每日5分钟（励志）37

Suffering Is Self-Manufactured
I believe the immediate purpose of life is to live, to survive. All known forms of life go through life cycles. The basic plan is birth, maturing, mating, reproducing, death. Thus, the immediate purpose of human life is for each individual to fulfill his life cycle. This involves proper maturing into the fully developed adult of the species. The pine tree grows straight unless harmful influences warp it. So does the human being.
It is a finding of the greatest significance that the mature man and woman have the nature and characteristics of the good spouse and parent, namely the ability to enjoy, responsible, working, and loving. If the world consisted primarily of mature persons—loving, responsible, productive toward family, friends, and the world—most of our human problems would be resolved.
But most people have suffered in childhood from influences which have warped their development. Hence, as adults, they have not realized their full and proper nature. They feel something is wrong without knowing what it is. They feel inferior, frustrated, insecure, and anxious. And they react to these inner feelings just as any animal reacts to any hurt or threat: by a readiness to fight or to flee. Flight carries them into alcoholism and other mental disorders. Fight impels them to crime, cruelty, and war. This readiness to violence, this inhumanity of man to man, is the basic problem of human life, for in the form of war, it now threatens to extinguish us.
Without the fight/flight reaction, man would never have survived the cave and the jungle. But now, through social living, man has made himself relatively safe from the elements and the wild beasts. He is even learning to protect himself against disease. He can produce adequate food, clothing, and shelter for the present population of the Earth. Barring a possible astronomical accident, he now faces no serious threat to his existence, except one: the fight/flight reaction within himself.
This jungle readiness to hurt and to kill is now a vestigial hangover, like the appendix, which interferes with the new and more powerful means of coping with nature through civilization. Trying to solve every problem by fighting or fleeing is the primitive method still central for the immature child. The later method—understanding and cooperation—requires the mature capacities of the adult. In an infantile world, fighting may be forced upon one. Then it is more effective if handled maturely for mature goals. Probably war will cease only when enough persons are mature.
The basic problem is social adaptation and biologic survival. The basic solution is for people to understand the nature of their own biological, emotional maturity, to work toward it to help the children in their development toward it. Human suffering is mostly made by man himself. It is primarily the result of the failure of adults, because of improper child rearing, to mature emotionally. Hence, instead of enjoying their capacities for responsible work and love, they are grasping, egocentric, insecure, frustrated, anxious, and hostile.
Maturity is the path from madness and murder to inner peace and satisfying living for each individual and for the human species. This I believe on the evidence of science and through personal observation and experience.




痛苦源于自身
我认为生命最首要的目的就是生活——活着。一切已知的生命形式都要经过盛衰周期，即出生、成长、交配、繁衍、直至死亡。
正因如此，人生的首要目的就是要走完生命的一个周期，这包括要茁壮成长，长成一个真正成熟的个体。
松树笔直而挺拔，除非有后天的不良影响将其扭曲。人类也是一样。成年男女都具备成为忠诚伴侣和慈爱父母的本性与特点，那就是乐于尽责地工作，乐于献出尽责的爱——这一发现具有非常重要的意义。
如果世上所有的人都是真正成熟的个体，都能对家庭、对朋友乃至对整个世界充满爱心、负起责任、多做贡献，那人类所面临的许多困难都可迎刃而解。
然而，幼年时受到的不良影响扭曲了许多人的成长。这些人在成年以后失去了部分人格，虽然他们意识到出了问题，却不知道问题在哪里。他们自卑而又焦虑，灰心丧气，缺乏安全感。内心的折磨使他们像受到伤害或威胁的野兽，要么选择争斗，要么选择逃逸。选择逃避的人用酒精来麻醉自己，甚至落到精神错乱的地步；选择争斗的人变得残暴，或犯下罪行，或掀起战乱。
暴力一触即发，人类自相残杀——这就是人类社会面临的基本问题，因为暴力和残杀演变为战争，威胁到了全人类的生存。
人类作出争斗或逃避的反应使其在远古时代得以在洞穴或丛林中生存。时至今日，随着社会的发展，恶劣的自然环境与凶猛的野兽对人类生存不再构成多大威胁。人类甚至学会了战胜疾病，地球上现有人口的衣食与住房也很充足。除非宇宙有什么不测，否则人类的生存只面临着一个严重的威胁：那就是人类内心深处那争斗或逃避的心态。这种随时准备与敌人作殊死搏斗的丛林法则在现在看来就好像人体器官中的阑尾，是退化落后的。它干扰了人与自然文明相处这一更有效的新方式。用争斗或逃避这一原始做法来解决问题是懵懂孩童的行为。后发展起来的一种理解与合作的新方法则需要成年人成熟的心智才能实现。在孩童的世界里，争斗可能是迫不得已，而成年人若想达到目标，采用成熟的方式会更加有效。也许，有足够多的人成熟了，战争才会停止。
适应这个社会，确保人类的生存，这就是我们面临的基本问题。解决问题的基本方法就是：让人们明白怎样的人才是身心真正成熟的人，然后朝这个目标努力，还要帮助孩子们成熟起来。
许多人类的痛苦都源于人类自身，源于成年人受幼年时错误成长轨迹的影响而情感不成熟。这样的人没有能力尽责地工作，尽责地爱，而是变得贪婪自私、焦虑沮丧、满怀敌意、缺乏安全感。成熟是个人乃至全人类从疯狂与残杀走向内心平静与满足的途径。
以上是我通过科学的实证观察与自己的亲身体验所感受到的——它就是我的信仰。