的。

It is the simple things that really matter.  真正有关系的是一些简单的事情。

If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work,  如果一个男人喜爱他的妻子儿女，事业有成，

and finds pleasure in the alternation⁵ of day and night, spring and autumn,  而且无论白天黑夜，春去秋来，总是感到高兴，

he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be.  那么不管他的理论如何，都会是快乐的。

If, on the other hand, he finds his wife fateful, his children's noise unendurable, and the office a nightmare;  反之，如果他讨厌自己的妻子，受不了孩子们的吵闹，而且害怕上班；

if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night sighs for the light of day,  如果他白天盼望夜晚，而到了晚上又巴望着天明，

then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen —  那么，他所需要的就不是一种新的理论，而是一种新的生活——

a different diet, or more exercise, or what not. 改变饮食习惯，多锻炼身体等等。

Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology⁶ more than he likes to think.  人是动物，他的幸福更多的时候取决于其生理状况而非思想状况。

This is a humble² conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it.  这是一个很庸俗的结论，然而我无法使自己怀疑它。

Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy. 我确信，不幸福的商人与其找到新的理论来使自己幸福，还不如每天步行六英里更见效。

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