Lead-in
Everyone wants to live a happy life. How can one be happy? Read the following passage and see whether you can find an answer to that question.
1. Britain's most
prestigious 声望很高的 scientific institution, the Royal Society, will host a meeting for some of the world's top psychologists.
Their aim is to find out why it is that some people's lives go so right. 目的是找出为什么一些人过得如此的好. What is it that makes them happy and fulfilled, while others seem doomed（悲伤） to founder in misery, dissatisfaction and dejection (沮丧，气馁)？ 是什么使他们开心与充实.当其它人却好像命中注定要沉沦在痛苦,不满和沮丧之中.
2. Psychologists have known for some time that optimism is a good defence against unhappiness.
“If you're optimistic and you think life is going to get better, it will become a “self- fulfilling prophecy 预言 ,”"如果你很乐观,而且你认为一切都会变得更好, 这将变成一种"自我满足先兆" says Baylis. “You will involve yourself more, you'll put yourself forward more, you will take more care of yourself.
You'll figure that （你会这样想）if you do more exercise and not booze 豪饮 as much, life will be better.” 你会认为如果你再多些运动并且不要过多饮酒,你的生活会变得更好. 3. But some of us are just not natural optimists. What are we supposed to do？
4. Positive psychologists believe optimism can be learned, and we can teach ourselves to see a half-empty glass as half-full. All we have to do is to spend time
mulling 深思，沉思 over all the things that have gone right for us, rather than dwelling on what has gone badly. “Research on depression shows that one of the biggest causes of depression is
ruminating 深思，沉思 about something that went wrong in the past,” says Baylis.
“What happens is you look into the past and think about some event and keep turning it over, saying, 'I messed up, I messed up,' 这也许是这样的"你老回想过去的一些事情, 念叨着’是我弄糟了它的,是我弄糟了它的’
and you let it hurt you.
You keep feeding it the oxygen of attention and the flames keep burning you.” 你越是关注它，它就越是伤害你
5. But
just as dwelling on negative events can lead to depression, dwelling on things that have gone well can help pick you up, 正如徘徊在消极的事情上会导致我们郁闷一样, 停留在事情对我们积极的一面却能帮助我们重新振作, he says. “You have to thank you lucky stars about what goes right on a daily basis. Whenever you get the feeling of being negative about things, just take a moment out and remind yourself of the stuff that has gone well. It could be anything from a conversation to your garden looking nice, or that it didn't rain on you when you were out on your bike. It's an extremely powerful technique.”
6. By reminding ourselves what went well instead of what went wrong, positive psychologists believe we can build a
buffer 缓冲 , against unhappiness, making us better able to take life's knocks when they come.
7. Seligman, who is the
figurehead of the positive psychology movement,
goes further than suggesting people learn to think positively. He has worked out what he sees as a blueprint（蓝图） for happiness that people can use to set them on the path to a fulfilling and satisfying life. He believes there are three routes to happiness, which he calls the “pleasant life”（富有的生活）, the “good life”（充实的生活） and the “meaningful life”（有意义的生活）.
Some are better than others, although a mix of all three is ideal. 三种里面的一些要比另外一些要好，尽管三种混合在一起也是很理想的。 The pleasant life sees superficial pleasures as the key to happiness, and it is this that many people mistakenly pursue, he says. “The biggest mistake that people in the rich west make is to be enchanted with the Hollywood （好莱坞）idea of happiness, which is really just giggling and smiling a lot,” he says.
While a life bent on instant pleasure and gratification offers some degree of happiness, it is ultimate1y unsatisfying on its own, he says. 当一个人倾向于片刻的欢乐和与因满意而在某种程度上的开心时, 这并不能从根本上使他满足.
8. Money, it turns out, isn't the answer either. Seligman believes that once we have enough to pay for life's basics such as food and a roof over our heads, more money adds little to our happiness.
9. To be seriously happy, Seligman says, we have to set our sights on a good life and a meaningful life. To do this we need to identify what he calls our signature strengths, which could be anything from perseverance 毅力，恒心 and leadership to a love of learning. 为了达到这一点，我们要弄清楚他称之为的：我们的能力特点，它可以是任何东西，从意志力和领导才能 到 热爱学习。
10. Seligman says that once we know our signature strengths, using them more and more in our daily lives will make us feel happier and more fulfilled. By exploiting our strengths, he says,
we will find life more gratifying and become completely immersed in what we are doing, whether working, making music or playing sport-a state positive psychologists call “flow”. 我们会觉得生活更加令人满意，我们会完全沉浸于我们所做的事情之中，不管是工作，写歌还是做体育运动—一种 积极心理学家叫作“川流不息”的状态。
11. Using our signature strengths in our working and social lives will help us achieve what Seligman calls a good life, while using them to help others will put us on course for achieving a meaningful life, he says.
12. While positive psychology is broadly seen as valid by the psychology and psychiatry establishment,
it does have its critics.（批判） 13.
Positive psychologists also stand accused of （谴责） burying their heads （逃避现实）in the sand and ignoring that depressed, even merely unhappy people, have real problems that need dealing with. 积极心里学家也同样被谴责为充耳不闻, 也忽略了压郁，即使是仅仅是不开心的人，也有很多问题要去解决。 Seligman counters this, saying positive psychology is not meant to replace other forms of therapy, but should be complementary, while people work through their negative feelings.
