双语阅读：何为幸福？如何获得？耶鲁大学幸福课为什么受欢迎

The Yale happiness class, formally known as Psyc 157: Psychology and the Good Life, is one of the most popular classes to be offered in the university’s 320-year history.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/over-3-million-people-took-this-course-on-happiness.html

耶鲁大学幸福课的正式名称是“心理157：心理学与美好生活”(Psyc 157: Psychology and the Good Life)，它是该校320年历史上最受欢迎的课程之一。

The class was only ever taught in-person once, during the spring 2018 semester, as a 1,200-person lecture course in the largest space on campus.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/over-3-million-people-took-this-course-on-happiness.html

这门课只在2018年春季学期进行过一次现场授课，是在校园内最大的空间里作为一个1200人的讲座课程。

That March, a free 10-week version made available to the public via Coursera, titled “the Science of Well-Being,” also became instantly popular, attracting hundreds of thousands of online learners. But when lockdowns¹ began last March, two full years later, the enrollment numbers skyrocketed. To date, over 3.3 million people have signed up, according to the website.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/over-3-million-people-took-this-course-on-happiness.html

同年3月，通过Coursera向公众提供的为期10周、名为“幸福的科学”的免费版本也立即流行起来，吸引了数十万在线学习者。但当去年3月防疫封锁开始时，也是该在线课程开始整整两年之后，选修它的人数激增。据该网站称，到目前为止，已有超过330万人注册。

“We octupled the number of people taking the class,” said Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale and the head of the university’s Silliman College, of its pandemic-era popularity.文章源自西贝博客-https://qinghe.me/over-3-million-people-took-this-course-on-happiness.html

“我们选修这门课的人数增加了八倍，”耶鲁大学西利曼学院(Silliman College)院长、心理学教授劳里·桑托斯(Laurie Santos)谈到这门课在大流行时期的受欢迎程度时说。

“Everyone knows what they need to do to protect their physical health: wash your hands, and social distance, and wear a mask,” she added. “People were struggling with what to do to protect their mental health.”

“每个人都知道应该做什么来保护自己的身体健康：洗手，保持社交距离，戴口罩，”她还说。“人们在纠结应该怎样保护自己的心理健康。”

The Coursera curriculum, adapted from the one Dr. Santos taught at Yale, asks students to, among other things, track their sleep patterns ², keep a gratitude journal, perform random acts of kindness, and take note of whether, over time, these behaviors correlate with a positive change in their general mood.

Coursera的课程改编自桑托斯在耶鲁大学教授的一门课程。它要求学生记录自己的睡眠规律、写感恩日记、随机做一些好事，并记录随着时间的推移，这些行为是否与自身总体情绪的积极变化相关。

Gretchen McIntire, 34, a home health aide in Massachusetts, is studying for her bachelor’s degree in psychology through an online program from Southern New Hampshire University. In her free time during lockdown in August, Ms. McIntire took the class. She called it “life-changing.”

34岁的格雷琴·麦金太尔(Gretchen McIntire)是马萨诸塞州的一名家庭健康助理，她正在通过南新罕布什尔大学(Southern New Hampshire University)的一个在线项目攻读心理学学士学位。去年8月，麦金太尔利用封锁期间的空闲时间上了这门课。她称这是“改变人生”的课。

The practical aspect of the Coursera curriculum appealed to Ms. McIntire, who learned she had Asperger’s syndrome at 23. A night owl, she had struggled with sleep and enforcing her own time boundaries.

Coursera课程的实用性吸引了麦金太尔，她在23岁时得知自己患有阿斯伯格综合征。作为一个夜猫子，她一直为睡眠和坚持自己给自己制定的时间限制而苦恼。

“It’s hard to set those boundaries with yourself sometimes and say, ‘I know this book is really exciting, but it can wait till tomorrow, sleep is more important,’” she said. “That’s discipline, right? But I had never done it in that way, where it’s like, ‘It’s going to make you happier. It’s not just good for you; it’s going to actually legitimately ³ make you happier.’”

