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It may sound strange to locate the problem here, but in some of our most despairing moods, what goes wrong is our power of imagination.
把问题定在这里可能很奇怪，但我们面临一些最绝望的情绪时，问题出在我们的想象上。
We are not merely ‘sad’; it's that we cannot imagine any better life than the agonised one we currently have.
我们不仅仅感到“悲伤”；我们还无法想象有比我们目前痛苦的生活更好的生活了。
And what we really mean by imagination is the power to summon up alternatives.
我们所说的想象真正的意思是唤起其他选择的能力。
When we are down, we can’t imagine finding another job or not minding what the gossip says about us.
当我们情绪低落时，我们无法想象能找到另一份工作，无法不在意流言对我们的评论。
We can’t imagine finding another partner or imagine letting ourselves trust someone again.
我们无法想象能找到另一个伴侣，让自己再次信任一个人。
But on the other hand, with sufficient imagination, almost any problem can be worked around.
但另一方面，只要有足够的想象力，几乎任何问题都可以解决。
If one door has closed, the imagination should in time be able to find another.
如果一扇门已经关闭，想象力迟早会带我们找到另一扇门。
There are other cities we can go to, there are completely new sorts of work we could try.
我们还可以去其他城市，我们还可以尝试一些全新的工作。
There are places we can travel where no one knows who we are.
有好多没有人认识我们的地方可以去。
There are lovers who will have a very different approach to intimacy than those we have known to date.
有些恋人对亲密关系的态度与我们所认识的那些人截然不同。
The oceans are so large and beautifully unconcerned with us.
海洋辽阔美丽，与我们毫不相干。
We are grown-ups, that is, people with choices.
我们是成年人，也就是，有选择的人。
We are not the small children we once were who had to depend on their parents for everything and were imprisoned by narrow circumstances.
我们不再是曾经的小孩子，什么都要依赖父母，被禁锢在狭隘的环境中。
We would be able to build ourselves a small hut on the edge of the desert.
我们将能够在沙漠的边缘为自己建造一座小茅屋。
We can change our names.
我们可以改名。
If we’re feeling shy and defeated, we don’t have to go out and see anyone ever again.
如果我们感到不情愿、有挫败感，我们就不必再出去见任何人了。
We can live by ourselves, mind our own business.
我们可以自己生活，管好我们自己的事。
We can go mad for a while and then recover; a lot of people do.
我们可以疯狂一段时间，然后恢复过来；很多人都是这样。
We could throw ourselves into learning a new language or take a university degree in Sanskrit by correspondence course.
我们可以投身于学习一门新语言，或是通过函授课程学习获得梵语的大学学位。
We can find the love we need; we only require two friends, or even just one, to get by.
我们可以找到我们需要的爱；我们只需要和两个朋友相处，甚至只需要一个朋友就可以。
Many people might be cruel, but a few are infinitely compassionate and kind and we can go out and find them and not let them go.
许多人可能是残忍的，但也有一些人拥有无限的同情心、非常善良，我们可以走出去寻找他们，不让他们溜走。
We don’t have to stick by the script we thought we’d be following all our lives.
我们不必坚持我们以为会终生追随的剧本。
We might have wanted to do so – but we are profoundly flexible creatures.
我们本想这么做，但我们是非常灵活的生物。
When we arrived on the earth, our mental wiring was loose enough that we could have developed into excellent foragers in the Kalahari desert, Latin scholars in a university or accountants in the logistics industry.
当我们到达地球的时候，我们的精神连线已经足够松散，我们可以发展成为卡拉哈里沙漠中优秀的觅食者，大学里的拉丁学者，或者物流行业的会计师。
Our biology is elastic.
我们的生理习性是灵活的。
We may have lost a little of that primordial flexibility and latitude, it might no longer be so easy to pick up new languages or physical moves, but we remain eminently equipped to acquire new tricks.
我们可能已经失去了一些原始的灵活性和自由度，学习新语言或肢体动作可能不再那么容易，但我们仍然有能力掌握新技巧。
Other people – noble and interesting other people – have been here before us.
其他人--高尚而有趣的其他人--已经在我们之前来到这里。
There have been exiled Russian princes who learnt how to become tennis teachers, émigré South Vietnamese army generals who started American kindergartens; divorcees who remarried; shamed executives who opened corner shops.
有流亡海外的俄罗斯王子学会了如何成为网球老师，有移民南越军队将领开办了美国幼儿园；有离婚的人再婚了；有蒙羞的高管开了繁华的街角小店。
In order to increase our chances of fulfilment, we need to feed and massage our imaginations.
为了增加实现的机会，我们需要增加和丰富我们的想象力。
Whatever way we happen to be living, we should constantly force ourselves to picture different, more arduous but still bearable ways to be.
不管我们生活的方式如何，我们都应该不断地强迫自己去想象不同的、更艰难但仍然可以忍受的生活方式。
We could think about how we might survive without any friends, without a reputation, without health, without any love, without much money.
我们可以想一想，没有朋友，没有名誉，没有健康，没有爱，没有大量资金，我们该如何生活。
As part of their creative writing classes, adolescents should be asked to produce narratives titled: If I lost everything and had to start up again, I might…
作为创意写作课的一部分，青少年们应该被要求写出题为“如果我失去了一切而不得不重新开始，我可能会……”的故事。
They could be asked to make a list of the 20 things that currently make life meaningful; then have to cross them all off and find 10 more.
他们可以被要求列出目前让生活变得有意义的20件事情，然后必须把它们全部划掉，再找出10件。
Only a few of us will ever need to write short stories for a living, very many of us will be called upon by fate to rewrite the stories of our lives.
我们中只有少数人需要以写短篇小说为生，我们中有很多人会被命运召唤去改写我们生活中的故事。
That is the true destiny and function of the imagination.
这才是想象力真正的使命和作用。
When we are very sad, we should be provoked by the intellectual puzzle before us: How else might we get by, given how many possibilities have been closed to us?
当我们非常悲伤的时候，我们可能会被摆在我们面前的智力难题所唤醒: 考虑到我们已经有那么多种可能性被关闭了，我们还能如何度过难关呢？
How could we fertilise the dung heap we are on?
我们怎样才能使我们身上的困境反转？
Our challenge is to learn to rebuild our futures intelligently and creatively on the ruins of our old lives.
我们面临的挑战是学会在旧生活的废墟上，明智地、创造性地重建我们的未来。
