How to Be Happy

本文的题目是“快乐的秘诀”。作者是个幽默高手，反讽、正话反说、矛盾修辞、逆向思维等手法信手拈来。这些所谓的“秘诀”说不定会让你开心不已，说不定一点作用也没有。我们选择本文不仅因为它有趣，更重要的是希望读者意识到东西方在文化和思维习惯上的差别，并注意在学习中或与外国朋友交往中培养跨文化交际的能力。
 

At the airport bookstore, there are only about a dozen freestanding shelves of books. It’s Darwinian selection at its most brutal: only the most popular authors, the newest novels, and the most recognizable classics survive. You won’t find the lesser-known works of Oscar Wilde or Voltaire or even Hemingway — there isn’t space for them. Jane Austen makes only the briefest appearance, and Edgar Allen Poe shows his face only at Hallowe’en. There are no collections of poetry beyond Dr. Seuss.

There is, however, a whole rack of self-help books.
　
Americans are obsessed with making ourselves better, smarter, thinner. You can buy books to improve your vocabulary. You can devour a stack of books that will teach you to work more efficiently, more ruthlessly, and claw your way to the top — and then you can read books
on how to stop and smell the roses and enjoy your life more fully. There are even books that will teach you how to organize your closets.

All of these things dance around the essential truth: we want to be happy. We want to be loved. We want to find meaning in our lives and feel that our contributions make a difference. 　

This, then, is the Rusty Brain Guide: How To Be Happy. 　

◆ Eat more cookies. Abstaining from a single cookie isn’t going to
make you look svelte and toned. Go on, eat some cookies. I recommend
the double chocolate ones with chocolate chips inside. 　

◆ Sing. In your car. In elevators. At the mall, especially at Crate &
Barrel and Pottery Barn. In hospital corridors. Before important client
meetings. When people give you that patronizing look, wink at em. 　

◆ Make Popsicles. 　

◆ Stay home on the weekend and disconnect your phone. 　

◆ Bring a plastic straw to a fancy restaurant. Make loud gurgling sounds
when you get to the bottom as you attempt to drink every last molecule of
diet Coke. 　

◆ Order the stuff on the menu that you’ve never heard of—like Gkaeng
Cheud Bplah Meuk Yad Sai (Stuffed Squid Soup with Napa Cabbage or
Squash). 　

◆ Talk to strangers. 　

◆ Collect something weird that isn’t expensive but is relatively
hard-to-find. 　

◆ Wear odd hats in public places. 　

◆ Amass a jar of coins. Bury them in your back yard. Draw a treasure
map and give it to a friend. 　

◆ Walk to the park near your house. Do some somersaults. When was
the last time you did a somersault, anyway?
　
◆ Eat pickles out of the jar. 　

◆ Build a Web site and write your own Rusty Brain column. 　

◆ Spend a day by yourself. Leave your cell phone at home. Wander the
streets, muttering to yourself and occasionally disagreeing with what
you’ve just muttered. 　

◆ Buy a puppy. Name it Charo. 　

◆ Get your teeth capped. Move to Hollywood. Become a star. (Isn’t that
what you’ve been dreaming about anyway?) 　

◆ Throw a surprise birthday party for a friend. Invite lots of people.
Make sure that your friend’s actual birthday is nowhere near the date of
the party. 　

◆ Belch in public. Then sigh contently. 　

◆ Quit your worthless job and dedicate your life to the study of the
Moroccan flute. 　

◆ Fly a kite. 　

◆ Stop wasting your life with the Moroccan flute and get a real job. 　

◆ Volunteer at your library, or church, or your local soup kitchen, or Habitat for Humanity. 　

◆ Wear clothes so ratty that you are often mistaken for one of the
“needy.” 　

◆ Use the word “Jonesing” as often as possible. As in, “Man, I’m
Jonesin’ for some homemade Popsicles.” Studies have shown this will
make you happy. 　

◆ Join a bowling league. Buy a large red bowling ball. Name it
“Gorbachev.” 　

◆ Drive to the nearest national forest. Hike a mile with a backpack full
of cold fried chicken and biscuits. Find a clearing where you will not
meet a single human and have a picnic. 　

◆ Stare at the clouds for a full afternoon and dream. 　

◆ Think about the things you love to do. Now go do those things more
often. 　

[注释]：
freestanding: standing or operating independently of anything else 独立式的，不需依靠支撑物
的
brutal : unrelenting 严酷的；无情的　
lesser-known: 不出名的　
devour : to take in eagerly 贪婪；急切地投入　
a stack of : 一大堆　
claw one’s way to: 爬向(上)　
svelte : graceful in figure or outline; slim 苗条的　
patronizing : 神气十足的; 傲慢的　
popsicle : (俚)冰棍，棒冰　
gurgle : 发出汩汩声; 发出咯咯声　
molecule : 分子; 微粒　
somersault : 翻筋斗　
mutter : to say in low tones 咕哝，嘀咕　
puppy: 小狗，小动物　
thong : 皮带　
belch : to expel(gass) noisily from the stomach 打嗝　
ratty : shabby (俚)破烂的