[精品译文推荐]当你不喜欢你自己的时候。。。

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来源When You Don\'t Like Yourself（ 美国心理协会网文章，较长）
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    When You Don't Like Yourself

当你不喜欢你自己的时候
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% |  R& y; @' m" D6 V  S    Self-hatred. What can you do to change it?

! h& s7 _3 K3 [7 B- F自我仇恨。你能做什么来改变它？

. {7 P; E8 R2 a; Q    Some people have the misfortune to have been born to abusive parents who belittled them and prevented them from developing a healthy self-esteem. Others are born predisposed to view themselves in a negative light because of their physical appearance, a disability, or for no reason anyone, including themselves, knows. Research has consistently supported the notion that it's difficult to be happy without liking oneself. But how can one learn to like oneself when one doesn't?

一些人不幸生于受父母虐待的家庭，受到轻视并且无法培养健康的自尊。另一些人生来就对自己有一种消极的倾向，因为他们的外表、残疾，或者没有人知道的原因。研究一直支持这样的观点：不喜欢自己就很难快乐。但是当我们不喜欢自己的时候，怎样学会喜欢自己

    WHAT PART OF OURSELVES DO WE DISLIKE?

我们不喜欢自己的哪个部分？

    People filled with self-loathing typically imagine they dislike every part of themselves, but this is rarely, if ever, true. More commonly, if asked what specific parts of themselves they dislike, they're able to provide specific answers: their physical appearance, their inability to excel academically or at a job, or maybe their inability to accomplish their dreams. Yet when presented, for example, a scenario in which they come upon a child trapped under a car at the scene of an accident, that they recoil in horror and would want urgently to do something to help rarely causes them to credit themselves for the humanity such a reaction indicates.
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充满自我厌恶的人通常以为他们不喜欢自己的每一个部分，但这几乎不是真的。更常见的是，如果被问道他们不喜欢自己的哪个部分，他们会给出详细的答案：他们的外表，他们在学业或工作上的无能，或者他们无法实现自己的梦想。

7 L, D7 E& C& \' s    Why do self-loathers so readily overlook the good parts of themselves? The answer in most cases turns out to relate not to the fact that they have negative qualities but to the disproportionate weight they lend them. People who dislike themselves may acknowledge they have positive attributes but any emotional impact they have simply gets blotted out.

2 r& M* s. r: [6 j0 U2 \为什么自我厌恶的人轻易忽视他们身上好的部分呢？在大多数情况下，答案与他们身上的消极品质无关，而是与他们对自己施加的过多重量有关。不喜欢自己的人通常承认他们具有积极的品质，但情绪上的影响掩盖了这些积极品质。
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    THE SOURCE OF SELF-LOATHING
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自我厌恶的根源

9 X$ @" Y0 X( v; i' F    Which makes learning to like oneself no easy task. Many people, in fact, spend a lifetime in therapy in pursuit of self-love, struggling as if learning a new language as an adult rather than as a child.
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5 k3 w$ p; A9 k) k5 t, V, [学会喜欢自己并不是一个容易的任务。实际上许多人花去一生的时间来寻找自爱的疗法，就像一个成人年而不是孩子在设法学会一门新的语言。

. ~2 ?7 ~1 a0 g8 Q7 j! ^2 z, M3 @+ Y8 f$ U    Before such a change will occur, however, the essential cause of one's self-loathing needs to be apprehended. By this I don't mean the historical cause. The circumstances that initially lead people to dislike themselves do so by triggering a thought process of self-loathing that continues long after the circumstances that set it in motion have resolved, a thought process that continues to gain momentum the longer it remains unchallenged, much like a boulder picks up speed rolling down a mountain as long as nothing gets in its way. For example, your parents may have failed to praise you or support your accomplishments in school when you were young—perhaps even largely ignored you—which led you to conclude they didn't care about you, which then led you to conclude you're not worth caring about. It's this last idea, not the memory of your parents ignoring you, that gathers the power within your life to make you loathe yourself if not checked by adult reasoning early on. Once a narrative of worthlessness embeds itself in one's mind, it becomes extraordinarily difficult to disbelieve it, especially when one can find evidence that it represents a true account.

然而在改变发生之前，我们需要先领会自我厌恶的本质原因，我不是指历史原因。最初导致人们不喜欢自己的那些事件，引发了自我厌恶的思维过程，并且在这些事件解决以后仍然存在。如果这个思维过程没有受到挑战，那么它将会积聚更多力量，就像山上滚下来的一块石头，只要没有东西挡住它，就会越滚越快。例如，你的父母也许在你小时候没有表扬或支持你在学校取得的好成绩，甚至只是很大程度上忽略了你，就会导致你认为他们不关心你，从而导致你认为自己不值得别人关心。正是最后这个想法，而不是你父母忽略你的这段回忆，聚集了你内心的力量来厌恶你自己（如果没有在早期用成人的思考来检视它的话）。一旦当“我不值得”的这段故事嵌入某人的思维中，它将很难再去被怀疑，尤其当我们找到证据证明它的时候。

    But a narrative is just that: a story we tell ourselves. It may very well contain elements of truth—that we are unattractive, that we do fail a lot of the time, or that our parents didn't find us all that lovable—but to proceed from facts such as these to the conclusion that we're deserving only of our own derision constitutes a significant thought error.

