第7章　不要为小事而垂头丧气

下面这个富有戏剧性的故事我也许终生难忘。讲述这个故事的人叫罗伯特·摩尔，他住在新泽西马普伍德市第14大道。

“1945年3月，我学到了我人生当中最重要的一课。”他说，“我是在中南半岛附近276英尺（1英尺约为0.3米）深的海底学到的。当时，我和另外87个人一起在贝雅S.S.318号潜水艇上。我们从雷达上发现正有一小支日本舰队朝我们这边驶来。天将亮的时候，我们浮出水面发动攻击。我从潜望镜里发现了一艘日本驱逐护航舰、一艘油轮和一艘布雷舰。

“我们向那艘驱逐护航舰发射了3枚鱼雷，但未击中目标。那艘驱逐护航舰并不知道正遭受攻击，继续向前驶去。我们又打算攻击最后那艘布雷舰。突然，它转过头径直朝我们驶来。（有一架日本飞机从上空看见我们在深水下，把我们的位置用无线电通知了日本布雷舰。）我们潜到150英尺深处，以免被它探测到，同时做好准备应付深水炸弹：我们在所有的舱盖上都多加了几层铁栓，同时为了让我们的潜艇保持绝对稳定，我们关掉了所有的电扇和冷却系统及发电设备。

“3分钟后，突然天崩地裂：6枚深水炸弹在我们四周爆炸，把我们推到海底276英尺深处。我们吓呆了！在不到1000英尺深的海水里遭受攻击是很危险的——

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英尺几乎难逃厄运。而我们当时却在不到500英尺一半深的水下受到攻击，从安全角度来说，水深等于只到膝盖部分。那艘日本布雷舰不停地投深水炸弹，连续攻击15个小时。

“如果深水炸弹距潜水艇不到17英尺，炸弹可以在潜艇上炸出一个大洞来。大约有十几颗深水炸弹就在离我们50英尺的地方爆炸，我们奉命‘固守’——静躺在床上，保持镇定。我吓得几乎无法呼吸。‘这下死定了。’我一直不停地对自己说着，‘这下死定了……这下死定了。’电扇和冷却系统全都关闭之后，潜水艇内的温度高达华氏100多度，可是我却害怕得全身发冷，虽然穿了一件毛衣，还有一件皮领夹克，可还是冷得发抖。我的牙齿不停地打战，全身冒出阵阵冷汗。攻击持续了15个小时，然后突然停止。显然，那艘日本布雷舰用光了所有的深水炸弹，这才离开。这15个小时的攻击，就像是1500万年。过去的生活一一呈现在我眼前。

“我记起了以前做过的所有坏事，以及我曾担心的所有小事。在加入海军之前，我是一个银行职员，曾为工作时间太长、薪水太少而且没有多少升迁机会发愁。我曾经因为没有办法买自己的房子、没有钱买新车、没有钱给我太太买好衣服而忧虑。我非常讨厌我以前的老板，他老是给我找麻烦。我还记得，每天晚上回到家里的时候，我总是又累又困，常常因为芝麻小事而跟我太太吵架。我甚至还为我额头上一次车祸留下的伤痕发愁。

“在多年以前，那些令人发愁的事看起来很大！可是在深水炸弹就要夺走我生

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，这些事情又是多么荒谬和微不足道。就在那时候，我答应自己，如果我还有机会活下去，永远也不会再忧虑了。永远！永远！永远！在潜艇那15个可怕的小时里，我所学到的生活道理比我在大学4年所学的要多得多。”

我们通常能勇敢地面对生活中的重大危机，可是却会被那些小事情搞得焦头烂额。例如，萨姆尔·白布西在他的日记里写到他曾目睹哈里·维尼爵士在伦敦被砍头的事：当哈里爵士走上断头台的时候，他没有请求饶命，却要求刽子手不要砍他颈上的伤痛之处。

这也是拜德上将在又冷又黑的南极洲的夜晚发现的另外一点——他手下那些人常常为小事情发火，但对大事却不在乎。他们毫无怨言地面对危险和艰苦，在零下80度的寒冷中工作。“可是，”拜德上将说，“我却知道他们之间有好几个人同在一个办公室彼此不讲话，因为他们怀疑别人乱放东西，占了他们的地方。我还知道一个人，他一定要在大厅里找一个看不见他的位置坐着才能吃下饭。他坚持空腹进食，每口食物一定要嚼过28次才吞下去。

