旅行不能治愈心灵

Travel Is No Cure for the Mind

旅行不能治愈心灵

作者: Lawrence Yeo

At this very moment, you may be here:

此时此刻，你可能在这里:

Or you may be here:

或者你可能在这里:

Or here:

或者在这里:

But most likely, you’re probably here:

但最有可能的是，你可能在这里:

It’s just another day… and you’re just doing what you need to do.

这只是普通的一天... 你只是在做你需要做的事情。

You’re getting things done, and the day moves forward in this continuous sequence of checklists, actions, and respites.

你正在完成一些事情，一天按照这个连续的清单、行动和休息的顺序向前推进。

But at various moments of your routine, you pause and take a good look at your surroundings.

但是在你日常生活的不同时刻，你会停下来好好看看你周围的环境。

The scenes of your everyday life. The blur of this all-too-familiar film.

你日常生活的场景，这部太熟悉的电影的模糊。

And you can’t help but to wonder…

你忍不住想..。

If there is more to it all.

如果还有别的原因。

For some reason — this country, this city, this neighborhood, this particular street — is the place you are living a majority of your life in.

出于某种原因，这个国家、这个城市、这个社区、这条特别的街道，是你生活中大部分时间所居住的地方。

And it is this thought that allows a daydream to seep in.

正是这种想法让白日梦渗透进来。

You start thinking of all the other places you could be in this world.

你开始思考这个世界上你可以去的其他地方。

Or more accurately, all the places you’d rather be in.

或者更准确地说，是所有你想去的地方。

Somewhere more exciting. Somewhere new. Somewhere that can provide experiences that are foreign to you.

一个更令人兴奋的地方，一个新的地方，一个可以给你提供陌生体验的地方。

You dream of going to the beautiful beaches of Thailand:

你梦想着去泰国美丽的海滩:

Or to Paris, where you can eat French food, enjoy delicious wine, and walk around the illuminated streets that you’ve heard so much about:

或者去巴黎，在那里你可以吃到法国菜，品尝美酒，漫步在你耳熟能详的灯火通明的街道上:

Or to Peru, where you can finally go to Machu Picchu and see the architectural wonder that an inexplicably high percentage of your friends have in their Facebook profile pictures:

或者去秘鲁，在那里你终于可以去 Machu Picchu，看到你的朋友们在他们的 Facebook ID 照片里莫名其妙地拥有的建筑奇迹:

Or to Alaska, where you can witness the glory of the aurora borealis in all its splendor:

或者去阿拉斯加，在那里你可以目睹壮丽的北极光:

The world is your playground, and you are certain that these unexplored areas will become sources of adventure, wonderment, and ultimately, happiness.

这个世界是你的游乐场，你确信这些未被探索的地方将会成为冒险、奇迹和最终幸福的源泉。

travel is no cure for the mind

Travel is the answer much of us look to when we feel the automation of life. The routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work, eating the same lunch, sitting in meetings, getting off work, going home, eating dinner, relaxing, going to sleep, and then doing it all over again can feel like a never-ending road that is housed within the confines of a mundane box.

当我们感受到生活的自动化时，旅行是我们大多数人寻求的答案。起床、准备、上班、吃同样的午餐、参加会议、下班、回家、吃晚饭、放松、睡觉，然后一遍又一遍地重复这些日常事务，感觉就像是一条永无止境的道路，被封闭在一个平凡的盒子里。

This is The Box of Daily Experience, and it is the space we occupy on any given day of the week/month/year in which we live our lives. It is what we consider “normal” in the context of an everyday experience, and is the operating system we run ourselves on when we require a sequence of events to default to.

这就是日常体验的盒子，它是我们生活中的每一天，每一个星期，每一个月，每一年所占据的空间。它是我们在日常生活中认为“正常”的东西，也是我们在需要一系列事件时默认使用的操作系统。

The boundaries of our box define our present-day situation, so when we dreamingly gaze toward the prospects of an exciting future, we look outside of it to experience emotions like wonderment, amazement, and inspiration. Our current box is okay and livable, but the world outside of its boundaries is where our hope really resides.

