Name: 別急著當特別的人，平靜生活才是真正的富足！ (The Secret to a Calm Life)
Uploaded: 2025-08-02T18:26:27.000Z
Duration: 1 min 57 s

情態副詞

We're likely to try out many sorts of lives before we land, finally, on the quiet variety.

我們很可能會嘗試過許多種生活方式，然後才最終落腳於那種平靜的生活。

程度副詞

Rarely does anyone start there, the kind of life where we try to be in bed by ten and are intensely grateful when nothing has gone dramatically wrong in the preceding hours.

幾乎沒有人一開始就過那種生活——那種努力在十點前上床睡覺，並且對過去幾個小時內沒有發生什麼戲劇性災難感到深深感激的生活。

情態助動詞 B1

First, we might try out the life of fame — the sort where we dream that someone will stop us in a shop or on a train and say, "Aren't you…?" or "Don't I know you from…?"

首先，我們可能會嘗試名聲的生活——那種我們夢想有人會在商店或火車上攔住我們，說：「你不是…？」或者「我是不是在哪裡見過你…？」的生活。

That's not a negligible thrill, especially if you didn't feel too noticed in childhood, or if in adolescence it was always someone else who was able to make people you loved smile.

這種感覺並非微不足道的刺激，特別是如果你童年時期感覺不被注意，或者在青春期時總是別人能讓你愛的人微笑。

Or we might be drawn to the life of melodramatic relationships, the kind where we're constantly wondering whether they love us or we love them,

或者，我們可能會被戲劇化的感情生活吸引——那種我們不斷地懷疑是他們愛我們還是我們愛他們的生活，

where we break up every couple of weeks and are calling them frantically to come back from their parents' house and we didn't mean all those crazy words we said, we were just scared.

那種我們每隔幾週就分手，然後瘋狂地打電話給他們，叫他們從父母家回來，並且告訴他們，我們說的那些瘋狂話語都不是認真的，我們只是害怕而已。

It can take a lot of pain before we make our peace with so-called ordinariness and accept it for the wonder it is, before we can deeply love a day when we have nothing to do other than wake up early,

我們可能要經歷許多痛苦，才能與所謂的平凡和解，並接受它那份奇妙，才能真正深愛那種沒有什麼特別安排的日子——早早醒來、

finish the dishes from last night, shower, read a few poems, answer some emails, maybe go to the museum to see some African masks or a canoe from Oceania, buy some bread, fry some eggs.

洗昨晚的碗、洗澡、讀幾首詩、回幾封郵件，也許去博物館看些非洲面具或大洋洲的獨木舟，買些麵包，煎幾顆蛋。

We might become rather fierce at anyone and anything that threatens this hard-won achievement.

我們可能會對任何威脅這來之不易的平靜感到相當警惕，

At well-meaning people who invite us on complicated excursions or worrying parties, at newspapers that force us to think about driven types, starting companies and releasing a new film or a record.

對好心邀請我們參加複雜行程或令人擔憂的派對的人、對那些讓我們不得不關注那些創業、拍新片或發新專輯的拼命三郎的報紙。

We know how much these stimulants can cost us.

我們知道這些刺激會付出多大的代價。

It takes great confidence to give up on being special.

放棄成為特別的那種人，需要極大的自信。

It takes kindness to oneself to interrupt the longing for suffering and anguish.

中斷對痛苦和煎熬的渴望，需要對自己充滿善意。

One might have needed to try out almost everything else before realising in the end that it was calm we always really wanted.

或許在意識到真正想要的是平靜之前，我們需要先嘗試幾乎所有其他的生活方式。