Courtesy Key to a Happier World

英语人生 Courtesy: Key to a Happier World 1Many years ago trying to help people with every kind of trouble left me with one sure conviction: in case after case the difficulty could have been overcome—or might never have arisen—if the people involved had just treated one another with common courtesy. 2Courtesy, politeness, good manners—call it what you will, the supply never seems to equal the demand. “It's not so much what my husband says,” a tearful wife confides, “as the way he says it. Why does he have to y ell at me?” “I hate my boss,” a grim-faced office worker mutters. “He never shows appreciation for anything.” “All we get from our teenagers,” a worried parent says, “is a moody sullenness.” 3Such complaints are not limited to people who sit in my study. Human beings everywhere hunger for courtesy. “Good manners,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “are the happy way of doing things.” And the reverse is equally true. Bad manners can ruin a day—or wreck a friendship. 4What are the basic ingredients of good manners? Certainly a strong sense of justice is one; courtesy is often nothing more than a highly developed sense of fair play. A friend once told me of driving along a one-lane, unpaved mountain road. Ahead was another car that produced clouds of choking dust, and it was a long way to the nearest paved highway. Suddenly, at a wider place, the car ahead pulled off the road. Thinking that its owner might have engine trouble, my friend stopped and asked if anything was wrong. “No,” said the other driver. “But you've en dured my dust this far; I'll put up with yours the rest of the way.” There was a man with manners, and an innate sense of fair play. 5Another ingredient of courtesy is empathy, a quality that enables a person to see into the mind or heart of someone else, to understand the pain or unhappiness there and to do something to minimize it. Recently in a book about a famous restaurant chain I came across such an episode. 6A man dining alone was trying to unscrew the cap of a bottle of catsup but his fingers were so badly crippled by arthritis that he couldn't do it. He asked a young busboy to help him. The boy took the bottle, turned his back momentarily and loosened the cap without difficulty. Then he tightened it again. Turning back to the man, he feigned a great effort to open the bottle without success. Finally he took it into the kitchen and returned shortly, saying that he had managed to loosen it—but only with a pair of pliers. What impelled the boy to take so much trouble to spare the feelings of a stranger? Courtesy, compassionate courtesy. 7Y et another component of politeness is the capacity to treat all people alike, regardless of all status or importance. Even when you have doubts about some people, act as if they are worthy of your best manners. Y ou may also be astonished to find out that they really are. 8I truly believe that anyone can improve his or her manners by doing three things. First, by practicing courtesy. All skills require constant repetition to become second nature; good manners are no exception. One simple way is to concentrate on your performance in a specific area for about a week. Telephone manner, for example. How often do you talk too long, speak abruptly, fail to identify yourself, keep people waiting, display impatience with the operator or fail to return a call? Or driving a car, why not watch yourself sternly for aggressive driving, unnecessary 1 horn-blowing, following too closely, failing to yield the right-of-the-way? 9One difficult but essential thing to remember is to refuse to let other people's bad manners goad you into retaliating in kind. I recall a story told by a young man who was in a car with his father one night when a driver in an oncoming vehicle failed to dim his lights. “Give him the brights, Dad!” the young man urged in exasperation. “Son,” replied the father, “that driver is certainly discourteous and probably stupid. But if I give him the brights he'll be discourteous, stupid and blind——and that's a combination I don't want to tangle with!” 10The second