盒子的边界决定了我们现在的处境，所以当我们在梦中凝视一个令人兴奋的未来的前景时，我们会看到盒子外面的情绪，比如惊叹、惊讶和灵感。我们现在的房子还不错，也很适合居住，但是我们的希望寄托在其边界之外的世界。

Since much of what we desire lives on the outside (i.e. in the future), we make it the mission of our Box of Daily Experience to make contact with the outer world as much as possible. This touch represents the achievement of our goals and validates our aspirations. We hope that this brief contact will change the architecture of our box, but ultimately, the result is fleeting.

由于我们渴望的大部分东西都生活在外面(也就是未来) ，我们把尽可能多地接触外面的世界作为我们日常经验箱的使命。这种触摸代表着我们目标的实现，证实了我们的抱负。我们希望这次短暂的接触能够改变我们盒子的结构，但是最终的结果是稍纵即逝的。

For example, let’s say that a friend introduces you to the existence of an awesome new car. You are immediately intrigued by it, and as you read review after review of its astonishing performance, the car quickly becomes an object of intense excitement and desire for you.

例如，假设一个朋友向你介绍了一辆很棒的新车。你会立刻被它所吸引，当你阅读一篇又一篇关于它惊人性能的评论时，这辆车很快就会成为你强烈兴奋和渴望的对象。

The outer world has given you a tangible goal to work towards, and your box will do whatever it can to give you the resources you need to reach it.

外部世界已经给了你一个切实可行的目标，你的盒子会尽其所能给你所需要的资源去实现它。

So you churn and churn through the cycle of the daily experience.

因此，你在日常生活的循环中不断翻腾。

Days turn into weeks, weeks into months, months into years.

日复一日，周复一月，月复一年。

And one day, your hard work pays off. You receive that fat promotion you’ve been working towards, and now you can finally afford that beautiful car!

总有一天，你的努力会得到回报。你得到了你一直努力争取的大幅提升，现在你终于可以买得起那辆漂亮的车了！

Excitement froths at the brim of your mind as you purchase it and drive it off the lot. This is what you’ve been working so hard for! Now that you have this car, the structure of your box has fundamentally changed, and your box as you know it will no longer be the same!

当你购买它并把它赶走的时候，兴奋的泡沫在你的脑海中溢出。这就是你这么努力工作的原因！现在你有了这辆车，你的盒子的结构已经发生了根本性的改变，你知道你的盒子将不再是原来的样子了！

You start driving it to and from work, to and from your hang out sessions with friends, to and from everywhere.

你开始驾驶它上下班，和朋友一起出去玩，到处跑。

But here’s the thing.

但事情是这样的。

While you’re still happy to have the new car, you notice that your excitement about owning it just isn’t as high as that day you drove it off the lot.

当你仍然很高兴拥有这辆新车的时候，你会发现你拥有它的兴奋程度并没有那天你把它开出销售店停车场那么高。

Then some months pass, with fewer and fewer people commenting on the novelty of your car.

然后几个月过去了，越来越少的人评论你车的新奇。

And even more time passes. You get into your car, drive it to and from work, get stuck in traffic, park it in the same old spot, etc.

更多的时间流逝。你上车，开车上下班，堵车，把车停在老地方，等等。

Your car is starting to look a little dirty, but you don’t care about washing it too much anymore because your car is just… a car now.

你的车开始看起来有点脏了，但是你不再关心怎么洗了，因为你的车现在只是一辆车而已。

It’s been years since you’ve purchased it, and now it’s simply a vehicle that takes you from Point A to Point B with unremarkable regularity.

这辆车你已经买了很多年了，现在它只不过是一辆载你从 a 点到 b 点的普通交通工具。

And then one day, your box is simply The Box of Daily Experience again, with the same mundane texture and familiar color it possessed in the past.

然后有一天，你的盒子又变成了日常体验的盒子，有着和过去一样的平凡的质地和熟悉的颜色。

The interesting thing is that you can replace the object of desire (car) with any other noun (a new house, a new job, a new relationship, etc.), and the same pattern will emerge. Shifting and swapping the contents of your box may briefly alter the shape of it in the form of excitement, but in the end, these things will become just another part of normal life.

