健康生活:如何越老活得越睿智

Modern definitions of wisdom tend to stress kindness — even if it's not on the order of Buddha, Gandhi or the ** Lama. Wisdom is characterized by a "reduction in self-centeredness," Professor Ardelt said. Wise people try to understand situations from multiple perspectives, not just their own, and they show tolerance as a result.
智慧的现代定义往往更强调慈悲——尽管佛陀、甘地和达赖喇嘛的教诲中并没有这么一条。智慧的显著特点在于“减少自我中心”，阿尔德特教授说。智者会尝试从多个角度而不仅从他们自己的立场来了解情况，因此表现得更加宽容。

"There's evidence that people who rank high in neuroticism are unlikely to be wise," said Laura L. Carstensen, a psychology professor and founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity in California. "They see things in a self-centered and negative way and so they fail to benefit emotionally from experience, even though they may be very intelligent."
“有证据表明，神经质指数偏高的人不太可能会很明智，”加州斯坦福长寿研究中心(Stanford Center on Longevity in California)的创始主任、心理学教授劳拉·L·卡斯滕森(Laura L. Carstensen)说：“他们以自我中心和消极的方式来看待世界，所以他们无法从经验中获得情感层面上的效益——即使他们可能相当聪明。”

Professor Carstensen does not consider herself a wisdom researcher because "there's a piece of me that thinks it's not useful to use a term that's been around for 1,000 years." Some researchers are skeptical about testing for such an amorphous trait as wisdom.
卡斯滕森教授并不认为自己是一名“智慧”的研究人员，因为“在我心里，总有个小小声音说：使用一个已经有1000来年历史的术语没什么用处。”还有一些研究人员对检测像智慧这样含糊的特性持怀疑态度。

But Professor Carstensen does study emotional regulation, and says that is a key component of wisdom.
但卡斯滕森教授对情绪调节也进行了研究，并表示这是智慧的一个重要组成部分。

If you are wise, she said, "You're not only regulating your emotional state, you're also attending to another person's emotional state." She added: "You're not focusing so much on what you need and deserve, but on what you can contribute."
作为智者，“你不仅要有能力调节自己的情绪状态，还要能顾及他人的情绪状态。”她接着补充道：“你不会对自己需要或应得的东西斤斤计较，反之，你更在乎可以做出什么贡献。”

Daniel Goleman, author of "Focus" and "Emotional Intelligence," said, "One aspect of wisdom is having a very wide horizon which doesn't center on ourselves," or even on our group or organization.
《专注力》(Focus)和《情商》(Emotional Intelligence)的作者丹尼尔·戈尔曼(Daniel Goleman)认为，“智慧的特征之一是拥有宽广的见识，且并不以自己”甚至自己所在的团体或组织为中心。

He said an important sign of wisdom was "generativity,” a term used by the psychologist Erik Erikson, who developed an influential theory on stages of the human life span. Generativity means giving back without needing anything in return, Dr. Goleman said. The form of giving back could be creative, social, personal or financial, and "the wisest people do that in a way that doesn't see their lifetime as limiting when this might happen,” he said.
心理学家埃里克·埃里克松(Erik Erikson)提出了人生社会心理发展阶段这一影响深远的理论，他还使用“慷慨”这一术语来形容智慧。戈尔曼博士说，“慷慨”是智慧的一个重要标志，它表示不求回报的付出。付出的形式多种多样，可以是创造力方面的，社会意义上的，个人角度上的，也可以是经济层面上的，此外，“智者还认为，生有涯，贡献却无涯，”他说。

