【英语生活】幸福生活的五点建议 Advice for a Happy Life

CHARLES MURRAY

The transition from college to adult life is treacherous, and this is nowhere more visible than among new college graduates in their first real jobs. A few years ago, I took it upon myself to start writing tips for the young staff where I work about how to avoid doing things that would make their supervisors write them off. It began as a lark as I wrote tips with titles such as, 'Excise the word 'like' from your spoken English.'

But eventually, I found myself getting into the deeper waters of how to go about living a good life. At that point, I had to deal with a reality: When it comes to a life filled with deep and lasting satisfactions, most of the clichés are true. How could I make them sound fresh to a new generation? Here's how I tried.

1. Consider Marrying Young

The age of marriage for college graduates has been increasing for decades, and this cultural shift has been a good thing. Many 22-year-olds are saved from bad marriages because they go into relationships at that age assuming that marriage is still out of the question.

But should you assume that marriage is still out of the question when you're 25? Twenty-seven? I'm not suggesting that you decide ahead of time that you will get married in your 20s. You've got to wait until the right person comes along. I'm just pointing out that you shouldn't exclude the possibility. If you wait until your 30s, your marriage is likely to be a merger. If you get married in your 20s, it is likely to be a startup.

Merger marriages are what you tend to see on the weddings pages of the Sunday New York Times: highly educated couples in their 30s, both people well on their way to success. Lots of things can be said in favor of merger marriages. The bride and groom may be more mature, less likely to outgrow each other or to feel impelled, 10 years into the marriage, to make up for their lost youth.

But let me put in a word for startup marriages, in which the success of the partners isn't yet assured. The groom with his new architecture degree is still designing stairwells, and the bride is starting her third year of medical school. Their income doesn't leave them impoverished, but they have to watch every penny.

What are the advantages of a startup marriage? For one thing, you will both have memories of your life together when it was all still up in the air. You'll have fun remembering the years when you went from being scared newcomers to the point at which you realized you were going to make it.

Even more important, you and your spouse will have made your way together. Whatever happens, you will have shared the experience. And each of you will know that you wouldn't have become the person you are without the other.

Many merger marriages are happy, but a certain kind of symbiosis, where two people become more than the sum of the individuals, is perhaps more common in startups.

2. Learn How to Recognize Your Soul Mate

Ready for some clichés about marriage? Here they come. Because they're true.

Marry someone with similar tastes and preferences. Which tastes and preferences? The ones that will affect life almost every day.

It is OK if you like the ballet and your spouse doesn't. Reasonable people can accommodate each other on such differences. But if you dislike each other's friends, or don't get each other's senses of humor or--especially--if you have different ethical impulses, break it off and find someone else.

Personal habits that you find objectionable are probably deal-breakers. Jacques Barzun identified the top three as punctuality, orderliness and thriftiness. It doesn't make any difference which point of the spectrum you're on, he observed: 'Some couples are very happy living always in debt, always being late, and finding leftover pizza under a sofa cushion.' You just have to be at the same point on the spectrum. Intractable differences will become, over time, a fingernail dragged across the blackboard of a marriage.

What you see is what you're going to get. If something about your prospective spouse bothers you but you think that you can change your beloved after you're married, you're wrong. Be prepared to live with whatever bothers you--or forget it. Your spouse will undoubtedly change during a long marriage but not in ways you can predict or control.

It is absolutely crucial that you really, really like your spouse. You hear it all the time from people who are in great marriages: 'I'm married to my best friend.' They are being literal. A good working definition of 'soul mate' is 'your closest friend, to whom you are also sexually attracted.'

Here are two things to worry about as you look for that person: Do you sometimes pick at each other's sore spots? You like the same things, have fun together, the sex is great, but one of you is controlling, or nags the other, or won't let a difference of opinion go or knowingly says things that will hurt you. Break it off.

Another cause for worry is the grand passion. You know a relationship is a grand passion if you find yourself behaving like an adolescent long after adolescence has passed--you are obsessed and a more than a little crazy. Not to worry. Everyone should experience at least one grand passion. Just don't act on it while the storm is raging.

