I used to think the whole purpose of life was pursuing happiness. Everyone said the path to happiness was success, so I searched for that ideal job, that perfect boyfriend, that beautiful apartment. But instead of ever feeling fulfilled, I felt anxious and adrift. And I wasn’t alone; my friends -- they struggled with this, too.

我以前认为人生的目标就是追求快乐。人人都说，成功是通往快乐的路，所以我去寻找理想的工作、完美的男友、漂亮的公寓。但我没有感到圆满，反而觉得焦虑跟漫无目的。且不只有我这样;我的朋友们──他们也有这种困扰。

Eventually, I decided to go to graduate school for positive psychology to learn what truly makes people happy. But what I discovered there changed my life. The data showed that chasing happiness can make people unhappy. And what really struck me was this: the suicide rate has been rising around the world, and it recently reached a 30-year high in America. Even though life is getting objectively better by nearly every conceivable standard, more people feel hopeless, depressed and alone. There s an emptiness gnawing away at people, and you don t have to be clinically depressed to feel it. Sooner or later, I think we all wonder: Is this all there is? And according to the research, what predicts this despair is not a lack of happiness. It s a lack of something else, a lack of having meaning in life.

我最后决定去研究所读正向心理学，去找出什么能让人开心。但我在那儿的发现，改变了我的人生。资料显示，追求快乐会让人不快乐。真正让我震惊的是这点：全球的自杀率不断攀升，最近在美国达到三十年来的新高。虽然客观来说，生活变好了，从每个能想到的标准来看皆是如此，却有更多人感到无助、沮丧及孤独。有一种空虚感在侵蚀人们，并不需被临床诊断出沮丧也能感觉到这个现象。我想，迟早我们都会想要知道：难道就只有这样而已吗?根据研究，绝望的原因并不是缺乏快乐，而是缺乏某样东西，是缺乏人生意义。

But that raised some questions for me. Is there more to life than being happy? And what s the difference between being happy and having meaning in life? Many psychologists define happiness as a state of comfort and ease, feeling good in the moment. Meaning, though, is deeper. The renowned psychologist Martin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you. Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the more fulfilling path. And the studies show that people who have meaning in life, they re more resilient, they do better in school and at work, and they even live longer.

但这就让我产生了一些问题。难道人生不只是要快乐吗?活得快乐和活得有意义之间有什么差别?许多心理学家把快乐定义为一种舒服自在的状态，在当下感觉很好，而意义则更深。知名心理学家马丁赛里格曼说，意义来自归属感、致力于超越自我之外的事物，以及从内在发展出最好的自己。我们的文化对「快乐」相当痴迷，但我发现，寻找意义才是更让人满足的道路。且研究指出，有人生意义的人适应力也会比较强，他们在学校及职场的表现较佳，他们甚至活得比较久。

So this all made me wonder: 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.

所以这一切让我开始想，我们每个人要如何活得有意义?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「人生意义的四大支柱」。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。

Here s an example. Each morning, my friend Jonathan buys a newspaper from the same street vendor in New York. They don t just conduct a transaction, though. They take a moment to slow down, talk, and treat each other like humans. But one time, Jonathan didn t have the right change, and the vendor said,  Don t worry about it.  But Jonathan insisted on paying, so he went to the store and bought something he didn t need to make change. But when he gave the money to the vendor, the vendor drew back. He was hurt. He was trying to do something kind, but Jonathan had rejected him.

举例来说，每天早晨，我在纽约的朋友强纳森都会向同一个街头小贩买一份报纸。不过，他们并不是只有交易的关系。他们会停下来，花点时间说说话，把彼此当朋友对待。但有一次，强纳森的零钱不够，小贩说：「没关系不用了啦。」但强纳森坚持要付钱，所以他去一家店，买了他不需要的东西，把钞票找开。但当他把钱给小贩时，小贩退缩了。他感到受伤。他试着想表现友好，但强纳森拒绝了他。

I think we all reject people in small ways like this without realizing it. I do. I ll walk by someone I know and barely acknowledge them. I ll check my phone when someone s talking to me. These acts devalue others. They make them feel invisible and unworthy. But when you lead with love, you create a bond that lifts each of you up.

