When asked about happiness, we usually think of
something extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer the
older we get.
For kids, happiness has a magical quality. Their
delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫无掩饰的).
In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes.
Suddenly it’s conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I
can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most
attractive boy at the school party.
In adulthood the things that bring deep joy—love,
marriage, birth—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults,
happiness is complicated (复杂的).
My definition of happiness is “the capacity for
enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It’s easy
to overlook the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to
live where we please, and even good health.
I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday.
First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunch-box and had the house to
myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the
kids and my husband come home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the
day.
Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix
of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don’t think that my
grandmother, who raised 14 children, had much of either. She did have a network
of close friends and family, and maybe this what satisfied her.
We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to
succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we’ve got to
have. We’re so self-conscious about our “right” to it that it’s making us
miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without
noticing that the people who have those things aren’t necessarily happier.
Happiness isn’t about what happens to—it’s about how
we see what happens to us. It’s the skillful way of finding a positive for
every negative. It’s not wishing for what we don’t have , but enjoying what we
do possess.
1.As people grow older, they ____.
A.feel it
harder to experience happiness
B.associate
their happiness less with others
C.will take
fewer risks in pursuing happiness
D.tend to
believe responsibility means happiness
2.What can we learn about the author from Paragraphs 5
and 6?
A.She cares
little about her own health.
B.She enjoys
the freedom of traveling.
C.She is easily
pleased by things in daily life.
D.She prefers
getting pleasure from housework.
3.What can be inferred from Paragraph 7?
A.Psychologists
think satisfying work is key to happiness.
B.Psychologists’ opinion is well proved by Grandma’s case.
C.Grandma often
found time for social gatherings.
D.Grandma’s happiness came from modest expectations of life.
4.People who equal happiness with wealth and success
______.
A.consider
pressure something blocking their way
B.stress their
right to happiness too much
C.are at a loss
to make correct choices
D.are more
likely to be happy
5.What can be concluded from the passage?
A.Happiness
lies between the positive and the negative
B.Each man is
the master of his own fate.
C.Success leads
to happiness.
D.Happy is he
who is content.