第7章　不要為小事而垂頭喪氣

下面這個富有戲劇性的故事我也許終生難忘。講述這個故事的人叫羅伯特·摩爾，他住在新澤西馬普伍德市第14大道。

“1945年3月，我學到了我人生當中最重要的一課?！彼f，“我是在中南半島附近276英尺（1英尺約為0.3米）深的海底學到的。當時，我和另外87個人一起在貝雅S.S.318號潛水艇上。我們從雷達上發現正有一小支日本艦隊朝我們這邊駛來。天將亮的時候，我們浮出水面發動攻擊。我從潛望鏡里發現了一艘日本驅逐護航艦、一艘油輪和一艘布雷艦。

“我們向那艘驅逐護航艦發射了3枚魚雷，但未擊中目標。那艘驅逐護航艦并不知道正遭受攻擊，繼續向前駛去。我們又打算攻擊最后那艘布雷艦。突然，它轉過頭徑直朝我們駛來。（有一架日本飛機從上空看見我們在深水下，把我們的位置用無線電通知了日本布雷艦。）我們潛到150英尺深處，以免被它探測到，同時做好準備應付深水炸彈：我們在所有的艙蓋上都多加了幾層鐵栓，同時為了讓我們的潛艇保持絕對穩定，我們關掉了所有的電扇和冷卻系統及發電設備。

“3分鐘后，突然天崩地裂：6枚深水炸彈在我們四周爆炸，把我們推到海底276英尺深處。我們嚇呆了！在不到1000英尺深的海水里遭受攻擊是很危險的——

Japanese mine layer kept dropping depth charges.

“If a depth charge explodes within seventeen feet of a sub, the concussion will blow a hole in it. Scores of these depth charges exploded within fifty feet of us. We were ordered‘to secure’—to lie quietly in our bunks and remain calm. I was so terrified I could hardly breathe.‘this is death,’ I kept saying to myself over and over.‘This is death!... This is death!’With the fans and cooling system turned off, the air inside the sub was over a hundred degrees; but I was so chilled with fear that I put on a sweater and a fur-lined jacket; and still I trembled with cold. My teeth chattered. I broke out in a cold, clammy sweat. The attack continued for fifteen hours. Then ceased suddenly.Apparently the Japanese mine layer had exhausted its supply of depth charges, and steamed away. Those fifteen hours of attack seemed like fifteen million years. All my life passed before me in review.

“I remembered all the bad things I had done, all the little absurd things I had worried about. I had been a bank clerk before I joined the Navy. I had worried about the long hours, the poor pay, the poor prospects of advancement. I had worried because I couldn't own my own home, couldn't buy a new car, couldn't buy my wife nice clothes. How I had hated my old boss, who was always nagging and scolding! I remembered how I would come home at night sore and grouchy and quarrel with my wife over trifles. I had worried about a scar on my forehead—a nasty cut from an auto accident.

“How big all these worries seemed years ago! But how absurd they seemed when depth charges were threatening to blow me to kingdom come. I promised myself then and there that if I ever saw the sun and the stars again, I would never, never worry again. Never! Never! Never! I learned more about the art of living in those fifteen terrible

如果不到500英尺幾乎難逃厄運。而我們當時卻在不到500英尺一半深的水下受到攻擊，從安全角度來說，水深等于只到膝蓋部分。那艘日本布雷艦不停地投深水炸彈，連續攻擊15個小時。

“如果深水炸彈距潛水艇不到17英尺，炸彈可以在潛艇上炸出一個大洞來。大約有十幾顆深水炸彈就在離我們50英尺的地方爆炸，我們奉命‘固守’——靜躺在床上，保持鎮定。我嚇得幾乎無法呼吸?！@下死定了?！乙恢辈煌５貙ψ约赫f著，‘這下死定了……這下死定了。’電扇和冷卻系統全都關閉之后，潛水艇內的溫度高達華氏100多度，可是我卻害怕得全身發冷，雖然穿了一件毛衣，還有一件皮領夾克，可還是冷得發抖。我的牙齒不停地打戰，全身冒出陣陣冷汗。攻擊持續了15個小時，然后突然停止。顯然，那艘日本布雷艦用光了所有的深水炸彈，這才離開。這15個小時的攻擊，就像是1500萬年。過去的生活一一呈現在我眼前。

“我記起了以前做過的所有壞事，以及我曾擔心的所有小事。在加入海軍之前，我是一個銀行職員，曾為工作時間太長、薪水太少而且沒有多少升遷機會發愁。我曾經因為沒有辦法買自己的房子、沒有錢買新車、沒有錢給我太太買好衣服而憂慮。我非常討厭我以前的老板，他老是給我找麻煩。我還記得，每天晚上回到家里的時候，我總是又累又困，常常因為芝麻小事而跟我太太吵架。我甚至還為我額頭上一次車禍留下的傷痕發愁。

“在多年以前，那些令人發愁的事看起來很大！可是在深水炸彈就要奪走我生

hours in that submarine than I had learned by studying books for four years in Syracuse University.”

