It is a commonplace among moralists that you cannot get happiness by pursuing it. This is only true if you pursue it unwisely. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money, and most of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money, which often succeed. So it is with happiness. If you pursue it by means of drink, you are forgetting the hangover. Epicurus pursued it by living only in congenial society and eating only dry bread, supplemented by a little cheese on feast days. His method proved successful in his case, but he was a valetudinarian, and most people would need something more vigorous. For most people, the pursuit of happiness, unless supplemented in various ways, is too abstract and theoretical to be adequate as a personal rule of life. But I think that whatever personal rule of life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be incompatible with happiness. 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 recover, 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. Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.
道德家們常說:你不能幸?？孔非笫堑貌坏降?。這僅僅是真實(shí)的如果你不明智地追求它。蒙特卡洛城的賭徒們追求金錢,但多數(shù)人卻把錢輸?shù)袅?但還有其他一些追求金錢的辦法卻常常成功。幸福也是如此。如果你追求它通過喝酒,你忘記了宿醉。伊壁鳩魯追求它的辦法是只和社會(huì),只吃不涂黃油的面包,節(jié)日才加一點(diǎn)奶酪。他的方法對他來說是成功的,但他是一個(gè)體弱多病的人,而多數(shù)人需要的是精力充沛。對大多數(shù)人來說,追求幸福的權(quán)利,除非你有別的補(bǔ)充辦法,過于抽象和脫離實(shí)際,不宜作為個(gè)人的生活準(zhǔn)則。但是我覺得無論你選擇什么樣的生活準(zhǔn)則,它不應(yīng)該,除了那些罕見的和英雄人物的例子外,是和幸福相容的。如果你看看男人和女人誰你可以叫快樂,你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他們都有某些共同之處。
其中最重要的事情是一個(gè)活動(dòng)最多逐步建立你很高興看到進(jìn)入存在。女性天生的快樂在孩子能得到這種滿足撫養(yǎng)一個(gè)家庭。藝術(shù)家和作家和科學(xué)得到幸福的人以這種方式如果自己的工作看起來不錯(cuò)。但是有很多普通形式的同樣的快樂。許多人度過他們的工作生活在城市里把自己的周末自愿和報(bào)酬在花園勞作,當(dāng)春天來臨的時(shí)候,他們體驗(yàn)享受自己創(chuàng)造的美景帶來的快樂。幸福的話題,在我看來,都被太嚴(yán)肅的對待過了。
以前一直認(rèn)為男人不能沒有快樂生活的理論或者宗教?；蛟S那些壞理論才導(dǎo)致不快樂的人需要一個(gè)更好的理論來幫助他們恢復(fù),正如你可能需要滋補(bǔ)當(dāng)你生病了。但當(dāng)事情是正常的一個(gè)人的健康應(yīng)該沒有主音和快樂沒有理論。這是簡單的事情。如果一個(gè)人喜歡他的妻子和孩子,在工作成功,并找到樂趣在日夜的交替,春天和秋天,他將快樂無論他的哲學(xué)。如果,另一方面,他發(fā)現(xiàn)他的妻子的,他受不了孩子們的吵鬧,和辦公室的一場噩夢;如果他白天盼望夜晚,而晚上的嘆了口氣,然后他需要的不是一個(gè)新的哲學(xué),但一個(gè)新的方案,不同的飲食,或更多的鍛煉,或不。人是動(dòng)物,他的幸福取決于他的生理超過他喜歡思考。這是一個(gè)卑微的結(jié)論,然而我無法使自己懷疑它。我確信,不幸福的商人,會(huì)增加他們的幸福,還不如每天步行六英里可能改變的哲學(xué)。
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 recover, 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. Man is an animal, and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a humble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.
道德家們常說:你不能幸?？孔非笫堑貌坏降?。這僅僅是真實(shí)的如果你不明智地追求它。蒙特卡洛城的賭徒們追求金錢,但多數(shù)人卻把錢輸?shù)袅?但還有其他一些追求金錢的辦法卻常常成功。幸福也是如此。如果你追求它通過喝酒,你忘記了宿醉。伊壁鳩魯追求它的辦法是只和社會(huì),只吃不涂黃油的面包,節(jié)日才加一點(diǎn)奶酪。他的方法對他來說是成功的,但他是一個(gè)體弱多病的人,而多數(shù)人需要的是精力充沛。對大多數(shù)人來說,追求幸福的權(quán)利,除非你有別的補(bǔ)充辦法,過于抽象和脫離實(shí)際,不宜作為個(gè)人的生活準(zhǔn)則。但是我覺得無論你選擇什么樣的生活準(zhǔn)則,它不應(yīng)該,除了那些罕見的和英雄人物的例子外,是和幸福相容的。如果你看看男人和女人誰你可以叫快樂,你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)他們都有某些共同之處。
其中最重要的事情是一個(gè)活動(dòng)最多逐步建立你很高興看到進(jìn)入存在。女性天生的快樂在孩子能得到這種滿足撫養(yǎng)一個(gè)家庭。藝術(shù)家和作家和科學(xué)得到幸福的人以這種方式如果自己的工作看起來不錯(cuò)。但是有很多普通形式的同樣的快樂。許多人度過他們的工作生活在城市里把自己的周末自愿和報(bào)酬在花園勞作,當(dāng)春天來臨的時(shí)候,他們體驗(yàn)享受自己創(chuàng)造的美景帶來的快樂。幸福的話題,在我看來,都被太嚴(yán)肅的對待過了。
以前一直認(rèn)為男人不能沒有快樂生活的理論或者宗教?；蛟S那些壞理論才導(dǎo)致不快樂的人需要一個(gè)更好的理論來幫助他們恢復(fù),正如你可能需要滋補(bǔ)當(dāng)你生病了。但當(dāng)事情是正常的一個(gè)人的健康應(yīng)該沒有主音和快樂沒有理論。這是簡單的事情。如果一個(gè)人喜歡他的妻子和孩子,在工作成功,并找到樂趣在日夜的交替,春天和秋天,他將快樂無論他的哲學(xué)。如果,另一方面,他發(fā)現(xiàn)他的妻子的,他受不了孩子們的吵鬧,和辦公室的一場噩夢;如果他白天盼望夜晚,而晚上的嘆了口氣,然后他需要的不是一個(gè)新的哲學(xué),但一個(gè)新的方案,不同的飲食,或更多的鍛煉,或不。人是動(dòng)物,他的幸福取決于他的生理超過他喜歡思考。這是一個(gè)卑微的結(jié)論,然而我無法使自己懷疑它。我確信,不幸福的商人,會(huì)增加他們的幸福,還不如每天步行六英里可能改變的哲學(xué)。