The big idea: What's the real key to a fulfilling life?
核心观点：充实生活的真正关键是什么？
As a social psychologist, I have dedicated my research career to a simple, but universal question: what makes for a good life, and how can we achieve it?
作为一名社会心理学家，我将自己的研究职业生涯都投入到了一个简单却普遍存在的问题上：是什么造就了美好的生活，以及我们要如何实现它呢？
Ask the Danes and Finns, who consistently rank among the happiest people in the world, what their secret is and they'll tell you this: lower your expectations and be content with what you have. It is a recommendation backed by plenty of evidence. Paradoxically, happiness is easier to achieve if you don't want too much of it.
问问丹麦人和芬兰人——他们一直位列世界上最幸福的人群之中，他们的幸福秘诀是什么，他们会告诉你：降低你的期望，满足于你所拥有的。这是一个有大量证据支持的建议。矛盾的是，如果你对幸福的渴望不是太强烈，反而更容易获得幸福。
We assume that the big things in life will make us happy: a wedding, a promotion or a new car. They do, but not for long. Studies show that we adapt to our new conditions more quickly than you might think, something psychologists call the "hedonic treadmill".
我们认为生活中的大事会让我们幸福：一场婚礼、一次升职或者一辆新车。它们确实会带来幸福，但这种幸福不会持续太久。研究表明，我们适应新状况的速度比你想象的要快，心理学家把这种现象称为“快乐水车效应”。
Instead, it's the daily walks with your dog, the weekly coffee with your best friend and the monthly romantic dinner with your partner that provide a more enduring happiness.
相反，每天和你的狗一起散步、每周和你最好的朋友一起喝咖啡，以及每月和你的伴侣共进浪漫晚餐，这些才会带来更持久的幸福。
It sounds good, doesn't it? But it leaves something out. It's a bit like being a college student who only takes easy courses to be sure of getting good grades. Might there be more to life than simple pleasures and cosy comfort?
这听起来不错，不是吗？但它遗漏了一些东西。这有点像一个大学生为了确保能拿到好成绩而只选简单的课程。生活中除了简单的快乐和舒适惬意之外，会不会还有更多的东西呢？
Then there's the meaningful life. We often imagine that meaning flows from trying to change the world, àla Steve Jobs, Greta Thunberg or Mother Theresa. The pressure to realise this kind of grand vision can be immensely taxing, and feels out of reach for most of us.
接下来是有意义的生活。我们常常认为意义来自于试图改变世界，就像史蒂夫·乔布斯、格蕾塔·桑伯格或特蕾莎修女那样。要实现这种宏伟愿景的压力可能会非常大，而且对我们大多数人来说感觉遥不可及。
Once again, the research shows that lowering your sights and focusing on the little things can offer a more achievable sense of meaning. Often people find it in routines like taking care of family, volunteering in the community.
研究再次表明，降低你的目标并专注于小事可以带来一种更易实现的意义感。人们常常在诸如照顾家人、在社区做志愿者这样的日常事务中找到这种意义感。
Thinking about what happiness and meaning leave out, and the traps they can set us, led me and my research lab to sketch out a third route to fulfilment: psychological richness.
思考幸福和意义所遗漏的东西，以及它们可能给我们设下的陷阱，这促使我和我的研究团队勾勒出了通往充实生活的第三条道路：心理丰富度。
A psychologically rich life is one filled with diverse, unusual and interesting experiences that change your perspective; a life with twists and turns; a dramatic, eventful life instead of a simple and straightforward one; a life with multiplicity and complexity; a life with stops, detours and turning points; a life that feels like a long, winding hike rather than many laps of the same racing circuit.
心理丰富的生活是充满了多样、不同寻常且有趣的经历，这些经历会改变你的观点；这是一种充满曲折的生活；是一种充满戏剧性、经历丰富的生活，而不是简单直接的生活；是一种具有多样性和复杂性的生活；是一种有停顿、迂回和转折点的生活；这种生活感觉就像是一次漫长、蜿蜒的徒步旅行，而不是在同一条赛道上绕很多圈。
Such experiences can kickstart the psychological immune system, making us more resilient. Not only that, embracing the pursuit of psychological richness can make us less prone to regret: it matters less if the thing you did went wrong. You did it regardless, and chalked up another experience.
这样的经历可以启动心理免疫系统，让我们更有韧性。不仅如此，接受对心理丰富度的追求能让我们不那么容易感到后悔：你做的事情出了错也没那么重要了。不管怎样你都做过了，并且又积累了一段经历。
In the end, perhaps no one said it better than Eleanor Roosevelt: "The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear".
最后，或许没有人比埃莉诺·罗斯福说得更好了：“生活的目的，归根结底，是要去生活，尽情品味各种经历，热切地、毫无畏惧地去探索。”
翻译：豆包
整理：2025年3月18日于经典龙苑
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