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生活可以简陋，但却不可以粗糙。无论何时、何地、何种情况，你都要保持心灵的自由。你可以失去财富，但是你绝不能失去快乐！
If you have ever gone through a toll1 booth2, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate3 you’ll ever have. It is one of life’s frequent4 nonencounters: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off.
Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward a booth. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m having a party.” he said.
“What about the rest of the people?” I looked at the other toll booths.
He said, “What do those look like to you?” He pointed down the row of toll booths.
“They look like...toll booths. What do they look like to you?”
He said, “Vertical5 coffins. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.”
I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology6 about his job. Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. I could not help asking the next question,“Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.”
He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that. I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, and the Berkeley hills. Half the Western world vacations here...and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing.”
如果你曾经经过一个过路收费亭，你就会明白你和收费员的关系并不是你的经历中最为密切的，那只是生活中很平常的一次相遇。你递钱过去，找回零钱，然后开车离开。
1984年的一个上午，快到中午的时候，我正驱车前往旧金山去吃午饭。当车驶向一个收费亭时，耳边传来了很响的音乐声，好像是在开一个社交聚会。我向四周看了看。其他小车都没有开车窗，也没有那种带声响的卡车。我朝收费亭看了看。在那里面，有个男人正在跳舞。
“你在做什么？”我问道。
“我正在举行一个舞会，”他说。
“其余的人怎么样呢？”我朝其他的过路收费亭看了看。
他指着这一排过路收费亭说：“你觉得那些看起来像什么？”
“他们看起来像……过路收费亭。你看他们像什么？”
他说：“竖直的棺材。每天早上8：30，活人进去，然后他们死去八个小时，下午4：30分，他们像拉撒路（《圣经》中的一个麻风病患者）从死亡中复活一样，再度出现，然后回家。他们的大脑在这八小时里全都被工作占据了，他们只是麻木地去完成收钱、找零的动作。”
我感到吃惊。这家伙揭露了一个人生哲学，一个关于他的工作的神话。有16个人对这项工作都麻木了，而这第17个人，处于相同的环境中，却找到了另一种生活方式。我禁不住问了下面的这个问题：“为什么这份工作在你这儿就显得这么与众不同呢？你过得很快乐。”
他朝我看了看。“我知道你会问这个问题的。我不明白为什么人们会认为我的工作是枯燥乏味的。我有一个拐角办公室，四面都有玻璃。我能看到金门桥、旧金山和伯克利群山。半个西方世界的人都来这里度假……我每天只是在这里散步和练习跳舞而已。”
古木 摘译自Positive Thinking
If you have ever gone through a toll1 booth2, you know that your relationship to the person in the booth is not the most intimate3 you’ll ever have. It is one of life’s frequent4 nonencounters: You hand over some money; you might get change; you drive off.
Late one morning in 1984, headed for lunch in San Francisco, I drove toward a booth. I heard loud music. It sounded like a party. I looked around. No other cars with their windows open. No sound trucks. I looked at the toll booth. Inside it, the man was dancing.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m having a party.” he said.
“What about the rest of the people?” I looked at the other toll booths.
He said, “What do those look like to you?” He pointed down the row of toll booths.
“They look like...toll booths. What do they look like to you?”
He said, “Vertical5 coffins. At 8:30 every morning, live people get in. Then they die for eight hours. At 4:30, like Lazarus from the dead, they reemerge and go home. For eight hours, brain is on hold, dead on the job. Going through the motions.”
I was amazed. This guy had developed a philosophy, a mythology6 about his job. Sixteen people dead on the job, and the seventeenth, in precisely the same situation, figures out a way to live. I could not help asking the next question,“Why is it different for you? You’re having a good time.”
He looked at me. “I knew you were going to ask that. I don’t understand why anybody would think my job is boring. I have a corner office, glass on all sides. I can see the Golden Gate, San Francisco, and the Berkeley hills. Half the Western world vacations here...and I just stroll in every day and practice dancing.”
如果你曾经经过一个过路收费亭，你就会明白你和收费员的关系并不是你的经历中最为密切的，那只是生活中很平常的一次相遇。你递钱过去，找回零钱，然后开车离开。
1984年的一个上午，快到中午的时候，我正驱车前往旧金山去吃午饭。当车驶向一个收费亭时，耳边传来了很响的音乐声，好像是在开一个社交聚会。我向四周看了看。其他小车都没有开车窗，也没有那种带声响的卡车。我朝收费亭看了看。在那里面，有个男人正在跳舞。
“你在做什么？”我问道。
“我正在举行一个舞会，”他说。
“其余的人怎么样呢？”我朝其他的过路收费亭看了看。
他指着这一排过路收费亭说：“你觉得那些看起来像什么？”
“他们看起来像……过路收费亭。你看他们像什么？”
他说：“竖直的棺材。每天早上8：30，活人进去，然后他们死去八个小时，下午4：30分，他们像拉撒路（《圣经》中的一个麻风病患者）从死亡中复活一样，再度出现，然后回家。他们的大脑在这八小时里全都被工作占据了，他们只是麻木地去完成收钱、找零的动作。”
我感到吃惊。这家伙揭露了一个人生哲学，一个关于他的工作的神话。有16个人对这项工作都麻木了，而这第17个人，处于相同的环境中，却找到了另一种生活方式。我禁不住问了下面的这个问题：“为什么这份工作在你这儿就显得这么与众不同呢？你过得很快乐。”
他朝我看了看。“我知道你会问这个问题的。我不明白为什么人们会认为我的工作是枯燥乏味的。我有一个拐角办公室，四面都有玻璃。我能看到金门桥、旧金山和伯克利群山。半个西方世界的人都来这里度假……我每天只是在这里散步和练习跳舞而已。”
古木 摘译自Positive Thinking