文/梅甘·布鲁诺 译/郑淑明 周鸿雁

By Megan Bruneau

幸福是棵正儿八经的摇钱树。世界各地的人们花费数千亿美元来躲避难关、寻求快乐，要么服用处方药、疯狂节食和健身，要么求助久经考验的长生不老药——酒精。

[2]作为心理治疗师，我帮助人们提升整体幸福的层次。我几乎听说过所有关于幸福的神话。而最糟糕的是，这些神话其实会让你不幸福（乱了，是吗？）——所以，摆脱这些神话，反而是寻找幸福的一部分。

实现了（你追求的目标），你就会幸福

[3]无论是职务晋升、寻得伴侣、购得跑车、体重达标，还是拥有公寓——实现了，你就会感受到无限的幸福。嘿，相信这种神话并不是你的错，因为你一出生就被灌输了这种美国梦。

Happiness is a serious moneymaker.People around the world spend hundreds of billions of dollars trying to avoid the tough stuff and feel good about themselves, whether that’s through prescription1prescription处方药。pills, going crazy with dieting and fitness, or that timetested elixir2elixir长生不老药；灵丹妙药。of life: alcohol.

[2] As a psychotherapist3psychotherapist心理治疗师。who helps people bump their overall happiness level up4bump up 抬高，增大，提升。a few notches5notch 等级，水平。, I’ve heard pretty much6pretty much〈口〉几乎，差不多。all of the myths out there about happiness.The worst part is that these myths actually make you unhappy (messed up, right?)—so ditching them is,paradoxically, part of fi nding happiness.

When you achieve [whatever goal you’re going after], you’ll be happy

[3] Land the promotion, the spouse,the Lambo7Lamborghini的缩写，跑车品牌兰博基尼。, the goal weight, the condo8condo公寓。,whatever it is—you’ll fi nally experience eternal happiness. Hey, it’s not your fault for believing this, since you’ve likely been fed the American dream since the moment you escaped from the womb.

[4] But this logic is flawed. Achievements don’t protect you from feeling like crap9crap废物。, and they def i nitely don’t make you superhuman. Multimillionaires still get depressed. People with “perfect”bodies still get dumped. Steady, passive income10即不需要花费时间和精力就可以自动获得的收入。doesn’t protect you from losing someone to cancer. If you can start appreciating where you are, rather than basing your sense of fulfillment on some future accomplishment, you’ll be much closer to happiness.

[4]但它的逻辑漏洞百出。即使取得各种成就，也并不会让你感觉良好，更绝对不会让你变成超人。百万富翁也会有心情抑郁的时候。拥有“完美”身材的人也会失恋。稳定、被动的收入不会保证你身边的人不因癌症去世。如果你能开始欣赏目前的处境，而不是依赖还未实现的某项成就带来的满足感，你就会离幸福更近。

遇到了对的人，你就会幸福

[5]如果你认为只有谈恋爱才能幸福，那你会在单身时感到空虚，还很可能感到焦虑。毫无疑问，一段良好的恋爱关系能在很多方面让你的人生更棒，但这并不是必要条件。……