We often face the major disasters of life bravely—and then let the trifles, the “pains in the neck”, get us down. For example, Samuel Pepys tells in his Diary about seeing Sir Harry Vane's head chopped off in London. As Sir Harry mounted the platform, he was not pleading for his life, but was pleading with the executioner not to hit the painful boil on his neck!

That was another thing that Admiral Byrd discovered down in the terrible cold and darkness of the polar nights—that his men fussed more about the “pains in the neck” than about the big things. They bore, without complaining, the dangers, the hardships, and the cold that was often eighty degrees below zero.“But,” says Admiral Byrd, “I know of bunkmates who quit speaking because each suspected the other of inching his gear into the other's allotted space; and I knew of one who could not eat unless he could find a place in the mess hall out of sight of the Fletcherist who solemnly chewed his food twenty-eight times before swallowing.

“In a polar camp,” says Admiral Byrd, “little things like that have the power to drive even disciplined men to the edge of insanity.”

And you might have added, Admiral Byrd, that “little things” in marriage drive people to the edge of insanity and cause “half the heartaches in the world.”

At least, that is what the authorities say. For example, Judge Joseph Sabath of Chicago, after acting as arbiter in more than forty thousand unhappy marriages, declared, “Trivialities are at the bottom of most marital unhappiness”; and Frank S. Hogan, former District Attorney of New York County, says, “Fully half the cases in our criminal courts originate

命的那一刻，這些事情又是多么荒謬和微不足道。就在那時候，我答應自己，如果我還有機會活下去，永遠也不會再憂慮了。永遠！永遠！永遠！在潛艇那15個可怕的小時里，我所學到的生活道理比我在大學4年所學的要多得多。”

我們通常能勇敢地面對生活中的重大危機，可是卻會被那些小事情搞得焦頭爛額。例如，薩姆爾·白布西在他的日記里寫到他曾目睹哈里·維尼爵士在倫敦被砍頭的事：當哈里爵士走上斷頭臺的時候，他沒有請求饒命，卻要求劊子手不要砍他頸上的傷痛之處。

這也是拜德上將在又冷又黑的南極洲的夜晚發現的另外一點——他手下那些人常常為小事情發火，但對大事卻不在乎。他們毫無怨言地面對危險和艱苦，在零下80度的寒冷中工作?！翱墒?，”拜德上將說，“我卻知道他們之間有好幾個人同在一個辦公室彼此不講話，因為他們懷疑別人亂放東西，占了他們的地方。我還知道一個人，他一定要在大廳里找一個看不見他的位置坐著才能吃下飯。他堅持空腹進食，每口食物一定要嚼過28次才吞下去。

“在南極營地，”拜德上將說，“一些小事情都能把最訓練有素的人逼瘋?！?/p>

拜德上將還可以加上一句話：婚姻中的“小事”也會把人逼瘋，造成“世界上半數傷心事”。

至少這話是權威人士說的。例如，芝加哥的約瑟夫·沙巴士法官在仲裁四萬多件不愉快的婚姻案件之后說：“小事是導致婚姻生活不美滿的根本原因?！奔~約州

in little things.Barroom bravado, domestic wrangling, an insulting remark, a disparaging word, a rude action—those are the little things that lead to assault and murder.Very few of us are cruelly and greatly wronged. It is the small blows to our self-esteem, the indignities, the little jolts to our vanity, which cause half the heartaches in the world.”

When Eleanor Roosevelt was first married, she “worried for days” because her new cook had served a poor meal.“But if that happened now,” Mrs.Roosevelt said, “I would shrug my shoulders and forget it.” Good. That is acting like an adult emotionally. Even Catherine the Great, an absolute autocrat, used to laugh the thing off when the cook spoiled a meal.

Mrs. Carnegie and I had dinner at a friend's house in Chicago. While carving the meat, he did something wrong. I didn't notice it; and I wouldn't have cared even if I had noticed it. But his wife saw it and lumped down his throat right in front of us.“John,” she cried, “watch what you are doing! Can't you ever learn to serve properly!”