我想，我们都曾像这样在小地方拒绝别人却没有意识到。我就有过。我会从认识的人旁边走过，却没跟他们打招呼。当有人在跟我说话时，我会看手机。这类行为是在贬低别人的价值，让他们觉得自己是隐形的、不值得的。但若用爱来引导，你就会创造出一种联结，让你们彼此都振奋起来。

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. Of course, for many of us, that happens through work. That s how we contribute and feel needed. But that also means that issues like disengagement at work, unemployment, low labor force participation -- these aren t just economic problems, they re existential ones, too. Without something worthwhile to do, people flounder. Of course, you don t have to find purpose at work, but purpose gives you something to live for, some  why  that drives you forward.

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。当然，对很多人而言，这是透过工作来达成的。那是我们做出贡献和感到被需要的方式。但这也意味着，像是无心工作、失业、低劳动参与率等等议题──这些不仅是经济问题，也是存在主义问题。人们若没有值得去做的事，就会挣扎折腾。当然，你不需要从工作中找到目的，但目的能让你有活下去的意义，有驱使你向前行的「理由」。

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. For me, I m a writer, and it happens through writing. Sometimes I get so in the zone that I lose all sense of time and place. These transcendent experiences can change you. One study had students look up at 200-feet-tall eucalyptus trees for one minute. But afterwards they felt less self-centered, and they even behaved more generously when given the chance to help someone.

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。对我来说，我是作家，而超然是透过写作发生的。有时候我太投入会有一种忘我的境界。这些超然的经验能改变你。有一项研究是让学生去看200英尺高的尤加利树，看一分钟，之后他们会比较不自我中心，若给他们机会去帮助别人，他们连行为都会变得更慷慨。

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创造一个故事，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。

I met a young man named Emeka, who d been paralyzed playing football. After his injury, Emeka told himself,  My life was great playing football, but now look at me.  People who tell stories like this --  My life was good. Now it s bad.  -- tend to be more anxious and depressed. And that was Emeka for a while. But with time, he started to weave a different story. His new story was,  Before my injury, my life was purposeless. I partied a lot and was a pretty selfish guy. But my injury made me realize I could be a better man.  That edit to his story changed Emeka s life. After telling the new story to himself, Emeka started mentoring kids, and he discovered what his purpose was: serving others. The psychologist Dan McAdams calls this a  redemptive story,  where the bad is redeemed by the good. People leading meaningful lives, he s found, tend to tell stories about their lives defined by redemption, growth and love.

我遇到一位叫做埃梅卡的年轻人，他因为打美式足球而瘫痪。埃梅卡在受伤后，内心的对话是这样的：「我打美式足球的人生是非常棒的，但看看现在的我。」像这样说故事的人──「我的人生曾经很棒，现在却很糟。」──说这种故事的人比较容易焦虑和沮丧。埃梅卡有好一阵子就是这样。但随时间过去，他开始编造一个不同的故事。他的新故事是：「在我受伤前，我的人生没有目的。我常去派对，且我是个很自私的人。但受伤让我明白，我可以成为更好的人。」埃梅卡把他的故事进行改造，从而改变了他的一生。在对自己说完这个新故事之后，埃梅卡开始开导孩童，他找到了他的目的：服务他人。心理学家丹麦亚当斯称这现象为「救赎的故事」，用好的来救赎不好的。他发现，过着有意义人生的人，他们说的故事内容通常都是他们的人生由救赎、成长、爱来定义。

But what makes people change their stories? Some people get help from a therapist, but you can do it on your own, too, just by reflecting on your life thoughtfully, how your defining experiences shaped you, what you lost, what you gained. That s what Emeka did. You won t change your story overnight; it could take years and be painful. After all, we ve all suffered, and we all struggle. But embracing those painful memories can lead to new insights and wisdom, to finding that good that sustains you.

但，是什么让人们改变了他们的故事?有些人向治疗师寻求协助，但你也可以靠自己做到，只要完整地反思你的人生、你的关键经验如何造就了你、你失去了什么、获得了什么。那就是埃梅卡所做的。你不可能一夜就改变你的故事;过程可能要花好几年，且很痛苦。毕竟，我们都曾受过苦，也都在挣扎。但拥抱那些痛苦的记忆，能带来新的洞见与智慧，让你能找到那支撑着你的「善」。

转自《你为什么活得不开心》