但这个故事只是我们自己给自己说的。它也许包含了一些事实，比如我们没那么有吸引力，或者我们许多时候会失败，或者我们的父母并不认为我们总是那么可爱。但是用这些事实得出一个所谓的结论说我们只配得上对自己的嘲笑，那就成为了一个重大的思维错误。
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- X0 I3 @4 g2 \. U" {# \+ N    THE TRUE SOURCE OF SELF-ESTEEM

自尊的来源

    The problem is that we common mortals can hardly avoid deriving our self-esteem from the wrong source—even those of us whose self-esteem is healthy. We look to what in Nichiren Buddhism is termed the "smaller self," the parts of ourselves that seem better than those of others and to which we become overly attached. In other words, we ground our self-esteem in things about ourselves we perceive as unique: typically our looks, our skills, or our accomplishments.

问题在于我们凡人几乎不可避免地从错误的地方取得自尊，就算是那些拥有健康自尊心的人。我们看中的是佛教中所谓的“小我”，那个似乎比其他人更好的一部分自我，然后我们过分依赖它。换句话说，我们把自尊理解为自己独特的那部分：我们的外表、技能或者成就。
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    But we only need to experience the loss of any one of these supportive elements to recognize the danger of relying on them to create our self-esteem. Looks, as we all know, fade. Unwanted weight is often gained. Illness sometimes strikes, preventing us from running as fast, concentrating as hard, or thinking as clearly as we once did. Past accomplishments lose their ability to sustain us the farther into the past we have to look for them.
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1 O- R$ T1 d/ B9 J) E然而我们只有经历失去这些支持的基础，才能认识到依赖它们来建立自尊是多么危险。外表，我们都知道，会憔悴，我们经常会发胖。疾病有时来袭，让我们跑得不再像以前那么快，精力不再那么集中，思维不再那么清醒。过去的成就失去了以前的威力，我们

    I'm not arguing that basing our self-esteem on our positive qualities is wrong. But we should aim to base it on positive qualities that require no comparison to the qualities of others for us to value them. We must awaken to the essential goodness—to what in Nichiren Buddhism is termed our "larger self"—that lies within us all. If we want to fall in love with our lives—and by this I don't mean the "we" of our small-minded egos—we must work diligently to manifest our larger selves in our daily lives. We must generate the wisdom and compassion to care for others until we've turned ourselves, piece by piece, into the people we most want to be.

我并不是说把自尊建立在我们的积极品质上是错误的，但是我们的目标是把自尊建立在那些不需要和别人比较就能体现价值的良好品质上。我们应该唤醒我们本质上的好，即佛教中的“大我”，它在我们所有人的内心。如果我们想要爱上自己的生命（不是指我们小小的自尊），那么我们应该更努力地在日常生活中显露出“大我”。我们必须建立对别人的智慧和同情，知道我们逐渐地转变成真正的自己，那个我们最想成为的人。
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2 Q: p1 I. ]2 P    In other words, if we want to like ourselves we have to earn our own respect. Luckily, doing this doesn't require that we become people of extraordinary physical attractiveness or accomplishment. It only requires we become people of extraordinary character—something anyone can do.
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0 q. ^+ ]2 M2 {也就是说，如果我们想要喜欢自己，那么我们必须建立我们自己的尊严。幸运的是，这并不需要我们成为外表很有吸引力或者拥有成就的人。这只要求我们成为拥有不平凡品质的人。每个人都可以

    A simple thought experiment supports this notion: think right now of your favorite person and ask yourself, what is it about them that attracts you the most? Odds are it isn't their physical appearance or their accomplishments but rather their magnanimous spirit; the way they treat others. This is the key quality that makes people likable, even to themselves.
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$ B# Q7 A, ?4 D6 Y5 t0 n* ~3 `一个简单的思维实验就可以证明这个观点：谢谢你最喜欢的人，问问你自己，是他们的什么最吸引你？奇怪的是并不是他们的身体外表或者他们的成就，而是他们宽容的心灵，他们对待别人的方式。这才是让一个人招人喜欢，也让自己喜欢的主要品质。

    Treating others well, it turns out, is the fastest path to a healthy self-esteem. If you dislike yourself, stop focusing on your negative qualities. We all have negative qualities. There's nothing special about your negativity, I promise you. Focus instead on caring for others. Because the more you care about others, I guarantee the more in turn you'll be able to care about yourself.
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善待他人，这是建立一个健康自尊的最快途径。如果你不喜欢你自己，那么不要再想你不好的方面了。我们都有不好的地方。我保证，你的这些不好品质并没有什么特别的。想想去关心别人吧。因为如果你越多地关心别人，你将能够更好地关心你自己。