Dr. Goleman interviewed Erikson, along with his wife, Joan, in the late 1980s, when both were in their 80s. Erikson's theory of human development had initially included eight stages, from infancy to old age. When the Eriksons themselves reached old age, though, they found a need to add a ninth stage of development, one in which wisdom plays a crucial role. "They depict an old age in which one has enough conviction in one's own completeness to ward off the despair that gradual physical disintegration can too easily bring," Dr. Goleman wrote in The Times.
20世纪80年代后期，戈尔曼博士采访了年已八旬的埃里克松及其妻子琼(Joan)。最初，埃里克松的人生社会心理发展理论包括从幼年直至老年的八个阶段。然而，当埃里克松夫妇自己迈入老年之后，他们发现还需要补充第九个发展阶段，且智慧在这一阶段里发挥着至关重要的作用。“他们描绘了这样的一种晚年图景：老年人对自己身心的完善充满了自信，这种信心足以抵挡因身体逐渐衰老所带来的绝望情绪，”戈尔曼博士在《纽约时报》上写道。

In the final years of life, "Even the simple activities of daily living may present difficulty and conflict," Joan Erikson wrote in an expanded version of her husband's book, "The Life Cycle Completed." "No wonder elders become tired and often depressed." The book adds: "To face down despair with faith and appropriate humility is perhaps the wisest course."
到了暮年，“即便是日常生活中的简单活动也可能成为难题，”琼·埃里克松在她丈夫的著作《生命周期的完成》(The Life Cycle Completed)的扩展版中写道。“无怪乎老年人开始感到疲惫，时而觉得沮丧。”这本书补充道：“以信念和适度的谦逊来面对绝望或许是最明智的选择。”

"One must join in the process of adaptation. With whatever tact and wisdom we can muster, disabilities must be accepted with lightness and humor."
“适应是每个人都必须迈进的过程。我们要调动起所有的机敏和智慧，以轻松和幽默的态度来接受残障。”

Whatever the nature of one's limitations, simplifying one's life is also a sign of wisdom, Dr. Clayton said, for example, by giving your things away while you are still alive. Some people have trouble with the idea of settling for less — "they've gotten so used to the game of acquiring more," she said.
无论有着怎样的局限性，都能够将复杂的生活简单化，例如，在你仍然活着的时候主动放手也是智慧的一个标志，克莱顿博士说。有些人对“知足常乐”这种想法并不买账——“他们已经太过于习惯不断索取，”她说。

Settling for less and simplifying is not the same as giving up. In fact, when older people lack challenges, self-absorption and stagnation may take over, the Eriksons said. The key is to set goals that match one's current capacities.
知足常乐和简单生活不等同于放弃。埃里克松解释道，事实上，老年人在缺乏挑战时，“自我专注”(self-absorption)就可能占据他人生的主导地位，人也会随之变得死气沉沉。设定符合自己现有能力的目标非常关键。

Continuing education can be an important way to cultivate wisdom in the later years, researchers say, for one thing because it combats isolation. But training in practical skills may be less useful for older people than courses in the humanities that help people make sense of their lives, Professor Ardelt says. She and other researchers recommend classes in guided autobiography, or life review, as a way of strengthening wisdom. In guided autobiography, students write and share their life stories with the help of a trained instructor.
研究人员称，接受继续教育可作为老年人培养智慧的重要途径，其原因之一是它可以使人不再那么孤独。阿尔德特教授说，不过对于老年人来说，引导人们如何更有意义地生活的课程可能比实际操作技能的培训更加有用。她和其他研究人员建议老年人参加“引导性自传”(guided autobiography)或“生命回顾”(life review)之类的课程，以增进智慧。在“引导性自传”课程中，受过专业培训的指导人员将帮助学生们撰写并分享他们的人生故事。

Dr. Clayton says there's a point in life when a fundamental shift occurs, and people start thinking about how much time they have left rather than how long they have lived. Reflecting on the meaning and structure of their lives, she said, can help people thrive after the balance shifts and there is much less time left than has gone before.
克雷顿博士指出，这一刻，人生发生了根本性转变：人们开始思考他们的生命还剩下多少时间，而不是已经过去了多久。反思自己生活的意义和安排，可以帮助人们自如地应对这种重心的转移，享受人生最后的夕阳红。