有趣的是，你可以用任何其他名词(新房子、新工作、新关系，新对象等)代替渴望的对象(汽车) ，同样的模式也会出现。移动和交换盒子里的东西可能会短暂地改变盒子的形状，但最终，这些东西将成为正常生活的另一部分。

So if moving around the contents of the box doesn’t work, you look to the supposed root of the problem:

因此，如果移动盒子里的内容不起作用，你可以寻找问题的根源:

The box itself.

盒子本身。

You decide that the box known as your environment needs to be left behind because it is the source of perpetual discontentment to begin with. You need to rip open the box and jettison yourself into an unfamiliar territory that holds the key to true novelty and sustained wonderment.

你决定把那个被称为你的环境的盒子扔在一边，因为它从一开始就是永久不满足的根源。你需要打开盒子，抛弃自己进入一个陌生的领域，这个领域掌握着通往真正的新奇和持续的惊奇的钥匙。

And you determine that the best way to do this is through the avenue of travel.

你决定最好的方法就是通过旅行的途径。

So you save up some money, take some time off work, pack up your bags, and head off to a country you’ve never been to. You can now revel in the beauty of the unfamiliar and immerse yourself in a boundless expanse of culture, cuisine, and life that your box has never known.

所以你存了一些钱，休息一段时间，收拾行李，前往一个你从未去过的国家。现在你可以陶醉在陌生的美丽之中，沉浸在文化、烹饪和生活的无限广阔之中，这是你的盒子从未体验过的。

The drawback to this is that for most of us, traveling happens in the form of vacations. A vacation is designed to be an exciting respite we take to keep us incentivized to return back to The Box of Daily Experience upon its conclusion. In a way, it’s absurdly paradoxical — churning the gears of the box is what provides us with the fiscal resources to break out of it, but the wonderful memories of our vacations are what brings us squarely back to the box once again.

这样做的缺点是，对于我们大多数人来说，旅行是以假期的形式发生的。一个假期被设计成一个令人兴奋的休息，我们用它来激励我们在结束后回到每日经验的箱子。在某种程度上，这是荒谬的自相矛盾ーー搅动着这个盒子的齿轮是我们打破这个盒子的财政资源，但是我们度假的美好回忆又把我们带回了这个盒子。

As a result, if you’re traveling as a form of vacation, you know you will be back in your box very, very shortly. This tends to provoke the behavior of “experience maximization,” in which you’re running around in a flurry of fatiguing excitement to experience every moment possible in your travels.

因此，如果你以度假的方式旅行，你知道你很快就会回到你的盒子里。这往往会引发“体验最大化”的行为，在这种行为中，你会在疲劳兴奋的慌乱中跑来跑去，体验旅行中的每一个可能的时刻。

And inevitably, you’re back in the box, counting down the days in which you can do it again.

不可避免地，你又回到了盒子里，倒计时着你还能再做一次的日子。

It’s times like these when you begin to dream of getting out of The Box of Daily Experience for good. You realize that a vacation only serves as a dopamine hit of cultural experience, as the built-in time constraints don’t allow you to truly understand the tapestry of a foreign place.

就是在这样的时刻，你开始梦想永远摆脱日常生活的束缚。你意识到假期只是文化体验的多巴胺冲击，因为内在的时间限制不允许您真正了解异国情调的挂毯。

And one day, you firmly decide that the answer does not reside in the box you live in now.

有一天，你坚定地认定答案不在你现在生活的盒子里。

It’s elsewhere, in a faraway place that you once visited and enjoyed.

它在别的地方，在一个遥远的地方，你曾经去过并且享受过。

But this time, you’ll be gone for a really, really long time.

但是这一次，你会离开很长很长一段时间。

Surely, what you’re looking for must be there. Not here.

当然，你要找的东西一定在那里，而不是这里。

Once you arrive in your new environment, the excitement is palpable. Not only have you have immersed yourself in a completely new part of the world, but you also have the time to explore every crevice of it.

一旦你到达新的环境，兴奋是显而易见的。你不仅让自己沉浸在一个全新的世界里，而且你还有时间去探索世界的每一个裂缝。

You are introduced to some new friends that live in this foreign land, and you guys make your way downtown to check out all that awesome food you’ve heard about.

