TED | 怎样的人生更有意义？

 

演讲简介
在生活中我们是不能只有乏味和痛苦的，需要不断追求快乐，人生才有意思。但是这个世界似乎总是无法满足追求快乐的人，这是为什么？作家艾米丽·史密斯（Emily Smith）女士来到TED演讲，提出了几点建议，告诉大家怎样的人生才有意义。

 

 

 

 

演讲精彩片段（节选）欣赏

How can we each live more meaningfully? To find out, I spent five years interviewing hundreds of people and reading through thousands of pages of psychology, neuroscience and philosophy. Bringing it all together, I found that there are what I call four pillars of a meaningful life. And we can each create lives of meaning by building some or all of these pillars in our lives.

我们每个人要如何活得更有意义？为了找出答案，我花了五年时间，访谈了数百人，阅读了数千页的心理学、神经科学、及哲学。把这些汇整起来，我发现了一件事，我称之为「有意义的人生的四大支柱」。我们可以彼此相互建立起这些支柱，在彼此的人生中找到人生的意义。

 

The first pillar is belonging. Belonging comes from being in relationships where you're valued for who you are intrinsically and where you value others as well. But some groups and relationships deliver a cheap form of belonging; you're valued for what you believe, for who you hate, not for who you are. True belonging springs from love. It lives in moments among individuals, and it's a choice -- you can choose to cultivate belonging with others.

第一根支柱是归属感。归属感来自于一种关系，一种你与他人在本质上彼此是否处在相互珍惜的关系中。但有些群体或关系，提供的是廉价形式的归属感；你被重视的原因是因为你所相信的事物、你对人的好恶、而不是你的本质。真正的归属感源自于爱。它存在于个体间共处的时光当中，且它是一种选择──你可以选择与他人培养归属感。

 

For many people, belonging is the most essential source of meaning, those bonds to family and friends. For others, the key to meaning is the second pillar: purpose. Now, finding your purpose is not the same thing as finding that job that makes you happy. Purpose is less about what you want than about what you give. A hospital custodian told me her purpose is healing sick people. Many parents tell me, "My purpose is raising my children." The key to purpose is using your strengths to serve others. 

对很多人来说，归属感是人生意义的重要来源，就是与家人及朋友之间的联结。对其他人来说，第二根人生意义的支柱是目的。找到你的目的并不是指找到让你快乐的工作。目的的重点是你能给予什么，而不是你想要什么。一位医院管理员告诉我，她的目的是治愈生病的人。很多家长告诉我：「我的目的是扶养我的孩子。」目标的关键在于用你的力量去服务他人。

 

The third pillar of meaning is also about stepping beyond yourself, but in a completely different way: transcendence. Transcendent states are those rare moments when you're lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, your sense of self fades away, and you feel connected to a higher reality. For one person I talked to, transcendence came from seeing art. For another person, it was at church. 

第三根人生意义的支柱，也和走出自我有关，但用的方式完全不同：超然。超然的状态是很少见的时刻，在这个时刻中，你超脱了日常生活的喧嚣扰攘，自我感正在渐渐消褪，你会感觉到和更高的现实产生连结。跟我谈过的其中一个人说，超然来自于欣赏艺术。另一个人则认为，超然是在教堂中。

 

Belonging, purpose, transcendence. Now, the fourth pillar of meaning, I've found, tends to surprise people. The fourth pillar is storytelling, the story you tell yourself about yourself. Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you. But we don't always realize that we're the authors of our stories and can change the way we're telling them. Your life isn't just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you're constrained by the facts.

归属感、目的、超然。接着谈谈我发现的第四根支柱，它常会令人感到惊讶。第四根支柱就是说故事，你告诉你自己关于你自己的故事。用你人生中的事件来描述一个故事，能让你看得更清楚。它能协助你了解你是怎么变成你的。但我们通常没发现，我们故事的作者就是自己，且我们可以改变说故事的方式。你的生命并不只一连串的事件。即便你被事实给限制住，你仍可以编辑、诠释、再重新述说你的故事。