Then she said to us, “He is always making mistakes. He just doesn't try.” Maybe he didn't try to carve; but I certainly give him credit for trying to live with her for twenty years.Frankly, I would rather have eaten a couple of hot dogs with mustard—in an atmosphere of peace—than to have dined on Peking duck and shark fins while listening to her scolding.

Shortly after that experience, Mrs. Carnegie and I had some friends at our home for dinner. Just before they arrived, Mrs. Carnegie found that three of the napkins didn't match the tablecloth.

“I rushed to the cook,” she told me later, “and found that the other three napkins had gone to the laundry. The guests were at the door. There was no time to change. I felt like

前地方檢察官弗蘭克·霍根也說：“在我們的刑事案件里，一半以上都是由小事情引起的：在酒吧里逞英雄，為小事情爭吵，講話侮辱人，措辭不當，行為粗魯——這些小事情導致了傷害和謀殺。很少有人天性殘忍。正是因為自尊心受到了小小的傷害，或受到屈辱，或虛榮心得不到滿足，結果造成了世界上半數令人傷心之事?！?/p>

羅斯福夫人剛結婚的時候，每天都在擔心，因為她的新廚子做飯很差?！翱墒?，如果事情發生在現在，”羅斯福夫人說，“我就會聳聳肩忘了它。”太好了，這才是成年人的做法。就連凱瑟琳這位專制的俄國女皇，當廚子把飯做壞時，也只是付之一笑。

我和我夫人曾去芝加哥一個朋友家里吃飯。分菜的時候，他出了點差錯。我當時并沒有注意，而且即使注意到了也不會在意?？墒撬匆娏耍⒓串斨覀兊拿嬷肛熕??！凹s翰，”她尖叫道，“看看你在做什么！難道你永遠也學不會如何分菜？”

然后她對我們說：“他老是犯錯，簡直心不在焉?！币苍S他確實沒有好好做，可是我卻實在佩服他和他太太相處20年之久。老實說，只要舒服，我情愿只吃抹了芥末的熱狗，而不愿一面聽她啰唆，一面吃北京烤鴨和魚翅。

那件事情之后不久，我夫人和我請了幾位朋友到家里來吃晚飯。就在他們快到的時候，我夫人發現有三條餐巾和桌布的顏色沒辦法相配。

“我沖到廚房，”她后來告訴我，“結果發現另外三條餐巾送出去洗了。客人

bursting into tears! All I could think was，‘why did this stupid mistake have to spoil my whole evening?’Then I thought—well—why let it? I went in to dinner, determined to have a good time. And I did. I would much rather our friends think I was a sloppy housekeeper,” she told me, “than a nervous, bad-tempered one. And anyhow, as far as I could make out, no one noticed the napkins!”

A well-known legal maxim says: De minimis non curat lex—“the law does not concern itself with trifles.” And neither should the worrier—if he wants peace of mind.

Much of the time, all we need to overcome the annoyance of trifles is to affect a shifting of emphasis—set up a new, and pleasurable, point of view in the mind. My friend Homer Croy, who wrote They Had to See Paris and a dozen other books, gives a wonderful example of how this can be done. He used to be driven half crazy, while working on a book, by the rattling of the radiators in his New York apartment. The steam would bang and sizzle—and he would sizzle with irritation as he sat at his desk.

“Then,” says Homer Croy, “I went with some friends on a camping expedition. While listening to the limbs crackling in the roaring fire, I thought how much they sounded like the crackling of the radiators. Why should I like one and hate the other? When I went home I said to myself，‘The crackling of the limbs in the fire was a pleasant sound; the sound of the radiators is about the same—I'll go to sleep and not worry about the noise.’’And I did. For a few days I was conscious of the radiators; but soon I forgot all about them.

“And so it is with many petty worries. We dislike them and get into a stew, all because we exaggerate their importance... ”

Disraeli said, “Life is too short to be little.”“Those words,” said André Maurois in This Week magazine, “have helped me through many a painful experience: often we

這時已經到了門口。我沒有時間再換了。我急得差點哭出來。我當時只想：‘為什么會犯這么愚蠢的錯誤，毀了整個晚上？’然后我又想，為什么要讓它毀了呢？于是，我走進去吃晚飯，決定好好享受一下。我真的做到了。我情愿讓我的朋友認為我是一個懶散的家庭主婦，”她告訴我，“也不想讓他們認為我是一個神經兮兮、脾氣暴躁的女人。而且據我所知，根本沒有人關心那些餐巾。”

