BBC Reel｜积极思考如何损害你的幸福感的？

How positive thinking is harming your happiness

Hello, I'm Darren Brown, and I think we could rethink our concepts of "happiness". I think we're sold an idea that we should be believing in ourselves and setting our goals and thinking positively. But the reality is that thinking positively can actually have quite a negative effect. "Optimism" as an idea doesn't serve us very well when things go badly. Seeing bad situations in a positive light and looking for the good — that's okay, that goes back to the Stoics.
大家好，我是达伦·布朗，我认为我们可以重新思考一下“幸福”的概念。我认为我们被灌输了这样一种观念：我们应该相信自己，设定目标，积极思考。但事实是，积极思考实际上会产生相当负面的影响。当事情变得糟糕时，“乐观”这个概念并不能很好地服务于我们。从积极的角度看待糟糕的情况，寻找好的一面——这是可以的，这可以追溯到斯多葛学派。

But when we're feeling like we've failed, that's the problem. And the problem with optimism is that it just tells us if things don't go right that we've failed, that we haven't believed in ourselves enough, and we should blame ourselves because there's nowhere else to go. And that's fundamentally where it's wrong — you need a system that works for you when things aren't going well, that's the real test of whether something holds up or not.
但是当我们觉得自己失败了，这就是问题所在。乐观主义的问题在于，它只是告诉我们，如果事情不顺利，我们失败了，我们对自己不够相信，我们应该鞭策自己，因为我们别无选择。从根本上说，这就是问题所在——当事情进展不顺利时，你需要一个适合你的机制，这是对某些事情是否能坚持下去的真正考验。

There was a psychologist called Daniel Kahneman, who came up with this idea of the "experiencing self" and the "remembering self". Like two sort of cells at work within us. The idea is that, for example, if you are given the choice between going on our roller coaster and having a fun afternoon at a theme park versus looking after a sick relative. Which one's going to make you happier? The chances are you'd think, "what I'll do, I'm gonna go on the theme park", so you're experiencing self is being catered to by the experience of, you know, happiness and excitement. But your remembering self, which is the other part of you, will look back on the experience looking after your sick relative actually as a more meaningful experience. So the chances are, you'll take with you more of a sense of happiness and satisfaction from doing that.
有一位心理学家叫丹尼尔·卡尼曼，他提出了“体验自我”和“记忆自我”的概念。就像我们体内有两种细胞在工作。这个观点认为，举例来说，如果让你在坐过山车、在主题公园度过一个愉快的下午，和照顾生病的亲人之间做出选择，哪一个会让你更开心？哪一个会让你更快乐？你很有可能会想：”我的选择是，我要去主题公园”，所以你的体验自我被幸福和兴奋的体验所满足。但你的记忆自我，也就是你的另一部分，会把照顾生病亲人的经历看作是更有意义的经历。所以很有可能，你会从中获得更多的幸福感和满足感。

So we have a terrible understanding what actually fulfills us. I think an interesting and thought experiment which was given by a stoic, a modern stoic called William Irvin, is imagine that you woke up one day and everybody had disappeared from the world. So they were still buildings and cars and everything, but there were no people, everyone had gone, is just you. What changes in terms of the sort of things that you require for yourself.
因此，我们对真正满足我们的东西有着可怕的理解。我认为一个有趣的、深思熟虑的实验是由一位名叫威廉·欧文的现代斯多葛派学者进行的，想象你有一天醒来，所有人都从这个世界上消失了。接着，建筑、汽车和一切都还在，但没有人了，所有人都走了，只剩下你。你对自己的要求发生了什么变化。改变的是你对自己的要求。

You wouldn't bother having a big, great big house to go and even you could live in any house. You could just go, and you know, walk in and live wherever you like, you'd probably find somewhere that was just comfortable and practical. You obviously wouldn't bother with fancy clothes.  You wouldn't bother with so many things and then when you've really followed that thought through, it's amazing how much we acquire and want only to impress other people. Even if we don't feel without sort of person. So rather than just wanting things that we don't have, which you're probably not going to be very good for us anyway, shifting our desires so we want the things that we already have.
你不会费心去买一栋又大又大的房子，甚至你可以住在任何一栋房子里。你可以去，你知道，走进来，住在你喜欢的任何地方，你可能会找到一个舒适实用的地方。你显然不会为花哨的衣服而烦恼。你不会为这么多事情而烦恼，当你真的把这个想法贯彻到底时，令人惊讶的是，我们获得和想要的东西竟只是为了取悦别人。

Stoicism was born in a time of strife. There's lots of war and lots of reasons why you'd want to hang on to a feeling of tranquility. So what they said? Which is such phenomenally good advice, is, there are things in your life that you're in control of and then there are things in your life you are not in control of. The only things you are in control of, they said, and this is true, are your thoughts and your actions. That's it. Everything else and what other people do and what they think of you, and what goes on in their lives, and how well other people do their jobs, or do the things you work, whatever, everything else you have no control over.

And you can actually decide that everything on that side of the line is fine. I find myself doing this a lot, that when something's really bothering and frustrating me, I just think, I know which side of the line is it on. Is it my thoughts and actions or is it something out there? But it has to be a real thought — what if it was fine, and has to drip in and really kind of drip into the soul and make sense. You have to feel it, it's no good just saying "I was fine, it's fine." That doesn't have any effect. It has to be a real thing, and it's a very helpful thought.

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