“有时很难给自己设定界限，说，‘我知道这本书很有趣，但可以等到明天，睡觉更重要。’”她说。“这是纪律，对吧？但我从来没有按这种方式做过，就是‘这样会让你更快乐。它不仅对你有好处；它会真正地让你更快乐。’”

She said she found having a daily meditation practice helpful, and has stuck with it even after finishing the class. Meditation also helped her to get off social media.

她说，她发现每天进行冥想练习很有帮助，甚至在课程结束后也坚持了下来。冥想还帮助她摆脱了社交媒体。

“I found myself looking inward. It helped me become more introspective,” she said. “Honestly, it was the best thing I ever did.” (She later re-downloaded her social apps, including Facebook Messenger, and felt instantly overwhelmed.)

“我发现自己在观照内心。这让我变得更加内省，”她说。“老实说，这是我做过的最好的一件事。（她后来重新下载了自己的社交应用，包括Facebook Messenger，立刻感到不堪重负。）

Tracy Morgan, a programming supervisor at the Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex in High River in Alberta, Canada, signed up for the class last June, as she was in lockdown with her children and husband.

特蕾西·摩根(Tracy Morgan)是加拿大阿尔伯塔省高河市鲍勃·斯诺格拉斯娱乐中心(Bob Snodgrass Recreation Complex)的一名计划主管。去年6月，在和丈夫与孩子们在一起被封锁期间，她选修了这门课程。

“There’s no reason I shouldn’t be happy,” she said. “I have a wonderful marriage. I have two kids. I have a nice job and a nice house. And I just could never find happiness.”

“我没有理由不快乐，”她说。“我的婚姻很美满。我有两个孩子。我有一份好工作和一个好房子。可我就是永远也找不到幸福。”

Since taking the course, Ms. Morgan, 52, has made a commitment to do three things every day: practice yoga for one hour, take a walk outside in nature no matter how cold it may be in Alberta, and write three to five entries in her gratitude journal before bed.

自从上了这个课程后，52岁的摩根承诺每天做三件事：练习一小时瑜伽；不管阿尔伯塔省有多冷，都要到户外的大自然中去散步；睡觉前在感恩日记里写三到五件事。

“When you start writing down those things at the end of the day, you only think about it at the end of the day, but once you make it a routine, you start to think about it all throughout the day,” she said.

“当你开始在一天结束时写下这些事情时，你只会在一天结束时想它，但是一旦你把它变成一种习惯，你就会开始一整天都在想它，”她说。

And some studies show that finding reasons to be grateful ⁴ can increase your general sense of well-being.

一些研究表明，寻找感恩的理由可以增加整体幸福感。

Ewa Szypula, 37, a lecturer of French studies at the University of Nottingham in Britain, said she has been interested in self-improvement techniques since studying for her Ph.D. several years ago. “Somewhere along the second or third year, you do feel a bit burned out, and you need strategies for dealing with it,” she said.

37岁的埃瓦·西普拉(Ewa Szypula)是英国诺丁汉大学(University of Nottingham)法语研究讲师，她说，自从几年前攻读博士学位以来，她一直对自我提升的技巧感兴趣。她说：“在博士第二年或第三年的某个时候，你确实会感到有些倦怠，你需要一些应对策略。”

One small study from Dr. Santos’s curriculum that stuck with her involved polling 632 Americans to predict how happy they would be if they were given $5 to spend on themselves versus getting $5 and being told they must spend it on someone else. In the study, people predicted that they would be happier if they were allowed to keep the money. But participants consistently reported afterward that they had in fact derived more satisfaction from spending money on someone.

桑托斯的课程中有一项小研究让她很难忘，632名参与研究的美国人得到的问题是，如果给他们五美元，那么这笔钱怎样使用会让他们更幸福，是花在自己身上，还是花在别人身上。研究中，受试者预测把钱留给自己会更幸福。但此后不断有受试者报告，说他们在把钱用在别人身上时感受到了更大的满足。

Dr. Szypula had the opportunity to combine her newfound knowledge in a practical experiment on her sister’s birthday. Instead of keeping an expensive dress she had bought, she gave it to her sister.

西普拉有机会以她姐妹的生日为一项应用实验，将她刚学到的知识用起来。她没有把自己买的一条昂贵的裙子留下来，而是给了她的姐妹。

“I’m still feeling that happiness months later,” she said.

