如果最糟的事情发生了

（英文原文来自The School of Life）

来自The School of Life

在幕后，我们许多人都如此害怕耻辱、疾病、解雇、死亡、亲人的痛苦和死亡。当这些恐惧出现时，我们常常被鼓励，出于善意，去考虑最好的情况。这是善意的举动，但是无意中，会让我们的恐惧恶化；它们会用无法言明的恐惧填满我们，并且不时以更大的姿态若隐若现。

来自The School of Life

因此，这里展示的一个相反的举动，直接把我们的焦虑看在眼里，拒绝被它们吓倒，并用详尽的细节审视他们，以便耗尽他们衰弱的力量。这样做很容易给我们带来一个重要的认知：我们可以应付，即使出现最坏的情况。下面是邀请我们默想一些可怕的事情，这不是为了打压我们，而是借给我们一个对恢复力和适应性的活跃、乐观的感受。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会发现，我的朋友远比想象中的少；但是留下来的，都是真正的朋友；他们可以透过我（被毁的）社会地位，看到真正的我。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……这将不再是一种可选的遵循安全、体面、有声望的道路。随着失去仅剩的一点点，我最终将获得机会去探索那些风险更大、但更有成就感的职业，我总是在某个地方渴望得到，但却太过社交焦虑，无法尝试。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会学着去用自己的标准衡量自己的价值，而不是大众的突发奇想和掌声。我会生出一个自我，独立于别人的裁决。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会带着全新的赞赏和谦逊的目光，看待动物们从容的平静、自然的恬淡寡欲和恢复力。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我将学会从遥远星云的位置来注视我的悲伤，并将我的生活视为微不足道的、微不足道的事情。它确实是，而且一直都是。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会发展出一种对每一件看似微不足道的小事适当的感激，而每一天，如果没有进一步的灾难化，我就认为是真正的祝福；确实如此。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会理解，生活从来都不是按照一个没有瑕疵和不会出错的模子刻出来的，而是一个总是不完美的，必然是胡乱拼凑起来，摇摇欲坠的结构，充满了痕迹和瑕疵——但尽管如此，它们仍然拥有自己的美丽和尊严。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会学着去辨别，什么是真正严肃并值得哀悼的，什么是一闪而过的烦心事。我会在很多情况下，更加无限地平静。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我的失败会使得其他人有胆量分享他们自己的悲伤、困惑和丢脸的故事，我们将一起面对我们经常遭受的痛苦，一般而言，不公平地，独自承受。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会看到, 为名利、金钱和成功而斗争, 只是一次注定的尝试, 以弥补在童年时期所渴望，却被拒绝的无条件的爱。世俗的渴望会给深深的忧伤和哀悼让路。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会停止对看里面那么害怕，而且，也许，我会试试做心理治疗。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……我会奏起最忧伤的歌，它们在我的翅膀里，一直等着我。

来自The School of Life

如果最糟的事情发生了……真的很糟，那么，所有的愤怒、忧伤、焦虑和恐惧都将终结，如同人们最美好的祈祷那样，我们将会平静。

How to Cope If the Worst Came to the Worst...

（英文原文来自The School of Life）

来自The School of Life

In the background, many of us are terrified of so much – disgrace, illness, sacking, our mortality, the suffering and death of loved ones… When these fears come up, we are often encouraged, out of kindness, to think of the best-case scenarios. It’s a well-meaning move, but it also – unintentionally – leaves our fears to fester; they fill us with unnamed dread and sometimes loom far larger than they should.

来自The School of Life

So an opposite move – displayed here – involves looking our anxieties directly in the eye, refusing to be cowed by them and examining them in exhaustive detail so as to drain them of their debilitating power. Doing so is liable to bring us to an important realisation: we could cope – even if the worst came to the worst… What follows are some invitations to meditate on scary things, not in order to depress us, but to lend us a buoyant, optimistic sense of our resilience and adaptability.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would learn I had far fewer friends – but the ones that remained would be the true ones; the ones who could see past my (ruined) social status to the genuine me beneath.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst… it would no longer be an option to follow the safe, respectable, prestigious path. With far less left to lose, I would at last be granted the opportunity to explore the riskier, yet more fulfilling occupations I had always somewhere hankered for but been too socially-anxious to try.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would learn to measure my self-worth by my own standards rather than the whims and applause of the crowd. I would grow a sense of self independent of the verdicts of others.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would look with new admiration and humility at the unhurried calm, natural stoicism and resilience of animals.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst…I would learn to contemplate my sorrows from the vantage point of a distant nebula and would recognise my life as the petty and insignificant thing it truly is and always was.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would develop appropriate gratitude for every apparently minor thing – and every day that unfolded without further catastrophe would be recognised as the blessing it truly is.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would understand that life was not something that could ever be moulded into a wholly flawless and error-free entity – but is an always imperfect, necessarily wonky cobbled-together construction, full of marks and blemishes – which nevertheless possess their own beauty and dignity.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would learn to distinguish between what is really serious and worth lamenting and what is only ever a passing nuisance. I would, in so many situations, be infinitely calmer.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……my failure would embolden others to share stories of their own sadness, confusion and humilliation and we would, together, face up to the suffering we so often, currently, unfairly, endure alone.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would see that the struggle for fame,money and success was only ever a doomed attempt to compensate for an unconditional love that was longed for but denied in childhood. Worldly craving would give way to melancholy and mourning.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I’d cease to be so scared of looking within – and might, perhaps, one day give psychotherapy a go.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst……I would play the saddest songs that have been waiting, in the wings, for me all this time.

来自The School of Life

If the worst came to the worst…truly the worst, then all the rage, grief, anxiety and fear would be at an end – and we would, at last, as the prayers so beautifully put it, be at peace.

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