A good marriage is the best thing that can ever happen to you. Above all else, realize that this cliché is true. The downside risks of marrying--and they are real--are nothing compared with what you will gain from a good one.

3. Eventually Stop Fretting About Fame and Fortune

One of my assumptions about you is that you are ambitious--meaning that you hope to become famous, rich or both, and intend to devote intense energy over the next few decades to pursuing those dreams. That is as it should be. I look with suspicion on any talented 20-something who doesn't feel that way. I wish you luck.

But suppose you arrive at age 40, and you enjoy your work, have found your soul mate, are raising a couple of terrific kids--and recognize that you will probably never become either rich or famous. At that point, it is important to supplement your youthful ambition with mature understanding.

Years ago, I was watching a television profile of David Geffen, the billionaire music and film producer. At some point, he said, 'Show me someone who thinks that money buys happiness, and I'll show you someone who has never had a lot of money.' The remark was accompanied by an ineffably sad smile on Mr. Geffen's face, which said that he had been there, done that and knew what he was talking about. The whole vignette struck me in a way that 'money can't buy happiness' never had, and my visceral reaction was reinforced by one especially memorable shot during the profile, taken down the length of Mr. Geffen's private jet, along the rows of empty leather seats and sofas, to where he sat all alone in the rear.

The problem that you face in your 20s and 30s is that you are gnawed by anxiety that you won't be a big success. It is an inevitable side effect of ambition. My little story about David Geffen won't help--now. Pull it out again in 20 years.

Fame and wealth do accomplish something: They cure ambition anxiety. But that's all. It isn't much.

4. Take Religion Seriously

Don't bother to read this one if you're already satisfyingly engaged with a religious tradition.

Now that we're alone, here's where a lot of you stand when it comes to religion: It isn't for you. You don't mind if other people are devout, but you don't get it. Smart people don't believe that stuff anymore.

I can be sure that is what many of you think because your generation of high-IQ, college-educated young people, like mine 50 years ago, has been as thoroughly socialized to be secular as your counterparts in preceding generations were socialized to be devout. Some of you grew up with parents who weren't religious, and you've never given religion a thought. Others of you followed the religion of your parents as children but left religion behind as you were socialized by college.

By socialized, I don't mean that you studied theology under professors who persuaded you that Thomas Aquinas was wrong. You didn't study theology at all. None of the professors you admired were religious. When the topic of religion came up, they treated it dismissively or as a subject of humor. You went along with the zeitgeist.

I am describing my own religious life from the time I went to Harvard until my late 40s. At that point, my wife, prompted by the birth of our first child, had found a religious tradition in which she was comfortable, Quakerism, and had been attending Quaker meetings for several years. I began keeping her company and started reading on religion. I still describe myself as an agnostic, but my unbelief is getting shaky.

Taking religion seriously means work. If you're waiting for a road-to-Damascus experience, you're kidding yourself. Getting inside the wisdom of the great religions doesn't happen by sitting on beaches, watching sunsets and waiting for enlightenment. It can easily require as much intellectual effort as a law degree.

Even dabbling at the edges has demonstrated to me the depths of Judaism, Buddhism and Taoism. I assume that I would find similar depths in Islam and Hinduism as well. I certainly have developed a far greater appreciation for Christianity, the tradition with which I'm most familiar. The Sunday school stories I learned as a child bear no resemblance to Christianity taken seriously. You've got to grapple with the real thing.

Start by jarring yourself out of unreflective atheism or agnosticism. A good way to do that is to read about contemporary cosmology. The universe isn't only stranger than we knew; it is stranger and vastly more unlikely than we could have imagined, and we aren't even close to discovering its last mysteries. That reading won't lead you to religion, but it may stop you from being unreflective.

Find ways to put yourself around people who are profoundly religious. You will encounter individuals whose intelligence, judgment and critical faculties are as impressive as those of your smartest atheist friends--and who also possess a disquieting confidence in an underlying reality behind the many religious dogmas.

