“There is nothing either good or bad,but thinking makes it so.”---- - William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

One of the greatest sources of unhappiness, in my experience, is the difficulty we have in accepting things as they are.

Without judgment, without wishing for otherwise.

When we see something we don’t like, we wish it could be different — we cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it’s something that’s ingrained in our culture.

The root of the unhappiness isn’t necessarily that we want things to be different, however: it’s that we decided we didn’t like it in the first place. We’ve judged it as bad, rather than saying, “It’s not bad or good, it just is.”

An example: In my recent post, A Beautiful Method to Find Peace of Mind, quite a few commenters thought my outlook was negative, pessimistic, or fatalistic … because I said you should expect people to mess up, expect things to go differently than you planned, and that you should embrace that.

It’s too negative to expect things to go wrong, they said. However: it’s only negative if you see it as negative. If you judge it as bad.

Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works — as the way things actually are. And try to understand why that is, and embrace it. As it is.

This can be applied to whatever you do: whether it be how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they’re that way.

It’ll save you a lot of grief, because you’ll no longer say, “Oh, I wish things didn’t suck!”

Does it mean you can never change things? Not at all. But change things not because you can’t accept things as they are, but because you enjoy the process of change, of learning and growing.

Can we make this world a better place? Again, that’s assuming that it’s a bad place right now. But instead, you could say the world is just what it is — and that’s neither good nor bad. You can say that you’ll continue to try to do things to help others, to grow as a person, to make a difference in this world — not because you’re such a bad person now, or the world sucks, but because that’s the path you choose to take, because you enjoy that path.

As you catch yourself judging, and wishing for different — and we all do it — try a different approach: accept, and understand. It might lead to some interesting results.

“Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.” - Lao Tzu

沒(méi)有什么事物是好的或壞的，僅僅是你的思想把它變成了那樣。---莎士比亞-哈姆雷特

經(jīng)驗(yàn)告訴我，使我們不快樂(lè)的最主要的原因，是我們自身很難接受事物的本來(lái)面目。

（如果）沒(méi)有臆斷，（如果）不主觀的期望事物都變成我們喜歡的那樣…

每當(dāng)我們碰到不喜歡的事物時(shí)，我們往往希望它能變成我們期望的樣子。這可能是人類(lèi)的天性，也可能是在我們文化中根深蒂固的習(xí)慣吧。

追根溯源，我們不開(kāi)心的根本原因，應(yīng)該不是上文提到的那個(gè)思維習(xí)慣，而是因?yàn)楫?dāng)我們認(rèn)為自己不喜歡一個(gè)事物時(shí)，我們就會(huì)說(shuō)它是壞的，而不是（理智的）說(shuō)，“它本身就是這個(gè)樣子”。

一個(gè)例子，我最近發(fā)表了文章《尋找內(nèi)心那一泓清泉》，很多朋友都說(shuō)我的觀點(diǎn)太悲觀了，甚至有點(diǎn)聽(tīng)天由命的意思…因?yàn)槲艺f(shuō)人們應(yīng)該主觀的期望不順利，期望事情不按照自己的計(jì)劃發(fā)展，同時(shí)還應(yīng)該接受它。

很多朋友說(shuō)，希望事情變得糟糕，這也太悲觀了。但是，其實(shí)僅僅當(dāng)你認(rèn)為它是悲觀的時(shí)候，它才是悲觀的，僅僅因?yàn)槟阌X(jué)得它不好。

但反過(guò)來(lái)，（其實(shí)）人們應(yīng)該接受這世界的運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)方式，接受事物的客觀形態(tài)。試圖去理解它們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)這樣，然后接受它們。

面對(duì)生活中的一切都應(yīng)該這樣，無(wú)論是其他人的工作方式，或是政治活動(dòng)，或是新聞多么讓人沮喪等。客觀的接受它們，并試圖理解它們?yōu)槭裁磿?huì)這樣。

這會(huì)使你省掉許多憂傷或憤慨，你不會(huì)再說(shuō)：“我真希望事情不是這樣的爛！”

但這就代表你再也不要改變事物了么？當(dāng)然不是。但當(dāng)你試圖去改變事物的時(shí)候，目的上不該是因?yàn)槟銦o(wú)法接受它或者討厭它，而是因?yàn)槟阆矚g這改變的過(guò)程，因?yàn)槟憧梢詮闹袑W(xué)到很多并使自己成長(zhǎng)很多。

我們能讓這世界變得更美好么？這句話本身就再一次給了一個(gè)錯(cuò)誤的假設(shè)，認(rèn)為這世界不好。反過(guò)來(lái)，我們應(yīng)該說(shuō)世界就是這樣的，沒(méi)有什么絕對(duì)的好與不好。我們可以繼續(xù)幫助他人，提高自己，創(chuàng)造新的事物…并不是我們自己不好，也不是因?yàn)檫@世界太爛了，而是因?yàn)檫@是我們選擇的生活方式，也是我們喜歡的生活方式。

當(dāng)人們能夠主觀的控制自己的判斷，換個(gè)角度看待事物：接受并試圖理解。這產(chǎn)生的影響一定會(huì)很有趣。

“對(duì)自己所擁有的一切感到滿足，對(duì)事物的客觀形態(tài)表示欣賞。當(dāng)你領(lǐng)悟到其實(shí)我們什么也不缺的時(shí)候，整個(gè)世界都將屬于你”---老子

更多信息請(qǐng)查看英語(yǔ)美文寫(xiě)作