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  3. There are a great many people who have all the material conditions of happiness, i. e. health and a sufficient income, and who,

There are a great many people who have all the material conditions of happiness, i. e. health and a sufficient income, and who,

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问题    There are a great many people who have all the material conditions of happiness, i. e. health and a sufficient income, and who, nevertheless, are profoundly unhappy. In such cases it would seem as if the fault must lie with a wrong theory as to how to live. In one sense, we may say that any theory as to how to live is wrong. We imagine ourselves more different from the animals than we are. Animals live on impulse, and are happy as long as external conditions are favorable. If you have a cat it will enjoy life if it has food and warmth and opportunities for an occasional night on the tiles. Your needs are more complex than those of your cat, but they still have their basis in instinct. In civilized societies, especially in English-speaking societies, this is too apt to be forgotten. People propose to themselves some one paramount objective, and restrain all impulses that do not minister to it. A businessman may be so anxious to grow rich that to this end he sacrifices health and private affections. When at last he has become rich, no pleasure remains to him except harrying other people by exhortations to imitate his noble example. Many rich ladies, although nature has not endowed them with any spontaneous pleasure in literature or art, decide to be thought cultured, and spend boring hours learning the right thing to say about fashionable new books that are written to give delight, not to afford opportunities for dusty snobbism.
   If you look around at the men and women whom you can call 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 weekends 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 been 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.
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答案 很多人都具备获得幸福的所有物质条件，即健康的身体和充足的收入，然而他们却深感痛苦。就这种情况来说，问题应该是出在错误的生活理论上。从某种意义上讲，我们可以说任何关于如何生活的理论都是错误的。我们与动物之间的区别并没有我们想象中的那么大。动物是凭本能生活，只要外部条件优越，它们就会感到幸福。如果你养了一只猫，只要有吃有喝，身体暖和，夜晚偶有机会外出寻欢，它就会享受生活。你的需求比你所养的猫要复杂些，不过它们依然是基于你的本能。在文明社会，尤其是讲英语的社会，人们很容易忘记这一点。他们给自己定下一个至高无上的目标，然后克制一切不利于实现这一目标的冲动。急于发财致富的商人为达目的可能牺牲自己的健康和爱情。而当他终有一日发了财时，除了喋喋不休劝告他人效仿他这个好榜样外，他已再无其他快乐。许多贵妇人，尽管上天并没有赋予她们任何文学和艺术方面的自然灵感，但她们却决意要被人视作文雅之人，于是她们花费大量时间，在索然无味中学习如何恰当评论那些流行的新书。然而，这些书的创作本意是给人快乐，可不是为了给她们提供附庸风雅的机会。 倘若你环顾四周，看看周围那些称得上幸福的男男女女，你就会发现他们都有某些共同之处。其中最重要的一点是，他们乐于通过自己不断地累积完善而把某件事变成现实。本能上将快乐建立在孩子身上的女人能够从抚养子女中得到满足。同样的，如果觉得自己的作品不错，艺术家、作家和科学家也会感到快乐。然而，这样的快乐还有很多更为普遍的形式，比如许多在城里工作的人到了周末愿意在自家的庭院里做无偿劳动，待春天降临，他们便能尽情享受因创造美好而收获的快乐。 在我看来，人们对待关于幸福话题的态度一直以来都过于严肃。过去人们认为，如果没有一种生活理论或宗教信仰，人是不可能幸福的。也许那些因糟糕的生活理论而郁郁寡欢的人需要一种更好的理论帮助他们重新快乐起来，正如生病后需要吃药一样。但当一切正常时，人们不用滋补也应当是健康的，没有理论也应当是幸福的。真正重要的其实是一些简单的事情。一个男人家庭和睦、事业有成，且不论白天黑夜、春去秋来都能感到快乐，那么不管他信奉怎样的人生哲学，他都会感到幸福。相反，如果他厌恶自己的妻子、受不了孩子们的吵闹、视工作如噩梦，如果他白天盼望黑夜，到了晚上又巴望着天明，那么他需要的不是一种新的人生哲学，而是一种新的生活方式——改变饮食习惯、多多锻炼，诸如此类。
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