你被介绍给一些新朋友，他们生活在这片陌生的土地上，然后你们一路走到市中心，去品尝所有你们听说过的美味佳肴。

Next thing you know, you have a new crew of people to hang out with! They are fun, entertaining, and exciting, which were some elements that were missing from the people back home. These new folks have a deep understanding of a culture you’re eager to learn more about, so every hang out session with them is an opportunity to do things you’ve never done before.

接下来你知道的就是，你有了一群新的朋友可以一起出去玩！它们有趣、有趣、令人兴奋，这些都是家乡的人们所缺少的元素。这些新人对你渴望了解的文化有着深刻的理解，所以每次和他们出去玩都是一个机会，可以做一些你从未做过的事情。

You can also see things you’ve never seen before too, and it’s fantastic.

你也可以看到以前从未见过的东西，这太神奇了。

Wow.

If someone asks you how life is going, you can emphatically say that it’s simply amazing.

如果有人问你生活过得怎么样，你可以断然地说这简直太神奇了。

But remember, since you are going to be staying here for a while, having fun with interesting people and seeing new sights are not reliable roadmaps for financial sustainability. And plus, all of your friends are busy in the daytime with work, and being a lone wanderer in the early afternoon is only fun for so long.

但是请记住，既然你要在这里呆上一段时间，和有趣的人一起玩乐，看看新景点，这些都不是财务可持续性的可靠路线图。另外，你所有的朋友在白天都忙于工作，而在下午早些时候做一个孤独的流浪者也只是有那么长时间的乐趣。

So yup, it’s time to get yourself a job.

所以，是时候给自己找份工作了。

The nature of the work is pretty similar to what you were doing in the past — it’s not ideal, but it supports your dream of traveling and breaking out of the old box, so it’s good enough.

这份工作的性质与你过去所做的非常相似ーー它并不理想，但它支持你的旅行梦想和打破陈规，所以它足够好了。

All right. Everything is set. You now have a resource-producing engine that can power your stay in your new home, and you can continue having great experiences in this land as time progresses.

好吧。一切都准备好了。你现在有了一个资源生产引擎，可以为你在新家的生活提供动力，随着时间的推移，你可以继续在这片土地上拥有伟大的经历。

But here’s the thing about time. No matter where you are, it moves in one direction.

但是关于时间，不管你在哪里，它都会朝着一个方向移动。

Forward.

前进。

And this linear movement of time is nature’s way of testing what we have labeled as meaningful. Only time can reveal whether a certain pursuit is driven by fleeting novelty, or if it is motivated by a strong sense of enduring purpose.

这种时间的线性运动是大自然测试我们所谓的有意义的方式。只有时间才能揭示一个特定的追求是否是由稍纵即逝的新奇事物驱动的，或者是否是由一种强烈的持久目标感所驱动的。

And when it comes to travel, the test of time reveals a pursuit driven by novelty very, very quickly.

对于旅行来说，时间的检验揭示了一种由新奇驱动的追求，非常非常快。

As the days in this foreign country turn into weeks, the experiences begin to occur with a familiar sense of regularity.

随着在这个国家的日子一天天变成一周周，这种经历开始以一种熟悉的规律性感觉发生。

The food that you excitedly ate when you first arrived has now become your weekday dinner spot:

你刚到时兴奋地吃的食物现在已经成为你工作日的晚餐场所:

The friends that showed you all those cool cultural things when you first arrived are now people you see every week. On top of that, you often hang out at the same places all the time as well:

那些在你刚来的时候给你展示那些很酷的文化的朋友，现在你每周都能见到他们。除此之外，你还经常在同一个地方闲逛:

The sights you initially paid to go see simply become buildings you pass by on the way to work:

你最初花钱去看的景点变成了你上班路上经过的建筑:

The job you have here feels just like your job back home again. And speaking of home, you begin to wonder how your friends are doing, as these are the folks that have been with you through years of shared experiences, and not through weeks of short-lived moments.

你在这里的工作感觉就像你在家里的工作一样。说到家，你开始想知道你的朋友们怎么样了，因为他们是和你一起经历了多年共同经历的人，而不是经历了几周的短暂时刻。

And without consciously realizing it yet, your life events are sequencing themselves into a familiar order… One that you tried so desperately to escape not too long ago.

