The importance of having reasons to live



When we are feeling well in our minds, we hardly notice that we might be harbouring in ourselves anything as formal or as dramatic-sounding as 'reasons to live.' We simply assume that we like life itself and that it must be natural and inevitable to do so.



It's only when a crisis hits and our mood starts to drop that we may for the first time start to feel, with acute sorrow, what these 'reasons to live' might have been all along; it's as we lose our reasons that we understand them with uncommon clarity.



We realise why we have for years bothered to rise out of bed with energy and relative good humour, put up with inconveniences, struggled to get ourselves across to others and looked forward to tomorrow – and wonder in dismay how we will from now on ever have the will and courage to continue.



Our engagement with life might have been bound up with the enjoyment of work or of reputation, the companionship of a child or of a friend, the agility of our bodies or the creativity of our minds. Denied such advantages, we don't merely miss out on an aspect of life, the whole of it loses its purpose.



Secondary satisfactions – whether from a holiday or a book, a dinner with an old acquaintance or a hobby – cannot compensate. The hedonic scaffolding of our lives disintegrates. We may not actively try to kill ourselves, but we can't count as quite alive, either. We are going through the motions: living corpses following a script drained of meaning.



When we say that someone has fallen mentally ill, what we are frequently pointing to is the loss of long-established reasons to remain alive. And so the task ahead is to make a series of interventions, as what counts.



We may need to forgive ourselves for a fearsome degree of idiocy, give up on a need to feel exceptional, surrender worldly ambitions and cease once and for all to imagine that our minds could be as logical or as reliable as we had hoped. We may continue to live simply because every human deserves understanding – and because we are trying our best in the only way we know how.



If there is any advantage in going through a mental crisis of the worst kind, it is that – on the other side of it – we will have ended up choosing life rather than merely assuming it to be the unremarkable norm. We, the ones who have crawled back from the darkness, may be disadvantaged in a hundred ways, but at least we will have had to find – rather than assumed or inherited, some reasons why we are here.



Every day we continue will be a day earned back from death and our satisfactions will be all the more, more intense and our gratitude more profound for having been consciously arrived at.



The challenge from the present sickness can be mapped out in its essential form: one day to reach a small but robust and persuasive list of reasons to continue to be.



词汇表

harbour ['hɑːbə(r)] 心怀，怀有（想法、感情等）

dramatic-sounding [drə'mætɪk] 听上去戏剧性的，听起来夸张的

assume [ə'sjuːm] 假定，认为，想当然地认为

inevitable [ɪn'evɪtəbl] 不可避免的，必然发生的

acute sorrow [ə'kjuːt 'sɒrəʊ] 极度的悲痛，深切的哀伤

uncommon [ʌnˈkɒmən] 罕见的，不寻常的

clarity [ˈklærəti]（思路）清晰，清醒

bother to do ['bɒðə(r)] 费心去做，特意做

humour ['hjuːmə(r)] 心情，精神状态

put up with 忍受，容忍

inconvenience [ˌɪnkən'viːniəns] 不便，麻烦

get ourselves across to others [ɡet ˌaʊə'selvz ə'krɒs tuː ˈʌðəz] 让别人理解自己，努力与他人沟通

in dismay [dɪs'meɪ] 郁闷地，沮丧地，惊慌地

be bound up with [baʊnd] 与…密切相关

companionship [kəm'pæniənʃɪp] 陪伴，交往；友谊，交情

agility [ə'dʒɪləti] （身体）敏捷，灵活

compensate ['kɒmpenseɪt] 弥补，补偿，赔偿

hedonic [hiː'dɒnɪk] 快乐的，享乐的

scaffolding ['skæfəldɪŋ] 基础，框架，支柱；脚手架

disintegrate [dɪs'ɪntɪɡreɪt] 瓦解，崩溃，破裂

go through the motions ['məʊʃnz] 装装样子，走过场，敷衍了事

living corpse [kɔːps] 行尸走肉，活死人

be drained of [dreɪnd] 失去（活力、精力等）；被耗尽，被抽干

fall mentally ill ['mentəli] 患上心理疾病，精神失常

long-established [ˌlɒŋ ɪ'stæblɪʃt] 长期存在的，由来已久的

intervention [ˌɪntə'venʃn] 干预，干涉，介入

a fearsome degree of idiocy ['fɪəsəm]['ɪdiəsi] 极度的愚蠢

exceptional [ɪk'sepʃənl] 卓越的，杰出的，非凡的

surrender worldly ambitions [sə'rendə(r) 'wɜːldli æm'bɪʃnz] 放弃世俗的野心

cease [siːs] 停止，终止，结束

once and for all 一劳永逸地，永远地，彻底地

unremarkable norm [ˌʌnrɪ'mɑːkəbl nɔːm] 平淡无奇的常态

crawl back from [krɔːl] 从…爬回来，从…艰难地恢复

disadvantaged [ˌdɪsəd'vɑːntɪdʒd] 处于不利地位的，劣势的，贫困的

map out 概括，阐述；详细规划

robust [rəʊ'bʌst] 坚实的，稳固的，强健的



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