You Can Only Change Yourself(转载)

You Can Only Change Yourself(转载)

来源：(http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5da24e180100c1wy.html ) - You Can Only Change Yourself_彭龙_新浪博客

   One of life’s hardest lessons to learn is that you can only change yourself.

   Some people spend inordinate amounts of time and energy upset, angry, or frustrated by other people’s thoughts and behaviors.

   But to what end? You can rail against the rain or feel sanguine about the snow, but there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. Why should we, by default, believe we can change another person’s — an independent, thinking self just like us — behaviors and thoughts with just a few choice words? If you think about it for a minute, it sounds kind of ridiculous .

   Yet we don’t think about it when we have an emotional reaction to someone else’s behavior or words. We say things like, “How could they say such a thing!” or “How can anyone be so rude!?” or “Don’t they know how much they hurt me? Why do they do that?!”

   We often react in this way because our emotions are a part of most people’s innate decision-making skills. We react and respond emotionally to emotional needs of our own, rather than in a logical , rational manner. So when someone touches one of these emotional needs, we can respond in a way that may not make a whole lot of sense to an outside observer.

   What you can do, just once, is to make a polite request for another to stop the behavior that you find frustrating, annoying or disturbing. But that’s it, just once (or maybe twice, if you feel the person really didn’t hear or understand the initial request ). After that, you just become a nag and will be ignored. Repeating something over and over again doesn’t suddenly make people more aware of themselves, it just makes them aware of how annoying you can be.

   There’s no magic to stopping trying to change other people’s behavior. Catch your thoughts (by writing them down in a journal or blog, for instance ) when you find yourself saying something like, “I wish she wouldn’t do..” or “I can’t believe he thinks that…” — things like that. Making a note of it, mental or otherwise , allows you to pause your automatic thinking before you jump to the next step in your response (which is usually to say something to the person).

   If you’ve already said something, now’s the time to stop and go no further. Unless you’re the other person’s parent, they’ve probably already heard it and may have even tried stopping the behavior. Hearing it again isn’t going to suddenly change their behavior.

   People can spend weeks, months and in some cases years in psychotherapy working on changing their thoughts or behaviors. That’s because such change often takes that long to understand, practice, and then implement . Behaviors most important to others are also likely behaviors that are important to ourselves and not readily changed, even if we wanted to. They sometimes are integrated part of another’s personality or way of thinking about and looking at the entire world.

  So save yourself some frustration today and try to learn to stop trying to change others. Focus instead on changing your own faults and you may find yourself living a happier and more peaceful life.

 

Notes：

• inordinate [in'ɔ:dinit]  a. 过度的,非常的
• rail [reil]  v. 以横木围栏,铺铁轨
• sanguine   ['sæŋgwin]  a. 乐天的,自信的
• ridiculous   [ri'dikjuləs]  a. 荒谬的,可笑的
• innate   ['ineit]  a. 天生的,固有的
• logical   ['lɔdʒikəl]a. 符合逻辑的,
• rational   ['ræʃənl] a. 合理的,理性的
• initial request   初始请求
• nag [næg] n. 小马,驽马,竞赛马
• psychotherapy ['saikəu'θerəpi]   n. 心理疗法,精神疗法
• implement ['implimənt] vt. 实现,执行
• integrated ['intigreitid] a. 整合的
  

    人生中最难的课程之一便是明白你仅能改变你自己。

    有些人花了太多的时间和精力为别人的思想和行动感到悲伤、愤怒、或沮丧。

    但是结果如何？你可以抱怨下雨或因下雪而满怀希望，但是除此之外你什么也干不了。为什么我们会天真地以 为，只要只言片语我们就能改变他人（独立、自主思考如我们的人）的行为和想法？如果你认真思考片刻，就知道这是件很荒谬的事。

    然而，当我们被他人的行为或言辞激怒时，不会考虑这个问题。我们总是说，“他们怎么能说那种话！”、 “人怎么可能如此没礼貌！？”、“难道他们不知道他们伤害我有多深？他们为什么要那么做？！”

    我们的反应总是这样，因为绝大多数人的情绪都是先天决策技能的一部份。我们对自己的情感需求做出感性的 而非逻辑、理性的反应和反馈。所以，当某人触及这些情感需求时，我们会做出对外人而言没多大意义的反应。

    你能做的，便是客气地要求其他人停止这种让你感到沮丧、讨厌或是烦恼的行为。但是一次便足矣（如果你觉得这个人真的没有听到或者没有明白你的初衷，两次也 行）。多几次的话，你就会像絮絮叨叨的祥林嫂一样被人忽视。不断重复某件事不会使别人如梦方醒，只能让别人更加明白你多么讨厌。

    没有魔法能让人停止改变别人的行为。当你发觉自己说了诸如“我希望她不要…”或“我简直不敢相信他竟然想…”之类的话时，记下你的想法（例如，写日记、写 博客等）。用心或者其他方式记住这类想法能让你在进入自发反应的下一步（通常是对他人说些什么）之前中止你的思维定势。

    如果你已经说了什么的话，则应该立即住口----除非你是他的父母。他们很可能已经听到了你的话，也可 能试着终止这种行为。再次听到同样的话也不能瞬间改变他们的想法。

    人们能花费数周、数月、甚至数年的时间用于精神疗法以改变自己的想法或行为。这是因为这种改变往往需要 很长的时间才能被理解、实行，然后贯彻执行。对别人而言最重要的行为可能就是那些对我们自己而言也很重要且即使我们想改变也不容易改变的行为。有时候，这 些行为是一个人的性格、思维方式、世界观不可或缺的一部分。

    所以，收起自己的挫败感，学着停止改变他人。同时，专注于改变自己的缺点，这样你可能发现自己活得更开 心也更安宁。