而且你还没有意识到，你的生活事件正在排列自己进入一个熟悉的秩序... 一个你不久前拼命想要逃避的秩序。

And as the weeks turn into months, the stark reality of it all hits you. The boundaries of an all-too-familiar shape have taken hold.

随着时间的推移，这一切的残酷现实都在冲击着你。人们再熟悉不过的边界已经形成。

Uh-oh.

啊哦。

The Box of Daily Experience has contained you once again.

每日体验之箱又一次将你包围。

box of daily experience

Oh no! What the hell is this box doing here again?! How has it followed you all the way over here?!

哦，不！这该死的盒子怎么又出现在这里? ！它是怎么一路跟着你到这儿来的? ！

Perhaps it’s time to find another place to go to?! Somewhere even further away?! A whole other continent maybe? Since The Box of Daily Experience has returned, the subsequent urge to break out of it has come back as well.

也许是时候换个地方了? ！更远的地方? ！也许是另一个大陆？自从《每日体验之盒》回归之后，随之而来的想要打破它的冲动也回来了。

But here’s the thing. Regardless of what you do to break out of the box, it won’t work. You can change your external environment all you want, but you will continue to travel with the one box that will always accompany you.

但事情是这样的。不管你做什么来突破这个框框，它都不会起作用。你可以随心所欲地改变你的外部环境，但是你将继续带着一个始终伴随着你的盒子旅行。

The box known as your mind.

这个盒子被称为你的思想。

When we are obsessed with travel, we are intently focused on changing and revising our external venue while neglecting the one constant we all travel with: our minds.

当我们沉迷于旅行时，我们专注于改变和修正我们的外部环境，而忽略了一个我们经常旅行的东西: 我们的思想。

If your mind is not at ease, then the same angst and restlessness you feel today will inevitably make itself known as you travel. That point can be delayed through novel experiences, but regardless of where you are, an uneasy mind will always unveil itself in the end.

如果你的心情不舒服，那么你今天感受到的焦虑和不安将不可避免地在你旅行的时候被人们所知晓。这一点可以通过新奇的经历来延迟，但是不管你在哪里，一个不安的心灵最终总会揭开自己的面纱。

That feeling of restlessness underlying all the unresolved issues you have at home will follow you wherever you go. A strained relationship with your family, a sense of purposelessness in work, a low self-worth, a strong tension with your partner, a lurking depression — the answer to any of these things does not lie in a one-way ticket to a faraway place.

那种潜藏在你家里所有未解决问题背后的躁动不安的感觉，无论你走到哪里，都会跟随着你。与家人的紧张关系，工作中漫无目的的感觉，低自我价值感，与伴侣之间强烈的紧张关系，潜伏的抑郁症ーー这些问题的答案都不在于去一个遥远地方的单程票。

 

苏格拉底说得最好:

We tend to grossly overestimate the pleasure brought forth by new experiences and underestimate the power of finding meaning in current ones. While travel is a fantastic way to gain insight into unfamiliar cultures and illuminating ways of life, it is not a cure for discontentment of the mind.

我们往往过高地估计了新体验带来的快乐，而低估了在当前体验中寻找意义的力量。虽然旅行是一种了解陌生文化和启发生活方式的绝妙方式，但它并不能治愈心灵的不满。

Who we are inside a venue matters far more than the venue itself. Instead of having the wanderlust of travel guide our search for meaning, we have to look within and embrace the only thing that is present now. The only thing that actually exists today.

我们在场馆里的身份比场馆本身更重要。与其用旅行的旅行癖引导我们寻找意义，我们不得不审视自己的内心，拥抱当下唯一存在的东西。今天唯一真正存在的东西。

The Box of Daily Experience.

日常体验的盒子。

Instead of viewing this box as a problem to escape, we have to realize that it is indeed the only thing that we can truly hold onto.

