Happiness is a Simple Thing

其实快乐很简单

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.

只要你观察一下周围那些你可称之为幸福的男男女女，就会看出他们都有某些共同之处。在这些共同之处中有一点是最重要的：那就是活动本身，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 instinctive 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. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure.

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。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 toil in their gardens, and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty.

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，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. 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.

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。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。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，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. It is the simple things that really matter.

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。真正有关系的是一些简单的事情。