They have learned to reconcile faith and reason, yes, but beyond that, they persuasively convey ways of knowing that transcend intellectual understanding. They exhibit in their own personae a kind of wisdom that goes beyond just having intelligence and good judgment.

Start reading religious literature. You don't have to go back to Aquinas (though that wouldn't be a bad idea). The past hundred years have produced excellent and accessible work, much of it written by people who came to adulthood as uninvolved in religion as you are.

5. Watch 'Groundhog Day' Repeatedly

The movie 'Groundhog Day' was made more than two decades ago, but it is still smart and funny. It is also a brilliant moral fable that deals with the most fundamental issues of virtue and happiness, done with such subtlety that you really need to watch it several times.

An egocentric TV weatherman played by Bill Murray is sent to Punxsutawney, Pa., to cover Groundhog Day. He hates the assignment, disdains the town and its people, and can't wait to get back to Pittsburgh. But a snowstorm strikes, he's stuck in Punxsutawney, and when he wakes up the next morning, it is Groundhog Day again. And again and again and again.

The director and co-writer Harold Ramis, whose death last month was mourned by his many fans, estimated that the movie has to represent at least 30 or 40 years' worth of days. We see only a few dozen of them, ending when Bill Murray's character has discovered the secrets of human happiness.

Without the slightest bit of preaching, the movie shows the bumpy, unplanned evolution of his protagonist from a jerk to a fully realized human being--a person who has learned to experience deep, lasting and justified satisfaction with life even though he has only one day to work with.

You could learn the same truths by studying Aristotle's 'Ethics' carefully, but watching 'Groundhog Day' repeatedly is a lot more fun.

This essay is adapted from Mr. Murray's new book, 'The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life,' which will be published April 8 by Random House. He is the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

CHARLES MURRAY

从大学校园过渡到真正的成人生活并不容易，而在应届大学毕业生找到的第一份正式工作中，他们的窘境更是一览无遗。几年前，我揽下了开始为年轻职员写小窍门的活儿，在这些小贴士中，我探讨了如何避免发生一些让顶头上司将他们扫地出门的事情。刚开始编写小贴士时是一种玩笑式的口吻，比如这样一个题目：“将‘like’一词从口语中删掉。”

Luci Gutierrez图片：幸福人生的五条金规但最终，我发觉自己进入了探讨“如何过上美好生活”的深水区。在那个阶段，我不得不应对这样一个现实：当谈起那种充满着深厚、持久满足感的生活时，大部分与此相关的老一套说教都是正确的。那我如何才能把这些说教用一种更为新颍的方式表达出来、传递给新一代人呢？下面就是我尝试给出的答案。

1. 考虑早婚

数十年来，大学毕业生的结婚年龄一直在往上升，而这种文化转变也确实是一件好事。许多22岁的年轻人之所以能够幸免于糟糕的婚姻，那是因为他们在这样的年纪恋爱、而根本就没考虑结婚的问题。

但等你到了25岁的时候，你还应该想当然地认为结婚不在考虑范畴之列吗？27岁呢？我现在不是建议你提前决定自己会在20多岁的时候结婚。你得等，直到遇见对的人。我只是在指出，你不该排除结婚的可能性。如果你一直等到30多岁，你的婚姻可能变成一场半途结合式的“并购”。如果你在20多岁的时候结婚，那可能就是一次从头开始的“创业”。

并购式婚姻是这样的：夫妻双方都是30多岁，高学历，俩人都在通往成功的道路上有所建树。你往往会在周日版《纽约时报》(Sunday New York Times)的嫁娶页面上看到这类婚事的消息。赞同并购式婚姻的原因有很多。新郎新娘可能都更成熟，不太容易出现一方太老、不适合另一方的情况，也不太可能是因为在围城外等了10年、由于感到有必要结婚来弥补他们逝去的青春而被迫步入围城的。

