Many people hold the belief that a life with money and without pain equals happiness, which actually reduces their chances of getting real happiness. If money and pleasure are equal to happiness, then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But in fact, the opposite is true — more often than not things that lead to happiness contain some pain.
In fact, many people avoid the very attempts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement and self-improvement.
Couples, with very young children, for example, are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three-day vacation. We don’t know any parent who would just choose the word fun to describe raising children. But couples that decide not to have children will never know the joy of watching a child grow up or playing with a grandchild.
Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with money and pleasure is one of the most liberating (使解放)realizations. It liberates time —now we can devote more hours to activities that can really increase our feeling of happiness. It liberates money — now we know that buying a new car or fancy clothes to increase our happiness seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy — we now understand that all those who have so much money may actually not be happy at all.
【本文作者： 徐州七中 彭向梅。(公众号：草根英语行思教)】
本文为原创文章，版权归作者所有，未经授权不得转载!
书香门第