一條眾所周知的法律名言說：“法律不管小事。”人也不該為小事而憂慮——如果他希望心里平靜的話。

在大多數時間里，要想克服由小事所引起的困擾，只需把重點轉移就可以——讓你有一個新的、開心的想法。我的朋友荷馬·克羅伊是一個作家，寫過幾本書。他舉了一個如何做到這一點的好例子。他以前寫作的時候總是被紐約公寓散熱器的響聲吵得發瘋。蒸氣會砰然作響，他聽到之后會坐在書桌前氣得直叫。

“后來，”荷馬·克羅伊說，“有一次我和幾個朋友一起去露營時，聽到了木柴燒得很響的聲音，我突然想到這些聲音多么像散熱器的響聲。但我為什么會喜此厭彼呢？回到家以后，我對自己說：‘火堆中木頭的爆裂聲很好聽，散熱器的聲音也差不多，我應該埋頭就睡，不必理會這些噪音。’結果，我真的做到了。頭幾天我還會注意散熱器的聲音，可是不久我就完全忘了。

“很多其他的小憂慮也是一樣，因為我們不喜歡，結果令人頹喪，這都是因為我們夸大了它們的重要性……”

allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget... Here we are on this earth, with only a few more decades to live, and we lose many irreplaceable hours brooding over grievances that, in a year's time, will be forgotten by us and by everybody. No, let us devote our life to worthwhile actions and feelings, to great thoughts, real affections and enduring undertakings. For life is too short to be little.”

Even so illustrious a figure as Rudyard Kipling forgot at times that “Life is too short to be little”. The result? He and his brother-in-law fought the most famous court battle in the history of Vermont—a battle so celebrated that a book has been written about it: Rudyard Kipling's Vermont Feud.

The story goes like this: Kipling married a Vermont girl, Caroline Balestier, built a lovely home in Brattleboro, Vermont; settled down and expected to spend the rest of his life there. His brother-in-law, Beatty Balestier, became Kipling's best friend. The two of them worked and played together.

Then Kipling bought some land from Balestier, with the understanding that Balestier would be allowed to cut hay off it each season. One day, Balestier found Kipling laying out a flower garden on this hayfield. His blood boiled. He hit the ceiling.Kipling fired right back. The air over the Green Mountains of Vermont turned blue!

A few days later, when Kipling was out riding his bicycle, his brother-in-law drove a wagon and a team of horses across the road suddenly and forced Kipling to take a spill. And Kipling—the man who wrote, “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you”—he lost his own head, and swore out a warrant for Balestier's arrest! A sensational trial followed.Reporters from the big cities poured into the town. The news flashed around the world. Nothing was settled. This quarrel caused

狄斯累利也曾說：“生命如此短暫，不能只顧小事?！薄斑@些話，”安德烈·莫瑞斯在《本周》雜志中說，“曾經幫我熬過了很多痛苦的經歷：我們常常會因為一些本可不屑一顧的小事而心煩意亂……我們活在這個世上只有短短的幾十年，而我們卻浪費了許多不可挽回的時間，去為一些一年之內就會被所有人忘了的小事而發愁。不要這樣！我們要去實踐那些值得做的事情和感覺，想偉大的思想，經歷真正的感情，做必須做的事。因為生命如此短暫，不能只顧小事?！?/p>

即使是吉布林這樣有名的人，有時也會忘了“生命如此短暫，不能只顧小事”的道理。結果呢？他和他的舅爺在佛蒙特打了有史以來最有名的一場官司。這場官司如此出名，有一本專輯記載了它，書名叫《吉布林在佛蒙特的領地》。

事情的經過是這樣的：吉布林娶了一個佛蒙特女孩凱洛琳·巴里斯蒂爾，在佛蒙特的布拉陀布羅建了一棟很漂亮的房子，在那里定居，準備度過余生。他的舅爺比提·巴里斯蒂爾成了吉布林最好的朋友，他們兩個人一同工作，一同游玩。

后來，吉布林從巴里斯蒂爾那里買了一塊地，事先約定巴里斯蒂爾每一季可以在那里割草。一天，巴里斯蒂爾發現吉布林在那片草地上開了一個花園，他生氣了，暴跳如雷。吉布林則反唇相譏。佛蒙特的綠山上烏云籠罩。

幾天之后，吉布林騎自行車出去，他的舅爺突然趕著一輛馬車和幾匹馬橫穿馬路，使吉布林摔了一跤。而吉布林這個曾寫過“眾人皆醉，你應獨醒”的人也昏了頭，告到官府，將巴里斯蒂爾關押起來。接下來是一場轟動一時的官司，一些大城

Kipling and his wife to abandon their American home for the rest of their lives. All that worry and bitterness over a mere trifle! A load of hay.

Pericles said, twenty-four centuries ago:“Come, gentlemen, we sit too long on trifles.” We do, indeed!

