What is Happiness and How to Achieve It?

What is Happiness and How to Achieve It?

True?happiness?is such a rare commodity that the whole of the world is continuously seeking it and failing to find it. All the people, who we consider to be the best in their fields, are seeking it too and failing to acquire it. The most brilliant of the scientists, the most gifted of artists, the most talented of poets and authors, the wealthiest businessmen, the most powerful rulers, the greatest achievers in any field - all of them have been striving for it all their lives and failed to have it. Why is?happiness?such an elusive thing? Is it that it cannot simply be achieved? Or is it that it is not where all of us have been looking for it?

真正的幸福是一種稀有的商品，全世界的人都在不斷地尋找它，卻總是找不到。所有我們認為在各自領域里最好的人，也都在尋求它，但都未能獲得它。最杰出的科學家、最有天賦的藝術家、最有才華的詩人和作家、最富有的商人、最強大的統(tǒng)治者、任何領域最偉大的成功者——所有這些人都為之奮斗了一輩子，但都沒有成功。為什么幸福如此難以捉摸?是它不能簡單地實現(xiàn)嗎?或者它不在我們所有人一直在尋找的地方?

If you pause to give it a thought it is very easy to see that somehow we have all been missing the point. It is either that we have all been looking for?happiness?at the wrong places or that it is simply not possible to achieve happiness. The answer is not very easy. But it is obvious that if the whole of the humanity has been trying to find something throughout the history and failing to acquire it then something must be very wrong about the concept we have of happiness.

如果你停下來想一想，很容易就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，不知怎么的，我們都沒有抓住重點。要么是我們都在錯誤的地方尋找幸福，要么就是根本不可能獲得幸福。答案并不容易。但很明顯，如果整個人類在歷史上都在試圖尋找某種東西，卻未能獲得它，那么我們所擁有的幸福概念一定有錯誤的地方。

Let us try to delve a bit deeper. What is it that we consider happiness? This is how I see it:

Happiness?is what you feel when what you want to happen happens.

And if this definition of happiness is correct then we can conclude that unhappiness is what we feel when what we want to happen does not happen.

These definitions look obvious enough but for the most of the people they are not. At least not so clearly defined in their minds. It would therefore be better if we stop to ponder over these definitions.

How can we achieve happiness?

讓我們再深入研究一下。我們認為幸福是什么?以下是我的看法:

幸福是當你想要發(fā)生的事情發(fā)生時的感覺。

如果這個幸福的定義是正確的，那么我們可以得出這樣的結論:不幸福就是當我們想要發(fā)生的事情沒有發(fā)生時，我們的感覺。

這些定義看起來很明顯，但對大多數(shù)人來說并非如此。至少在他們的頭腦中沒有這么明確的定義。因此，我們最好停止思考這些定義。

我們怎樣才能獲得幸福?

We must realize that for most of the problems, the solutions are often simple and obvious enough if one understands the problem clearly. Even more surprising is the fact that the solutions mostly lie in the problem itself. It is true in the case of happiness too.

我們必須認識到，對于大多數(shù)問題，只要我們清楚地了解問題，解決辦法往往是簡單而明顯的。更令人驚訝的是，解決問題的方法主要在于問題本身。對于幸福來說也是如此

Let us consider the above definition carefully. The main keyword in the definition is "want". The whole trouble starts when we want something. Every moment of our lives we keep on wanting something or the other. If we could make a list of all the things we want in our lives since childhood to?death, including trivial as well as very important, all the paper in the world perhaps would not be enough for this purpose. Only a small percentage of all our wishes is fulfilled in spite of all our endeavours. The percentage of wishes, which remain unfulfilled, keeps on growing with time. As a result, as we grow older, we become more and more unhappy. We grow tired of life. The blessings, which our lives and the whole existence keep showering upon us, gradually lose their charm. The frustration, of failing to fulfill most of our wishes, sets in. We start feeling weighed down. The feeling that the whole life is somehow conspiring to keep us unhappy grows. Life becomes full of miseries. We keep stumbling from one failure to another.

讓我們仔細考慮一下上面的定義。定義中的主要關鍵字是“想要”。當我們想要什么東西的時候，麻煩就開始了。在我們的生活中，每時每刻我們都在不停地想要得到一些東西。如果我們可以列出所有我們想要的東西在我們的生活從童年到死亡，包括瑣碎的和非常重要的，世界上沒有什么可以達到這個目的。盡管我們竭盡全力，但我們所有的愿望只有一小部分實現(xiàn)了。未被實現(xiàn)的愿望的比例隨著時間不斷增長。結果，隨著年齡的增長，我們變得越來越不快樂。我們對生活感到厭倦。我們的生活和整個存在不斷灑落在我們身上的祝福，逐漸失去了它們的魅力。無法實現(xiàn)大多數(shù)愿望的挫敗感油然而生。我們開始感到沉重。一種感覺是，我們的整個生活不知怎么地讓我們不快樂。生活變得充滿了痛苦。我們不斷從一個失敗跌倒另一個失敗當中。

The solution, then is very obvious. We must explore the possibility of a life of no desires or minimum desires. Desire is a seed which grows fruits of unhappiness. Actually the trouble is that we demand too much. We keep on demanding incessantly. It seems that we do nothing else but keep producing desires and then keep struggling to fulfill them. The only solution to this problem is to break out of this cycle of desires and struggles. If one does not desire anything, he has no chance of getting unhappy due to failure in fulfilling his desire.

解決辦法是很明顯的。我們必須探索無欲望或最低欲望生活的可能性。欲望是一顆種子，它能結出不幸的果實。事實上問題是我們的要求太多了。我們不斷地要求。似乎我們除了不斷地制造欲望，然后不斷地努力去滿足它們之外，什么也沒做。解決這個問題的唯一辦法就是打破這種欲望和斗爭的循環(huán)。如果一個人沒有欲望，他就不會因為沒有實現(xiàn)他的欲望而不快樂。

One may argue that a life of no desires will be bereft of pleasures. That it will become colourless and dull. But this premise is not true.

有人可能會說，沒有欲望的生活將失去樂趣。它會變得無色無味。但這個前提不成立。