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We tend to operate with the view that the best way to please people is not to bother them too much.
我们倾向于这样一种观点：取悦他人的最佳方式是不要经常麻烦他们。
We keep many of our dilemmas and confusions away from those we like, for fear of irritating or inconveniencing them and so spoiling the relationship.
我们让自己的困境和困惑远离喜欢的人，怕惹怒或麻烦他们，从而影响到我们的关系。
We may well have a voice echoing in our minds from childhood: ‘Don’t bother your mother, can’t you see she’s exhausted from her trip?
可能从小就有个声音在我们的脑海里回响：“不要吵到妈妈，你看不见她上班回来已经很累了吗？”
Don’t bother your father, he works hard for us and he’s busy right now…’
别去打扰爸爸，他为了我们努力工作，现在正忙着呢……”
There are powerful reasons why we equate making others happy with burdening them as little as possible.
我们把取悦他人等同于尽可能少给他们添麻烦，这是有充分理由的支持。
But our analysis is missing a key detail of human psychology: we like to be bothered.
但我们的分析遗漏了人类心理学的一个关键细节:我们喜欢被麻烦。
Not at all time and over all things, nor at the expense of our own critical needs, but fundamentally, we have a powerful urge to feel helpful.
这不是指在任何时候，在所有事情上都喜欢被麻烦，也不是指以牺牲我们自己的重要需求为代价，但从根本上说，我们有一种强烈的想要帮助别人的冲动。
We need to be needed.
我们需要被需要。
All of us suffer from a fear of superfluity, which the requirements of others has a critical capacity to appease.
我们所有人都害怕变成多余的人，而他人对我们的需要恰好缓和了这种恐惧。
However nice presents may be for our friends, the real gift we can offer them is an insight into our problems.
不管送给朋友的礼物有多好，我们能提供给他们的真正礼物是让他们了解我们的问题。
We can pick this theme up in the realm of work.
我们可以在工作领域找到这个主题。
The dominant societal story is that we work strictly for ourselves: for our status and our financial benefit.
主流社会的说法是，我们工作完全是为了自己:为了我们的地位以及我们的经济利益。
But in reality, more puzzlingly but far more beautifully, what really makes our work feel exciting and meaningful is the power it gives us to help other people.
但在现实中，更令人困惑但更美好的是，真正让我们的工作感到兴奋和有意义的是工作给予我们帮助他人的力量。
Work is at its most gratifying when it affords us a feeling that we have, over the course of the day, managed to appease the suffering or increase the pleasure of another person.
当工作给我们一种感觉，在一天的工作中，我们设法缓解了另一个人的痛苦或增加了另一个人的快乐时，工作是最令人满意的。
There are so many stories of being exhausted by the requests of others; too few of the delight we experience when we turn around someone else’s distress, boredom or craving.
有很多关于被别人的要求弄得筋疲力尽的故事; 而消除别人的痛苦、烦恼和欲望也并不能带来多少愉悦。
We can’t ultimately feel our valuable sides until we are called upon to exercise them:
只有当别人叫我们去帮忙时，我们才终于感受到自己的价值所在：
we don’t have a sense of our strength until someone needs us to lift something;
直到有人需要我们举起什么东西时，我们才会意识到自己的力量;
we can’t feel intelligent until someone asks us to solve an issue;
直到有人要求我们解决问题，我们才会觉得自己很聪明;
we can’t feel wise until we’ve been brought in to adjudicate a dispute.
除非我们被请来裁决一场争端时，我们才会感到自己多明智。
We rely on the needs of others to remind us of what we’re capable.
我们依靠别人的需要来提醒自己有能力做什么。
What holds true in professional life applies as much to personal experience.
职业生涯中适用的道理也同样适用于个人经历。
The best way to charm and break the ice with a new person we like the look of in a public place isn’t to try to say something witty or soothing.
在公共场合，要想吸引一个我们喜欢的新面孔，打破沉默，最好的方法不是说一些诙谐或抚慰的话。
We should strive to bring them a question.
而是应该努力向他们提出一个问题。
We should ask them whether we’re in the right queue; whether they know when the post office opens – or if they have any idea how long a chicken this size might need in an oven.
我们应该问他们我们是否排对了队; 他们是否知道邮局什么时候开门，或者他们是否知道这样大小的鸡需要在烤箱里烤多久。
With closer friends too, we should dare to reveal our bemusements.
和更亲密的朋友在一起时也是如此，我们也应该敢于透露我们的困惑。
We should ask them if they could possibly spare a moment, then solicit their views on what we might do about our angry teenage child, how we should cope with a sexless relationship or what they’d advise us about a colleague who is prone to panic.
我们应该询问他们是否能抽出一点时间，然后征求他们的意见，比如我们可能应该对我们愤怒的十几岁的孩子做些什么，我们应该如何处理一段无性关系，或者面对一个容易急躁的同事，有什么好建议。
Our questions won’t be a burden, they will show that we are ready to make ourselves vulnerable in their eyes – and therefore that we trust and think them wise.
我们的问题不会成为他人的负担，反而表明我们准备我们愿意在他们面前示弱——因此，我们相信他们，认为他们是明智的。
This isn’t just a cynical strategy for ingratiating ourselves; it isn’t Machiavellian or sly.
这不仅仅是一种迎合我们自己的利己策略; 也不是不择手段和狡猾。
We genuinely all need help.
而是我们真的都需要帮助。
We aren’t pretending to have problems and making up a few just to flatter.
我们不会假装有问题，编造一些问题来讨好别人。
We are suffering inside, but simply generally don’t dare to reveal the truth for fear of driving people away.
我们的内心是痛苦的，只是怕赶走别人而不敢透露真相。
And yet we are staying guarded out of an ideal of self-sufficiency that isn’t either true to our needs or constructive for the well being and esteem of others.
然而，自给自足的理想让我们处于警备状态，这既不符合我们的需求，也不利于他人获得幸福和尊重。
So, we should risk doing what we at heart have always longed to do: to reveal some of the fear, sadness and angst we genuinely feel to those we care about.
所以，我们应该冒险去做我们内心一直渴望做的事情: 向我们关心的人吐露一些我们真实的恐惧、悲伤和焦虑。
We will be helped in our pain, we will remind others of their capacities
我们会在痛苦中得到帮助，我们会提醒别人他们的能力
– and, if we are fortunate, we’ll set a precedent that means that others will one day bring a few of their problems to us in turn.
——如果我们幸运的话，我们将开创一个先例，这意味着有一天其他人也会反过来把他们的一些问题带给我们。