但也让我为从头开始的创业式婚姻说两句。在这类婚姻中，伴侣双方日后是否成功还是个未知数。揣着刚刚获得的建筑学学位，新郎还在设计楼梯井，而新娘才正开始读医学院三年级。他们的收入倒不至于让他们穷困潦倒，但他们得小心地花着每一分钱。

那从零开始的婚姻有什么好处？一方面，你们将拥有俩人在一切未定、前途未卜之时共同的生活回忆。忆起当年自己从一个畏手畏脚的新人成长为意识到自己将收获成功的时候，你们会觉得很有意思。

更为重要的是，你和你的配偶将会携手一起往前走。不论发生什么，你们都将分享这段经历。而且两个人都知道，倘若没有对方的一路陪伴，你不会成为今天的你。

许多并购式婚姻当然也很美满，但某种共生关系可能在创业式婚姻中更为常见。在这种共生共栖的关系中，两个人相加起来的合力远不止于简单的叠加。

2. 学会辨识你的灵魂伴侣

准备好了吗？接下来我要说的，是关于婚姻的那一套陈词滥调。为什么再说一遍？因为它们都是真理。

要跟一个与自己品味相当、喜好相似的人结婚。具体指哪些方面呢？就是那些几乎会影响到每一天生活的品味和喜好。

如果你喜欢芭蕾，而你的配偶却没兴趣，那倒没关系。在这样一些差异上，理性的人是能够包容彼此的。但如果你们不喜欢对方的朋友，或是无法理解对方的幽默感，或是——尤其是——如果你们拥有不同的伦理道德观，那就分手、再找别人吧。

那些令你反感的个人习惯很可能会成为无法再忍受对方的导火索。雅克·巴尔赞(Jacques Barzun)指出了排名前三的几个习惯：守时，井然有序和勤俭节约。至于你有多守时、有多整洁或有多节约，其实根本就没什么差别。巴尔赞评论说：“有些夫妻总是负债、老是迟到，在他们家沙发垫儿底下还能发现吃剩的批萨，但他们就特乐意这样过。”所以夫妻二人得在同一个频道上、拥有相似程度的个人习惯。要不然总有一天，那些棘手的差异将会变成一段婚姻中最闹心的事儿，那感觉就跟听见指甲划拉黑板的声音一样。

你现在所看到的情况就是你以后要忍受的。如果你的准配偶身上有些习惯让你很困扰，但你觉得在婚后能够改变自己的爱人，那你就错了。要做好准备和困扰你的一切过一辈子——或者干脆忘记它们的存在。毋庸置疑，在漫长的婚姻生活中，你的配偶当然会有所改变，但对方改变的方式不是你能预知或掌控的。

你得真的真的喜欢自己的另一半，这点绝对至关重要。从那些有着美满婚姻的人们口中，你总是能听到这样的话：“我和自己最好的朋友结婚了。”这些话是非常精准、符合其字面意思的。“灵魂伴侣”的一个绝佳定义就是“你最亲密的朋友，而且还是对你有着性吸引力的人”。

在你寻找那个人的时候，还有两件事得掂量掂量：你们有时候会不会戳到对方的痛处？你们喜欢同样的事物，在一起很快乐，性生活也很和谐，但你们俩人中有一个人却在掌控全局、或是挑对方的毛病，或是不允许出现异议或故意说些伤害你的话。倘若这样，那就分手吧。

另一件值得担忧的事情是激情过头。如果你发觉自己在青春期已过去很久之后还表现得像个青少年，那你应该清楚这段感情就是激情上了头——你那是痴爱成迷，而且不止是有点儿小疯狂。对此倒不必担心。每个人都应该至少经历过一次澎湃的激情。但不要在激情暴风肆虐之际轻举妄动。

一段好姻缘会是你生命中能出现的最美的事。除了上面所说的一切，还要认识到这句老话也是真理。与你将从美满婚姻中收获的一切相比，结婚的负面风险——它们都是确确实实存在的——完全不值一提。

