Why people feel guilt when bad things happened

       I had an experience some years ago which taught me something about the ways in which people make a bad situation worse by blaming themselves. One January, I had to play me role at two funerals on successive days for two elderly women in my community. Both had died "full of years," as the Bible would say; both yielded to the normal wearing out of the body after a long and full life. Their homes happened to be near each other, so I paid condoence calls on the two families on the same afternoon.

       很多年前我有一个经历，它告诉我一些人们会通过责怪自己而使一个坏情况变得更糟的行为。某个一月，我不得不连续几天内为我的社区内两位年老的妇女在她们的葬礼上扮演我的角色。两人都是“寿终正寝”，正如圣经中所说；两人都在一段漫长而充实的人生后屈服于身体的正常疲惫。她们的家碰巧离得很近，所以我在同一个下午到这两家进行吊唁。

       At the first home, the son of the deceased woman said to me, "If only I had sent my mother to Florida and gotten her out of this cold and snow, she would be alive today. It's my fault that she died." At the second home, the son of the other deceased woman said, "If only I had,'t insisted on my mother's going to Florida, she would be alive today. That long airplane ride, the abrupt change of climate, was more than she could take. It's my fault that she's dead.

       在第一家，已故女人的儿子对我说：“但愿我把我母亲送去佛罗里达并带她离开这个寒冷和风雪的地方，她也许现在还活着。她的死是我的错。”在第二家，另一个已故女人的儿子说：“但愿我没有坚持我的母亲去佛罗里达，她也许现在还活着。长时间的飞机旅途，气候的突然改变，是她所不能承受的。她的死是我的错。

       When things don't turn out as we would like them to, it is very tempting to assume that had we done things differently, the story would have had a happier ending. Priests know that any time there is a death, the survivors will feel guilty. Because the course of action they took turned out badly, they believe that the opposite course - keeping Mother at home, postponing the operation - would have turned out better. After all, how could it have turned out any worse?

       当事情没有像我们希望的那样发展时，很容易使人假设我们不那样做的话，事情可能会有一个更愉快的结局。牧师们知道任何时候都会有死亡，而幸存者将会有负罪感。因为他们采取的措施带来了坏结果，他们相信对立的流程—把妈妈留在家里，将手术延期—将可能得到好结果。但是，这样又怎么不可能带来另一种坏结果呢？

       There seem to be two elements involved in our readiness to feel guilt. The first is our pressing need to believe that the world makes sense, that there is a cause for every effect and a reason for everything that happens. That leads us to find patterns and connections both where they really exist and where they exist only in our minds.

       在我们的潜意识中看上去有两个因素会感到负罪。第一个是我们迫切地须要相信世界有意义，任何结果都有原因并且发生的任何事都有理由。这导致我们去找寻它们真正存在的地方和它们仅仅在我们思想中存在的地方之间的形式和联系。

       The second element is the notion that we are the cause of what happens, especially the bad things that happen. It seems to be a short step from believing that every event has a cause to believing that every disaster is our fault. The roots of this feeling may lie in our childhood. Psychologists speak of the infantile myth of omnipotence. A baby comes to think that the world exists to meet his needs, and that he makes everything happen in it. He wakes up in the morning and summons the rest of the world to its tasks. He cries, and someone comes to attend to him. When he is hungry, people feed him, and when he is wet, people change him. Very often, we do not completely outgrow that infantile notion that our wishes cause things to happen.

       第二个因素是我们是所发生的事的原因这种观念，特别是发生的坏事。看上去人们很容易相信每个事件都有个理由让人相信每个灾难是我们的错误。这种感觉可能从我们小时候就埋下了。心理学家称之为全能的婴儿神秘。一个儿童开始认为世界存在以满足他的需要，并且他使任何事在那里发生。他在早晨醒来并且召唤剩余的世界到他的任务来。他一哭，就有人来帮助他。当他饿了，有人来喂他，当他湿了，有人来给他换衣服。一般，我们不会完全脱离婴儿的观念，就是我们的希望导致事情发生。