精美生活哲理英文.pdf

Eating the Cookie 生活的真谛 一个人拥有的东西再多，也多不过其没有得到的。所以，如果你的快乐建立在无限拥有 的基础上，那它就太脆弱了。为了不断索取，你会劳碌一生，忧虑一生，根本顾不上快 乐。相反，如果你对自己已经拥有的东西知足，快乐就会像阳光一样将你的日子照亮。 One of my patients, a successful businessman, tells me that before his cancer he would become depressed unless things went a certain way. Happiness was having the cookie. If you had the cookie, things were good. If you didnt have the cookie, life wasnt worth a damn. Unfortunately, the cookie kept changing. Some of the time it was money, sometimes power, sometimes sex. At other times, it was the new car, the biggest contract, the most prestigious address. A year and a half after his diagnosis of prostate cancer he sits shaking his head ruefully. Its like I stopped learning how to live after I was a kid. When I give my son a cookie, he is happy. If I take the cookie away or it breaks, he is unhappy. But he is two and a half and I am forty-three. Its taken me this long to understand that the cookie will never make me happy for long. The minute you have the cookie it starts to crumble or you start to worry about it crumbling or about someone trying to take it away from you. You know, you have to give up a lot of things to take care of the cookie, to keep it from crumbling and be sure that no one takes it away from you. You may not even get a chance to eat it because you are so busy just trying not to lose it. Having the cookie is not what life is about. My patient laughs and says cancer has changed him. For the first time he is happy. No matter if his business is doing well or not, no matter if he wins or loses at golf. Two years ago, cancer asked me, Okay, whats important? What is really important? Well, life is important. Life. Life any way you can have it, life with the cookie, life without the cookie. Happiness does not have anything t