How do you envisage the pursuit of happiness?

　　对于追求幸福，你是如何设想的?

　　For many, it is a relentless journey, and the more you put in, the more you get out.

　　对于许多人来说，这是一段心狠手辣的旅程，你投入的越多，你就越多。

　　While this kind of attitude may work for some, the latest scientific research suggests that it can also seriously backfire for many people – leading, for instance, to feelings of stress, loneliness, and personal failure. According to this view, happiness is best seen as kind of timid bird: the harder you strive to catch it, the further it flies away.

　　虽然这种态度可能适用于某些人，但最新的科学研究表明，它也可能严重挫败许多人—— 导致人们感到如压力，孤独和个人失败。 根据这样一种观点，幸福应该被看作一种胆小的鸟：你越努力抓住它，它就会飞得越远。

　　Iris Mauss, now at the University of California, Berkeley, was one of the first psychologists to explore the idea scientifically.

　　来自加州大学伯克利分校的Iris Mauss是第一批科学探索这一理念的心理学家之一。

　　She says she was inspired by the sheer volume of self-help books that have been published in the US in last couple of decades, many of which presented happiness as the sine qua non of existence. “Wherever you look, you see books about how happiness is good for you, and how you basically shouldmake yourself happier, almost as a duty,” she says.

　　她说她受到过去几十年在美国出版的大量自助书籍的启发，其中许多书将幸福视为生存的必要条件。 她说：“无论你在哪里，你都会看到讲述幸福如何对你有益的书，这些书告诉你你需要如何让自己更快乐，这几乎就是一种责任。”

　　“People might set very high standards for their own happiness as a function of this – they may think they should be happy all the time, or extremely happy, and that can set people up to feel disappointed with themselves, that they fall short – and that could have these self-defeating effects.”

　　“为此，人们可能会为自己的幸福设定很高的标准 —— 他们可能会认为他们应该一直都很快乐，或者极度幸福，而这会让人对自己感到失望，为自己没法获得幸福而失望—— 而这可能会造成自我打击。”

　　Mauss points out that a lot of research has found that people who take a more “accepting” attitude to negative feelings – rather than constantly trying to fight them as the enemy of our wellbeing – actually end up more satisfied with their life over the long-term.

　　Mauss指出，许多研究发现那些对负面情绪采取更“接受”态度的人——而不是不断地把它当作我们幸福的敌人来对抗作的人——从长远来看，实际上会对他们的生活感到更满意。