与其把这个盒子看作是一个逃避的问题，不如说我们必须意识到它确实是我们唯一能真正抓住的东西。

When you view life as a continuous cycle in this box, it can be easy to take its components for granted and view everything as a mundane blur of familiar events. However, when you take the time to actually inspect the box with mindful awareness of its contents, you will discover the true amazement that lives within them. And the best tool one can use to magnify these great discoveries is the practice of gratitude.

当你把生命看作是这个盒子里的一个连续的循环时，你很容易把它的组成部分视为理所当然，把所有的事情都看作是熟悉的事件的一个模糊的世界。然而，当你花时间仔细观察盒子里的东西时，你会发现盒子里真正的惊喜。可以用来放大这些伟大发现的最佳工具是：感恩的练习。

Gratitude is what allows you to feel that same sense of wonderment about your day-to-day life as you would if you were walking the streets of a faraway city.

感恩之心让你对自己的日常生活感到惊奇，就像你在一个遥远城市的街道上行走一样。

Gratitude is what illuminates the fact that you are a collection of (billions of) atoms that have come together to create this amazing combination of cells, neurons, and organs that allow you to touch things, taste delicious food, go hiking, laugh at funny jokes, and view the stars in a nighttime sky.

感恩之心让我们明白这样一个事实: 你是一个由数十亿个原子组成的集合体，它们聚集在一起，创造了这个神奇的细胞、神经元和器官的组合，让你可以触摸事物，品尝美味的食物，徒步旅行，听到有趣的笑话就大笑，还可以在夜空中看到星星。

Gratitude is what allows you to realize that everyone you know and love also happens to be this collection of atoms that have assembled themselves at this precise point in time, when they could have been born thousands of years earlier or hundreds of years later. The alignment of our personal ancestries, the fact that all our forebears were healthy (and attractive) enough to reproduce, and the crazy timing of us being birthed into this world at roughly the same time is an astounding coincidence that we can’t help but to be utterly amazed about and grateful for.

感恩让你意识到，你认识和爱的每一个人都恰好是在这个时间点上自己组装起来的原子的集合，而这个时间点本可以早几千年或者晚几百年出生。我们个人祖先的排列，我们所有的祖先都是健康的(和有吸引力的) ，足以繁衍后代，以及我们大约在同一时间出生在这个世界的疯狂时间，是一个令人震惊的巧合，我们不能不对此感到惊讶和感激。

Being grateful about our existence and its relation to others allows for a blossoming of meaning and purpose in our exploration of this life. It is the starting point for an endless list of awesome things we have going for us, and we don’t need to change our physical location one bit to witness this list grow.

感恩我们的存在及其与他人的关系，使我们在探索生命的过程中，意义和目标更加丰富。这是我们拥有的一系列美好事物的起点，我们不需要改变我们的物理位置来见证这个列表的增长。

If gratitude is the tool we use to highlight the innate beauty existing within our boxes, then practices such as mindfulness meditation allows these realizations to actually become a part of our daily outlook. One of the difficult things about the routines embedded in our daily experience is that they tend to congeal into one giant, uniform blob that we label as “life.” And this blob can harden over time to create an impenetrable barrier that prevents us from absorbing helpful advice and realizations that come to light.

如果感恩是我们用来强调盒子里存在的内在美的工具，那么像正念冥想这样的练习会让这些领悟成为我们日常生活的一部分。我们日常生活中的惯例有一个困难之处，那就是它们往往凝结成一个巨大的、统一的斑点，我们称之为“生活”随着时间的推移，这些斑点会变硬，形成一道难以逾越的屏障，阻止我们吸收有用的建议和意识。

What meditation helps to do is soften the texture of this blob by removing our hardened egos and neurotic thoughts from the inner core of our consciousness. What we are left with is clarity and openness to see The Box of Daily Experience for what it really is: a reflection of life that can be eased into fluidity with the proper attention and care.

冥想能够帮助我们软化这些斑点的纹理，将我们顽固的自我和神经质的想法从我们意识的内核中移除。留给我们的是清晰和开放地看待日常经验的盒子的真实面目: 只要适当的关注和照顾，生活的反映可以被放松到流动性。

While clarity of experience is a direct path to the calming of the mind, there is another beautiful quality to our consciousness that is often overlooked.