3. 最终不再因名利而烦恼

对于你，我有一个既定的假设：你是一个雄心勃勃的人——这意味着你希望变得为人所知、生活富足或是两者兼得，而且你打算在接下来的几十年里投入大量的精力去追逐那些梦想。情况本也应如此。对于任何一位20岁出头而没有这种雄心壮志的人才，我倒会用怀疑的眼光去看待他们。所以我祝你好运。

但假设你到了40岁，而且很享受自己的工作，也已经找到了你的灵魂伴侣，正抚养着几个非常好的孩子——而且你也意识到自己很可能永远也成不了富豪或名流。到了那个阶段，就得将你年轻时候的雄心壮志辅以成熟的认识，这点至关重要。

数年以前，我观看了音乐和电影制作人、百万富翁戴维·葛芬(David Geffen)的电视传记。当时他说：“在那些认为金钱能买到快乐的人当中拉出一个来让我看看，那我就让你看看从来都没有过很多钱的人。”在说这句话的时候，葛芬脸上浮现出了一种难以名状的、悲伤的微笑，这个表情说明他曾亲历过这些、做过类似的事情，也明白自己在说些什么。整个电视传记打动了我， 对于其传递的“金钱无法买来快乐”的这一理念，之前我从未有过如此深的触动。而电视传记中那个令人难忘的镜头加深了我心底的感慨，它拍摄了葛芬私人飞机的机身长度，镜头一直沿着数排空荡荡的真皮座椅和沙发移进，直到拍见葛芬一个人孤零零地坐在后排。

在你20多岁和30多岁的时候，你面对的问题是在“未来无法功成名就”的焦虑中煎熬。那是雄心壮志与生俱来、不可避免的一个副作用。我讲述的这个有关大卫·葛芬的故事对你不会有什么用——我说的是“现在”。20年后，再把它翻出来看一看。

名声和财富的确能有所作为：它们可以治愈雄心壮志带来的焦虑情绪。但仅此而已，并不多。

4. 把宗教认认真真当回事

如果你已经参与到宗教传统中去了，就无需再费神读这一段了。

由于我们孑然一身、心无信仰，所以当谈到宗教的时候，其中很多人都持有这样的立场：它跟自己扯不上关系。你不介意其他人是否笃信宗教、虔诚敬神，但你却从未了解过宗教。聪明人都不再信那玩意儿了。

我确信，你们当中的许多人都怀揣着那样的想法，因为你们这代高智商、受过高等教育的年轻人（像50年前、我们那代人一样）在经过彻底的社会化后变成了宗教之外的世俗之人，就像你们的先辈在你们这个年纪经过社会化后变得笃信宗教、虔诚敬神一样。你们中的有些人在父母身边长大，他们本身就不是信徒，所以对于宗教，你们连想都没想过。你们中的其他一些人则在孩童时期追随着自己父母的宗教信仰，但到了大学、经历社会化之后，就将宗教抛之脑后了。

我这里所说的“经过社会化”，不是指让你在那些教授——他们会对你进行劝服，告诉你托马斯·阿奎那(Thomas Aquinas)是错的——的指导下 研神学，你根本就不会去学什么神学。你们崇拜的那些教授中没有一个人是笃信宗教的，当提到宗教这个话题时，他们会不屑一顾地开腔谈它或把它当成一个可笑的话题。你们总是与时代思潮结伴而行。

我现在说的是我自己的宗教生活——从我去哈佛(Harvard)读书开始一直到我近50岁。在那个阶段，我们的第一个孩子出生了，这个孩子的到来促使我妻子找寻到一个令她舒心的宗教教派——贵格会(Quakerism)。这些年来，她一直都在参加贵格会教徒的宗教集会，我也开始陪她一起去，并开始研读宗教教义。虽然我仍将自已称为不可知论者，但我的无宗教信仰正在变得不牢靠。