Here is one of the most interesting stories that Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick ever told—a story about the battles won and lost by a giant of the forest:

On the slope of Long's Peak in Colorado lies the ruin of a gigantic tree.Naturalists tell us that it stood for some four hundred years. It was a seedling when Columbus landed at San Salvador, and half grown when the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth.During the course of its long life it was struck by lightning fourteen times, and the innumerable avalanches and storms of four centuries thundered past it. It survived them all. In the end, however, an army of beetles attacked the tree and leveled it to the ground. The insects ate their way through the bark and gradually destroyed the inner strength of the tree by their tiny but incessant attacks. A forest giant which age had not withered, nor lightning blasted, nor storms subdued, fell at last before beetles so small that a man could crush them between his forefinger and his thumb.

Aren't we all like that battling giant of the forest? Don't we manage somehow to survive the rare storms and avalanches and lightning blasts of life, only to let our hearts be eaten out by little beetles of worry—little beetles that could be crushed between a finger and a thumb?

A few years ago, I travelled through the Teton National Park, in Wyoming, with Charles Seifred, highway superintendent for the state of Wyoming, and some of his friends. We were all going to visit the John D.Rockefeller estate in the park. But the car in which

市的記者都擠到這個小鎮來，這件新聞傳遍了全世界。事情無法解決，這次爭吵使得吉布林和他的妻子永遠離開了他們在美國的家。而這一切憂慮和爭吵，僅僅是一件小事——一車干草。

皮瑞克里斯在2400年前說過：“來吧，諸位！我們在小事上浪費太多時間了?！钡拇_如此！

下面是哈里·愛默生·福斯迪克博士講的最有意思的一個故事——森林里的一個巨人在戰爭中如何得勝又如何失敗的。

“在科羅拉多州長山的山坡上，躺著一棵大樹的枯枝殘軀。自然學家告訴我們，它活了400多年。它發芽時，哥倫布剛登陸美洲。第一批移民來到美國時，它才長一半大。在它漫長的生命歷程里，曾被閃電擊中14次，無數次狂風暴雨侵襲過它，它都能戰勝。但是最后來了一小隊甲蟲，使它倒在地上。那些甲蟲從根部往樹里面咬，漸漸傷了樹的元氣，而它們就只靠細小而持續不斷的攻擊。這樣一個森林巨人，歲月不曾使它枯萎，閃電不曾將它擊倒，狂風暴雨不能傷著它，最后因為一小隊大拇指和食指就可以捏死的小甲蟲而倒了?！?/p>

我們不都像森林中那棵身經百戰的大樹嗎？我們不也經歷過生命中無數次狂風暴雨和閃電的打擊嗎？可是我們卻會被心中憂慮的小甲蟲咬噬——用大拇指和食指就可以捏死的小甲蟲。

幾年前，我去了一趟懷俄明州的提頓國家公園。與我同行的是懷俄明州公路

I was riding took the wrong turn, got lost, and drove up to the entrance of the estate an hour after the other cars had gone in.Mr. Seifred had the key that unlocked the private gate, so he waited in the hot, mosquito-infested woods for an hour until we arrived. The mosquitoes were enough to drive a saint insane. But they couldn't triumph over Charles Seifred. While waiting for us, he cut a limb off an aspen tree—and made a whistle of it. When we arrived, was he cussing the mosquitoes? No, he was playing his whistle. I have kept that whistle as a memento of a man who knew how to put trifles in their place.

To break the worry habit before it breaks you, here is Rule 2：

Let's not allow ourselves to be upset by small things we should despise and forget.

Remember “Life is too short to be little.”

局局長查爾斯·謝弗雷德及其朋友。我們本來都想去參觀洛克菲勒在那個公園里的一棟房子，可是我坐的那輛車轉錯一個彎迷了路，等我到達那棟房子時，比其他車晚了一個小時。謝弗雷德先生有打開大門的鑰匙，但他卻在那個天氣又熱、蚊子又多的森林里等了一個小時。那里的蚊子多得會讓圣人發瘋，可是它們不能戰勝查爾斯·謝弗雷德。他在等我們時折下一小段白楊樹枝，做了一根小笛子。當我們到達時，他是不是正驅趕蚊子呢？不，他正在吹笛子，我認為這個笛子是對一個知道如何避開小事的人的紀念。

要想在憂慮毀了你之前先改掉憂慮的習慣，下面是規則的第二條：

不要讓自己因為一些應該拋棄和忘記的小事而憂慮。

要記?。骸吧绱硕虝?，不要為小事而憂慮?！?/p>