虽然清晰的体验是平静心灵的直接途径，但是我们的意识中还有另外一个美丽的品质常常被忽视。

The ability to find fascination in the minds of others.

发现魅力的能力-在别人的脑海中。

One source of constant wonderment and adventure comes in the form of books. Instead of searching for inspiring experiences in faraway places, these awesome things are abundantly available to us at all times.

不断惊奇和冒险的来源之一就是书籍。与其在遥远的地方寻找令人振奋的经历，但是这些令人敬畏的书籍在任何时候都对我们大量可用。

I particularly enjoy reading works of non-fiction, but any form of good literature is utterly captivating. Keep in mind that whenever you pick up a good book to read, you are taking an extensive journey into the mind of the author. It’s amazing to me that as an ordinary person, I have immediate access to the greatest minds of the past and present, and can absorb years and years of their toiling research in just a matter of days or weeks.

我特别喜欢阅读非小说作品，但任何形式的优秀文学作品都是令人着迷的。记住，无论何时你拿起一本好书去读，你都是在对作者的思想进行一次广泛的探索。令我惊讶的是，作为一个普通人，我可以直接接触到过去和现在最伟大的思想，可以在几天或几周内吸收他们多年辛苦研究的成果。

I can place myself in the mind of a renowned philosopher pondering the mystery of consciousness, or I can take a seat in the mind of a historian detailing the Mongol conquest under Genghis Khan. I can learn about anything I so desire, and that is an adventure that can always be brought to where I am now.

我可以把自己置身于一个思考意识之谜的著名哲学家的头脑中，或者我可以坐在一个详述蒙古成吉思汗历史的历史学家的头脑中。我可以学习任何我渴望的东西，这是总是可以带给我去任何地方的冒险。

This ability to be captivated by the minds of others is also widely available in the form of our loved ones and friends. However, it’s the people closest to us that we often take for granted. We tend to think we know everything there is to know about them, and our inquisitive nature is often reserved for strangers and small talk.

这种被他人的思想所吸引的能力也广泛存在于我们所爱的人和朋友的身上。然而，我们通常认为最亲近的人是理所当然的。我们倾向于认为我们知道关于他们的一切，我们好奇的天性通常保留给陌生人和闲聊。

But when we genuinely become curious about our relationships, we discover that we have only touched the surface with many of the people we hold dear to us. I find this to be a recurring pattern with many of my own friends. Simply asking a question at the right moment has often led to interesting stories and perspectives that were previously veiled from my view.

但是当我们真正对我们的关系感到好奇的时候，我们发现我们只是触及到了我们所珍视的许多人的表面。我发现这是我自己的许多朋友反复出现的模式。在适当的时候简单地提出一个问题，往往会产生一些有趣的故事和观点，而这些在我看来是被掩盖了的。

This sharing of stories is one of the great joys I’ve experienced over and over again with people. There is always an interesting story behind every mind — and hearing it widens the health of our own.

分享故事是我与人们一遍又一遍经历的最大乐趣之一。每个人的大脑背后总有一个有趣的故事ーー听到这个故事，我们的健康就会得到改善。

While travel does expand and stretch the horizons of what we know about the world, it is not the answer we’re looking for in times of unrest. To strengthen the health of the mind, the venue to do that in is the one we are in now.

虽然旅行确实扩展了我们对世界的了解，但它并不是我们在不安时期寻找的答案。为了加强心灵的健康，我们现在所在的地方就是需要做的。

It is location-independent, and always will be.

它是独立于地理位置的，并且将永远如此。

The key is not to discard The Box of Daily Experience and find a new one — it’s to warmly embrace the one that we have now — with its joys, its flaws, and everything in between.

关键不是抛弃日常经验的盒子而去寻找一个新的盒子ーー而是热情地拥抱我们现在拥有的盒子ーー包括它的快乐，它的缺点，以及介于两者之间的一切。

Note: This post is my adaptation of Seneca’s awesome letter to Lucilius on the subject of travel. I highly recommend that you check it out—along with all of Seneca’s other wonderful letters as well.

注: 这篇文章改编自塞尼卡写给 Lucilius 的关于旅行的很棒的信。我强烈建议你看看这本书ーー还有其他所有塞尼卡的精彩信件。

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