“在南极营地，”拜德上将说，“一些小事情都能把最训练有素的人逼疯。”

拜德上将还可以加上一句话：婚姻中的“小事”也会把人逼疯，造成“世界上半数伤心事”。

至少这话是权威人士说的。例如，芝加哥的约瑟夫·沙巴士法官在仲裁四万多件不愉快的婚姻案件之后说：“小事是导致婚姻生活不美满的根本原因。”纽约州

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

前地方检察官弗兰克·霍根也说：“在我们的刑事案件里，一半以上都是由小事情引起的：在酒吧里逞英雄，为小事情争吵，讲话侮辱人，措辞不当，行为粗鲁——这些小事情导致了伤害和谋杀。很少有人天性残忍。正是因为自尊心受到了小小的伤害，或受到屈辱，或虚荣心得不到满足，结果造成了世界上半数令人伤心之事。”

罗斯福夫人刚结婚的时候，每天都在担心，因为她的新厨子做饭很差。“可是，如果事情发生在现在，”罗斯福夫人说，“我就会耸耸肩忘了它。”太好了，这才是成年人的做法。就连凯瑟琳这位专制的俄国女皇，当厨子把饭做坏时，也只是付之一笑。

我和我夫人曾去芝加哥一个朋友家里吃饭。分菜的时候，他出了点差错。我当时并没有注意，而且即使注意到了也不会在意。可是他太太看见了，立即当着我们的面指责他。“约翰，”她尖叫道，“看看你在做什么！难道你永远也学不会如何分菜？”

然后她对我们说：“他老是犯错，简直心不在焉。”也许他确实没有好好做，可是我却实在佩服他和他太太相处20年之久。老实说，只要舒服，我情愿只吃抹了芥末的热狗，而不愿一面听她啰唆，一面吃北京烤鸭和鱼翅。

那件事情之后不久，我夫人和我请了几位朋友到家里来吃晚饭。就在他们快到的时候，我夫人发现有三条餐巾和桌布的颜色没办法相配。

“我冲到厨房，”她后来告诉我，“结果发现另外三条餐巾送出去洗了。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

这时已经到了门口。我没有时间再换了。我急得差点哭出来。我当时只想：‘为什么会犯这么愚蠢的错误，毁了整个晚上？’然后我又想，为什么要让它毁了呢？于是，我走进去吃晚饭，决定好好享受一下。我真的做到了。我情愿让我的朋友认为我是一个懒散的家庭主妇，”她告诉我，“也不想让他们认为我是一个神经兮兮、脾气暴躁的女人。而且据我所知，根本没有人关心那些餐巾。”

一条众所周知的法律名言说：“法律不管小事。”人也不该为小事而忧虑——如果他希望心里平静的话。

在大多数时间里，要想克服由小事所引起的困扰，只需把重点转移就可以——让你有一个新的、开心的想法。我的朋友荷马·克罗伊是一个作家，写过几本书。他举了一个如何做到这一点的好例子。他以前写作的时候总是被纽约公寓散热器的响声吵得发疯。蒸气会砰然作响，他听到之后会坐在书桌前气得直叫。

“后来，”荷马·克罗伊说，“有一次我和几个朋友一起去露营时，听到了木柴烧得很响的声音，我突然想到这些声音多么像散热器的响声。但我为什么会喜此厌彼呢？回到家以后，我对自己说：‘火堆中木头的爆裂声很好听，散热器的声音也差不多，我应该埋头就睡，不必理会这些噪音。’结果，我真的做到了。头几天我还会注意散热器的声音，可是不久我就完全忘了。

“很多其他的小忧虑也是一样，因为我们不喜欢，结果令人颓丧，这都是因为我们夸大了它们的重要性……”