将宗教认认真真地当成一回事意味着付出。如果你还在守株待兔般地等待一次通往大马士革之路（译者注：大马士革之路有时用来指心灵的转变）的体验，那你是在跟自己开玩笑。光坐在海边看日出、等待开悟，这些不会让你领悟到几大宗教的内在精髓。领悟这些需要耗费大量的脑力劳动，其所需的知识积累轻易便能抵得上攻下一个法学学位所需的脑力付出。

即便只是浅尝辄止，我也已感受到了犹太教、佛教和道教的博大精深，我猜想在伊斯兰教和印度教中，我也能体味到相似的深度。当然，对于自己最熟悉的教派基督教，我也已经形成了一种更深层次的了解。我儿时在主日学校学到的那些故事与我后来认真研习的基督教教义全然不同。你得与真谛角力。

让自己从欠缺思考的无神论或不可知论的井底中跳出来开始做起。做到这一点的一个好办法就是去读有关现代宇宙学的内容。整个宇宙不仅比我们所知的更为陌生，它陌生而又与我们想象中的大有不同，我们甚至都未曾靠近、探索过它的神秘。那些阅读不会将你引向宗教，但它可能会让你远离草率无知。

想办法围绕在那些知识渊博的宗教人士身边。你将会遇到这样一些人，他们的才智、判断力和批判力跟你那些最聪明的无神论者朋友一样让人叹服，而且他们还对许多宗教教条背后的根本现实有着一种令人不安的信心。

是的，他们已学会习惯于信仰与理性，但除此之外，他们还令人信服地传达出了解那种超越物质世界智慧的学习方式。他们以他们自己的角色展现出一种超越了才智和判断力的智慧。

开始读些宗教文学书籍吧。你无需翻阅古书、追溯至阿奎那（虽然那也不是个坏主意）。在过去的数百年间，已产生了一些经典和易读的作品，其中有很多书的作者都是跟你们一样的人——他们在成年以前都未曾参接触过宗教。

5. 反复观看影片《土拨鼠日》

电影《土拨鼠日》(Groundhog Day, 又名《偷天情缘》)拍摄于20多年前，但在今天看来依然是一部机智、诙谐的影片。它也是一则出色的道德寓言，涉及美德与幸福最基本的一些问题，但却以如此精妙的方式演绎出来，真的值得你们好好观看几遍。

由比尔·默瑞(Bill Murray)饰演的利己主义者、电视台的天气预报员被派到宾夕法尼亚的普克托尼克(Punxsutawney)报道土拨鼠日。他讨厌这个工作任务，鄙视这座小城和这里的居民，并迫不及待地想要回到匹兹堡去。但一场暴风雪袭来，他被滞留在普克托尼克，而当他第二天早上醒来的时候，却还是土拨鼠日。就这样，一天又一天，时间永远停留在土拨鼠日那天。

该片导演兼编剧之一的哈罗德·雷米斯(Harold Ramis)于今年2月份去世，许多粉丝都为此哀悼。雷米斯本人在评价这部电影时说，该片至少得描绘出30到40年之久的日子。我们看到的只是其中的十几天，影片以比尔·默瑞扮演的主人公发现了人类幸福的秘密收尾。

全片没有丝毫说教之意，却展现了一段坎坷、计划之外的成长之旅：主人公从一个自私之徒转变为完全觉醒的人类——即使只有一天的时间可用，他也学会了体验一种对人生深厚的、持久而合理的满足感。

通过认真 研亚里士多德的《伦理学》，你也能学到同样的真谛，但反复观看《土拨鼠日》这部影片会收获很多乐趣。

本文节选自作者的新书《一个怪老头儿关于前进的忠告：正确行为、缜密思考、清晰写作与过上美好生活的注意事项》(The Curmudgeon's Guide to Getting Ahead: Dos and Don'ts of Right Behavior, Tough Thinking, Clear Writing, and Living a Good Life)。该书于4月8日由兰登书屋(Random House)出版发行。默里是美国企业研究院(American Enterprise Institute)的W.H.布雷迪学者(W.H. Brady Scholar)。

（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）