又一篇好文来啦，请阁下细细品尝。我们常常想要善待他人的时候，却不知道他们到底真正想要什么。我们既看不透他们的想法，也不能理解他们的问题。而我们要记住，对每个人来说，我们总是困扰于对自己价值的怀疑、对未来的担忧、对我们所作所为抱有负罪感，我们所有人都极需肯定。但这种肯定不是恭维，而是真情流露，我们每个人都需要一些肯定的话。We’re often in situations of wanting to help and be kind to other people, but of not quite knowing what they might be in need of. We’d like to deepen our connection to them and be of service, and yet lack a real grasp of what we could plausibly offer them; their minds seem impenetrable, their problems opaque. At such moments, we would do well to remember that we all possess a superpower, a capacity to give people something we can be sure they fundamentally require, founded on a primordial and basic insight into human nature: that all of us are in deep need of reassurance.我们常常在想要帮助、善待他人的时候，却不太知道他们真正需要的是什么。我们希望能和他们加深联系，向他们伸出援手，但却不能真正了解自己能为他们做什么；我们既看不透他们的想法，也不能理解他们的问题。这时，我们最好记住我们都有一种超能力，这使我们能够给予他们一些他们必需的东西，它来源于对人性最原始的洞察：那就是我们所有人都极需肯定。Life is a, more or less, ongoing emergency for everyone. We are invariably haunted by doubts about our value, concerns for our future, shapeless anxiety and dread about things we’ve done, feelings of guilt and embarrassment about ourselves. Everyday brings new threats to our integrity and, except for very rare moments, when we and the world feel solid, there is almost always a background throb of unwellness in our minds.对每个人来说，生活或多或少都充满了危机。我们总是困扰于对自己价值的怀疑、对未来的担忧、对我们所作所为产生的焦虑恐惧以及随之产生的难堪和负罪感。每天我们的人格都会受到新的冲击，只有在极少数时刻，我们才会感觉整个世界都很踏实。其他情况下，我们潜意识里总有一种焦虑在蠢蠢欲动。It doesn’t matter whether they are old or young, accomplished or starting out, at the top of the tree or struggling to get by, we can count on one thing about anyone we meet: they’ll be beset by a sense of insecurity. Beneath some excellent camouflage, to a greater or lesser extent, they will be desperate. That means that, more than they perhaps even realise, they will be longing for someone to say something soothing to them, a word or two to make them feel that they have a right to exist, that we have some faith in them, that we know things aren’t always easy for them and that – in a vague but real way – we’re on their side.不管他们是老是少、功成名就还是初出茅庐、出类拔萃还是疲于奔命，我们遇到的每个人都难逃此劫：他们困扰于一种不安全感，不管他们伪装得多好，他们或多或少都感到绝望。这意味着，可能他们自己都没有意识到，他们多渴望某个人能对他们说些安慰的话，甚至只是一两句话就能让他们觉得他们有存在的价值、我们对他们有信心、我们知道有时他们真的很难，而且以一种隐晦却真实的方式我们会支持他们。It could be a very small, barely perceptible remark, but its effect might be critical: maybe that something fascinating they said sticks in our minds, or that we know the past few months might not have been simple for them, that we’ve found ourselves thinking of them since our last meeting, that we’ve noticed and admired the way they go about things, that they deserve a break and are, we can see, carrying so much.一句普通的低声评论可能就有很大的影响：可能是他们的一句妙语令我们印象深刻，或者是我们知道过去几个月他们过得很辛苦，还有就是上次见面后我们时常想起他们。我们很欣赏他们的处事方式，以及我们理解他们负担很重，该休息一下了。It’s easy to mistake the work of reassurance with flattery. But flattery involves a lie to gain advantage, whereas reassurance involves revealing genuine affection – which we normally leave out of embarrassment – in order to bolster someone’s ability to endure. We flatter in order to extract benefit, we reassure in order to help. Furthermore, the flatterer tells their prey about their strengths; the reassurer does something infinitely more valuable: they hint that they have seen the weaknesses, but have only tolerance and compassion for them and are willing to share their own similar examples.人们很容易把肯定和恭维搞混，但是恭维是为牟利而去撒谎，而肯定是真情流露，这些平日里羞于启齿的话流露出来，鼓励对方继续坚持。恭维是为了牟利，而肯定是为了帮助。不仅如此，奉承者只会告诉猎物他们的强大之处，肯定者所做的却更有价值：他们委婉地指出对方的弱点，但对对方充满耐心和同情心，并乐于与对方分享自己类似的例子。‘I think you’re gonna be fine’; ‘Everyone goes through things like these.’ ‘You've got nothing to be ashamed of…’ The words we need to say to reassure are almost banal, they can be the most apparently uninteresting sentences, but we need to keep hearing them because our minds are extremely bad at holding on to their nourishing truths. Furthermore, they are a great deal more inclined to stick if someone else addresses them to us than if we try to rehearse them by ourselves.“你一定可以的”；“每个人都会经历这种事”；“这没什么好惭愧的”。肯定的话几乎是陈词滥调，听起来都是挺无聊的话，但我们都需要这些话，因为我们的大脑十分不擅长坚持对自己有益的真理。不仅如此，如果是另一个人把这些话说给我们听，那么也会比我们自己默念要有价值得多，也更容易被记住。In 1425, the Florentine artist Masaccio painted a rendition of Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden on the walls of Florence’s Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. We need not believe in any of the supernatural aspects of Genesis to be profoundly moved by the horror-stricken faces of the banished couple. If we are so, it is because what we see is a version of an agony that is essentially universal – for all of us have effectively been cast out of the realm of comfort and plenty and obliged to dwell in the lands of uncertainty, humiliation and grief.All of us are beset by woes, worried to the core, longing for rest and in urgent need of forbearance and gentleness.1425年，佛罗伦萨艺术家马萨乔在佛罗伦萨圣母圣衣大教堂的墙壁上作画描绘了亚当夏娃被逐出伊甸园的场景。即便我们不相信创世纪中任何超自然的描绘，画作中被驱逐的夫妇布满恐惧的脸也深深触动着我们。我们被触动的原因正是因为我们所见的是一种普世的痛苦，因为我们所有人都被驱逐出舒适富足的国度，不得不在充满不确定性、屈辱和悲伤的土地上生活。我们所有人都有各种困扰，内心深处充满忧虑，渴望休息并且急需宽容和温柔。Part of the responsibility of living in a time that broadly no longer believes in divine reassurance is that we are, each of us, given a role to play in delivering part of that reassurance ourselves, to our fellow sufferers, in ordinary moments of our ordinary lives. We cannot generally know the precise details of other people’s travails, but we can always be sure of a few vital things from the outset: that they are, at some level, in a mood of pain and self-suspicion, that certain very big things will not have gone right in their lives, that there will be intensities of loneliness, anxiety and shame at play, and that it could hence make a very big difference indeed if we were able to say something, however modest and even unoriginal, to bring a little reassurance into their day.生活在大部分人都不相信来自神的肯定的时代，我们每个人都有责任从自己出发，在日常生活中的各种瞬间把这种肯定传达给同样痛苦的人。我们往往不能确切知道他人的煎熬，但我们从一开始就能确定核心所在：那就是在某些层面上，他们处于痛苦和自我怀疑的情绪中，他们生命中的大事出了差错，他们会有强烈的孤独感、焦虑和羞耻感。这时，如果我们能说些什么来给他们一些肯定的话，不管多普通、多陈词滥调，都一定会带来巨大的改变。By The School of Life译：Jo