“那种幸福感几个月后还在，”她说。

Not every student of the class has felt transformed. Matt Nadel, 21, a Yale senior, was among the 1,200 students taking the class on campus in 2018. He said the rigors of Yale were a big adjustment when he started at the university in the fall of 2017.

并非班上的每一个学生都感受到了改变。21岁的耶鲁大四学生迈特·纳德尔(Matt Nadel)是2018年参加了那次校园实体授课的1200名学生之一。他说2017年秋刚刚入学时，耶鲁的严苛让他适应起来很吃力。

“I was stressed, and I didn’t know exactly how to manage that,” he said.

“我压力很大，不知道该怎么应对，”他说。

Mr. Nadel said he was disappointed that the class was a sort of review of the kinds of obvious good advice you may get from a grandmother: Get enough sleep, drink enough water, just do your best.

纳达尔说他对这个课感到失望，因为它只是把祖母会给的那种显然很好的建议进行一番检视：保证睡眠、多喝水、量力而为。

“I knew that sleeping was good. I knew that my grades didn’t matter for long-term happiness, that I wasn’t going to be a happier, better person because of having good grades,” he said. “Did the class impact my life in a long term, tangible way? The answer is no.”

“我知道睡觉是好事。我知道我的分数跟长期的幸福无关，光是有好分数并不能让我成为一个更开心、更好的人，”他说。“但这堂课给我的人生造成了什么深远而切实的影响吗？答案是没有。”

While the class wasn’t life-changing for him, Mr. Nadel said that he is more expressive now when he feels gratitude. “Which is great,” he said. “But that’s about all.”

课虽然没有改变他的人生，但纳德尔说，他现在会更乐于去表达感恩。“这很好，”他说。“但也就仅此而已。”

Kezie Nwachukwu, 22, also took the class at Yale. He didn’t think it was revolutionary, either, he said, but has managed to find some lasting value in the curriculum.

22岁的克齐·瓦楚库(Kezie Nwachukwu)也上了实体课。他也不觉得有什么惊天动地的变化，不过还是在这个课程中发现了一些长远的价值。

Mr. Nwachukwu, who identifies as a Christian, said that the most important thing he learned is about the importance of faith and community in happiness.

自称是基督徒的瓦楚库说，他的最重要收获是学到了信仰和社区在幸福中的重要性。

“I think I was struggling to reconcile, and to intellectually interrogate ⁵, my religion,” he said. “Also acknowledging that I just really like to hang out with this kind of community that I think made me who I am.”

“我想我当时是在努力调和自己的宗教信仰，并在理智上反思它，”他说。“同时承认我只是很喜欢和这样的社区相处，我认为是他们造就了我。”

Life-changing? No. But certainly life-affirming, he said.

改变人生？不算。但他说这无疑是一种对人生的确认。

“The class helped make me more secure and comfortable in my pre-existing religious beliefs,” Mr. Nwachukwu said.

“这个课程让我对自己既有的宗教信仰更有把握也更舒适了，”瓦楚库说。

Another lesson that stuck with him was the value of negative visualization. This entails thinking of a good thing in your life (like your gorgeous, reasonably affordable apartment) and then imagining the worst-case scenario (suddenly finding yourself homeless and without a safety net). If gratitude is something that doesn’t come naturally, negative visualization can help you to get there.

还有一个心得是负面可视化的价值。意思是要去思考生活中一个好东西（比如你那间漂亮而且价格公道的公寓），然后去设想最糟糕的场景（突然发现自己无家可归，没有福利保障）。如果说感恩不是与生俱来的情感，那么负面可视化可以帮你做到感恩。

“That’s something that I really keep in mind, especially when I feel like my mind is so trapped in thinking about future hurdles,” Mr. Nwachukwu said. “I should be so grateful for everything that I have. Because you’re not built to notice these things.”

“这方面我是非常注意的，尤其是当我觉得我的思绪被困在了对未来困难的思考中时，”瓦楚库说。“我应该感激我所拥有的一切。因为你本来是不会去注意这些的。”