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

狄斯累利也曾说：“生命如此短暂，不能只顾小事。”“这些话，”安德烈·莫瑞斯在《本周》杂志中说，“曾经帮我熬过了很多痛苦的经历：我们常常会因为一些本可不屑一顾的小事而心烦意乱……我们活在这个世上只有短短的几十年，而我们却浪费了许多不可挽回的时间，去为一些一年之内就会被所有人忘了的小事而发愁。不要这样！我们要去实践那些值得做的事情和感觉，想伟大的思想，经历真正的感情，做必须做的事。因为生命如此短暂，不能只顾小事。”

即使是吉布林这样有名的人，有时也会忘了“生命如此短暂，不能只顾小事”的道理。结果呢？他和他的舅爷在佛蒙特打了有史以来最有名的一场官司。这场官司如此出名，有一本专辑记载了它，书名叫《吉布林在佛蒙特的领地》。

事情的经过是这样的：吉布林娶了一个佛蒙特女孩凯洛琳·巴里斯蒂尔，在佛蒙特的布拉陀布罗建了一栋很漂亮的房子，在那里定居，准备度过余生。他的舅爷比提·巴里斯蒂尔成了吉布林最好的朋友，他们两个人一同工作，一同游玩。

后来，吉布林从巴里斯蒂尔那里买了一块地，事先约定巴里斯蒂尔每一季可以在那里割草。一天，巴里斯蒂尔发现吉布林在那片草地上开了一个花园，他生气了，暴跳如雷。吉布林则反唇相讥。佛蒙特的绿山上乌云笼罩。

几天之后，吉布林骑自行车出去，他的舅爷突然赶着一辆马车和几匹马横穿马路，使吉布林摔了一跤。而吉布林这个曾写过“众人皆醉，你应独醒”的人也昏了头，告到官府，将巴里斯蒂尔关押起来。接下来是一场轰动一时的官司，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

市的记者都挤到这个小镇来，这件新闻传遍了全世界。事情无法解决，这次争吵使得吉布林和他的妻子永远离开了他们在美国的家。而这一切忧虑和争吵，仅仅是一件小事——一车干草。

皮瑞克里斯在2400年前说过：“来吧，诸位！我们在小事上浪费太多时间了。”的确如此！

下面是哈里·爱默生·福斯迪克博士讲的最有意思的一个故事——森林里的一个巨人在战争中如何得胜又如何失败的。

“在科罗拉多州长山的山坡上，躺着一棵大树的枯枝残躯。自然学家告诉我们，它活了400多年。它发芽时，哥伦布刚登陆美洲。第一批移民来到美国时，它才长一半大。在它漫长的生命历程里，曾被闪电击中14次，无数次狂风暴雨侵袭过它，它都能战胜。但是最后来了一小队甲虫，使它倒在地上。那些甲虫从根部往树里面咬，渐渐伤了树的元气，而它们就只靠细小而持续不断的攻击。这样一个森林巨人，岁月不曾使它枯萎，闪电不曾将它击倒，狂风暴雨不能伤着它，最后因为一小队大拇指和食指就可以捏死的小甲虫而倒了。”

我们不都像森林中那棵身经百战的大树吗？我们不也经历过生命中无数次狂风暴雨和闪电的打击吗？可是我们却会被心中忧虑的小甲虫咬噬——用大拇指和食指就可以捏死的小甲虫。

几年前，我去了一趟怀俄明州的提顿国家公园。与我同行的是怀俄明州公路

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.”

局局长查尔斯·谢弗雷德及其朋友。我们本来都想去参观洛克菲勒在那个公园里的一栋房子，可是我坐的那辆车转错一个弯迷了路，等我到达那栋房子时，比其他车晚了一个小时。谢弗雷德先生有打开大门的钥匙，但他却在那个天气又热、蚊子又多的森林里等了一个小时。那里的蚊子多得会让圣人发疯，可是它们不能战胜查尔斯·谢弗雷德。他在等我们时折下一小段白杨树枝，做了一根小笛子。当我们到达时，他是不是正驱赶蚊子呢？不，他正在吹笛子，我认为这个笛子是对一个知道如何避开小事的人的纪念。

要想在忧虑毁了你之前先改掉忧虑的习惯，下面是规则的第二条：

不要让自己因为一些应该抛弃和忘记的小事而忧虑。

要记住：“生命如此短暂，不要为小事而忧虑。”