requirement for improving your manners is to think in a courteous way. In the long run, the kind of person you are is the result of what you've been thinking over the past twenty or thirty years. If your thoughts are predominantly self-directed, a discourteous person is what you will be. If on the other hand you train yourself to be considerate of others, if you can acquire the habit of identifying with their problems and hopes and fears, good manners will follow almost automatically. Nowhere is think courtesy more important than in marriage. In the intimacy of the home it is easy to displace disappointment or frustration or anger onto the nearest person, and that person is often a husband or wife. 11“When you feel your anger getting out of control,” I have often said to married couples, “force yourself for the next ten minutes to treat your married partner as if he or she were a guest in your home.” I knew that if they could impose just ten minutes of good manners on themselves, the worst of the storm would blow over. 12Finally, to have good manners you must be able to accept courtesy, receive it gladly, rejoice when it comes your way. Strangely, some people are suspicious of gracious treatment. They suspect the other person of having some ulterior motive. But some of the most precious gifts in life come with no strings attached. Y ou can't achieve a beautiful day through any effort on your part. Y ou can't buy a sunset or even the scent of a rose. Those are the world's courtesies to us, offered with love and without thought of reward or return. Good manners are, or should be, like that. 13In the end, it all comes down to how you regard people—not just people in general, but individuals. Life is full of minor irritations and trials and injustices. The only constant, daily, effective solution is politeness——which is the golden rule in action. I think that if I were allowed to add one small beatitude as a footnote to the other it might be: Blessed are the courteous. 礼貌:通向幸福世界的金钥匙 1多年以前帮助人们解决各种各样问题的经历使我深信:在一个个事例中,如果有关人员能互相以礼相待,问题完全会得到解决,或者根本就不会出现。 2礼貌也好,客气也罢,文明举止也行,不管你怎样称呼它,人们实际所表现出来的礼貌似乎从来就没有满足维护和谐的关系的需要。一位泪流满面的妻子告诉我说:“我接受不了的并不是我丈夫说的那些话,而是他说话的方式,他为什么要对我大声嚷嚷?”“我恨我的上司,”一位面色铁青的职员嘟哝说,“不管对什么事情,他从来都没有一句赞扬的话。”一位面带愁容的家长说:“我们的那些十多岁的孩子每天不是闷闷不乐,就是跟我们赌气。” 3这样的抱怨不仅仅是那些坐在我书房里和我谈心的人才有,世界上任何地方的人们都渴望受到礼遇。拉尔夫·沃尔多·爱默生说过:“礼貌是愉快行事的方式。”反之,不文明的举止会破坏一天的心情,或许还会毁掉友情。 4礼貌的基本要素是什么呢?强烈的公正意识当然是一个要素,其实文明举止也往往只不过是一种高层次的公平意识。一位朋友曾经给我讲过他在一条未铺柏油的单道山路上的驾车经历。在他 前面有一辆车扬起了呛人的尘土,这时他离最近的柏油路也还有一段很长的距离。突然,前面的那辆车在路面宽点儿的地方停到了一旁。我的朋友以为车主的发动机可能出了问题,就把车停了下来,问他是不是车出了毛病。“没有,”那位司机说,“你跟在后面忍受尘土已经这么久了,剩下的路还是让我跟在你后面吧。”这是一位有礼貌的人,一位天生有着公道意识的人。 5礼貌的另一个要素是能够理解别人的心情。这种品质能使一个人深入他人的思想和内心世界,理解他人感情深处的痛苦或不幸并且尽力使之缓解。最近,在一本有关一家有名的连锁饭店的书中,我偶然看到这样一则故事。 6一位独自就餐的顾客正试图拧开一瓶番茄酱的瓶盖,但他的手指因为关节炎留下了严重残疾,拧不开瓶盖。于是他喊来一位年轻的侍者帮他打开。侍者拿过瓶子,立即转过身去,毫不费力地弄松了瓶盖,然后又拧紧了瓶盖。侍者转过身来对着那位顾客,假装用了很大劲儿还是没能打开瓶盖。最后侍者把那瓶番茄酱拿到厨房,不一会儿就回来了,说他用了一把钳子才把瓶盖拧松。是什么促使这个侍者为了不让一个陌生人因为自己无用而感到难堪,不辞劳苦地这么做?是礼貌,富有同情心的礼貌。 7礼貌的另外一个要素是不管人们社会地位的高低和重要性的大小,都能对所有的人一视同仁。即使你对一些人是否值得你礼遇把握不大,还是要以礼相待,就像他们值得你这样对待一样。你可能会惊奇地发现,他们的确值得你以礼相待。 8我坚信任何人都能通过做以下三件事情改进他/她的行为举止。首先,练习文明举止。所有的技能都需要不断重复,而后才能成为第二天性,礼貌也不例外。 9一个简单的方法就是在大约一周的时间内集中改进你在某一方面的表现,比如说打电话的举止。你是否经常说得很久、突然开始说话、不自报姓名、让对方久等、对接线员表现出不耐烦、不回电话等等。或者是开车的举止,你为什么不抑制住自己的情绪,开车不要霸道、不需要时不按喇叭、和前面的车辆保持较大距离、礼让其他车辆先行? 10有一件很难做到但又很重要的事情就是不要对别人不礼貌的举止以牙还牙。我记得有位年轻人讲了这样一件事,一天夜里他和父亲在开车行路时,对面驶来了一辆大开着前灯的车。“爸,对他开大灯!”那个年轻人愤怒地催促他父亲。父亲却回答道:“儿子,那个司机确实没礼貌,并且有可能非常愚蠢。但是如果我开大灯,他就不仅仅是不礼貌和愚蠢,他还会看不见前方。这样的话,我可不愿意惹麻烦。” 11为了改进你的行为举止,第二个要素就是要具有礼貌的思维方式。从长远的观点来看,你过去20或30年的所思所想决定着你现在是什么样的人。如果你的主导思想是从个人出发的,那你就会是一个没有礼貌的人。反之,如果你培养自己为他人着想,如果你能习惯于理解他们的问题、愿望和忧虑,你就会自然而然地以礼待人。 12时刻牢记以礼待人在婚姻中比在其他任何方面都更重要。在家庭这个亲昵的环境中,人们很容易把自己的失意、沮丧或愤怒的情绪向最亲近的人发泄,而这个发泄对象往往不是丈夫就是妻子。 13我经常对已婚夫妇说:“当你觉得控制不住自己,要发火时,你要强迫自己在10分钟之内,把你的妻子或者丈夫看成是来你家做客的客人。”我知道要是他们能够坚持10分钟的礼貌,火气大体上就会平息了。 14最后,礼貌还包括能够接受他人对你的文明礼遇。受到礼遇时要高高兴兴,当它不期而至时要以喜悦相迎。奇怪的是,有些人对别人的礼遇怀有疑心,他们怀疑别人有什么不可告人的动机。15但是生活中有些最宝贵的赠予却是没有任何附加条件的。好天气不是通过你努力而得到的,夕阳西下的景色,或者甚至是玫瑰的香味,都不是你用钱可以买到的。这些都是大自然给予我们的恩惠,以爱心赠给我们,毫不考虑是否会有奖赏或回报。礼貌也是如此,或者说应该如此。 16最终,礼貌问题可以归结到你如何看待人这样一个问题。不仅仅是一般而论,而是针对具体的人。生活充满了小小的烦恼、磨难和不公平的事情,惟一能经常每天使用而且行之有效的解决办法就是坚持以礼待人这个行为准则。我想要是允许我在《圣经》八福词中作为补充说明再加上一小福的话,那就是“礼貌者有福。”