从挫折中寻找幸福

    这正是我们了解伯克曼的方式：他是一位好奇心重、四处翻找论据的记者，而不是一位重生的大师——他讲述了自己陷入和摆脱痛苦的经历，以此证明他所宣扬的自我改善方式的确有效。他在每个章节中都讲述了一个人的故事，这些人毕其职业生涯，探求一条通往幸福的消极路径。每次访谈中，他总是以清晰的文笔凸显那些使得通往幸福的消极路径难以付诸行动的人性特点。比如，在一个论述如何坦然接受失败的章节中，他直言不讳地写道：“完美主义，究其根本而言，是一种受恐惧感驱动的抗争。往极端里说，它是一种使人筋疲力尽，时刻让人承受重压的生活方式。”

    在论述设定太多目标所导致的危险性的章节中，伯克曼讲述了一位咨询师的故事。这位名叫史蒂夫•夏皮罗的咨询师是他在西村（West Village，西村是具有反叛精神的各类先锋艺术家的汇聚之地——译注）一家酒吧中遇到的。夏皮罗经常在美国各地主持各类以商界人士为受众、探讨如何自助的研讨会。不同于大多数咨询师，夏皮罗建议职场人士不要为自己设定太多的目标。夏皮罗因为过于迷恋职务晋升、最终导致破裂之后悟出了这个道理。他声称，一旦放弃你为自己的人生和事业设定的5年规划，你就会马上把更多的注意力和精力放在当下的事务上。很快，你就可以花更多的时间与家人在一起，你的工作表现也将大有改观。

    与那些更典型的自助大师一样，夏皮罗的方式旨在让人们的生活更幸福，更充实。这也是夏皮罗之所以堪称本书一个完美隐喻的原因所在。《解毒剂》一书声称，追寻幸福将使人筋疲力尽，失望连连。然而，正如夏皮罗可以在渴望成功的商界氛围中，游刃有余地使用PowerPoint幻灯片向公司高管们展示其理论一样，《解毒剂》一书完全可以毫不唐突地摆放在巴诺连锁书店（Barnes and Noble）的自助类书架上。毕竟，伯克曼也并非不屑于为读者提出他的建议。正如他在本书后记中所言，“读者可以把（之前章节中提出的）这些建议视为一个可身体力行的工具包。”

    然而，与许多撰写自助类书籍的作者不同的是，伯克曼并没有就如何获得健康、财富和幸福提供一套简明扼要，可分为12步完成的处方。煞费苦心地铺设了各类通往幸福的替代路径（犹如佛教徒般的冥思，拒绝设定目标，接受死亡的必然性 ）之后，他最终为自己无力整理出一套简单明了的操作指南而沮丧。他的语言开始变得有些笨拙：“通往幸福的消极路径，是一条通往一个不一样的目的地的路径。说这条路径就是目的地，或许更有道理吧？这些事情是非常难以用言语来表达的，（消极思维）的精神势必决定了我们不要太过努力地做这些事情。”

    This is how we get to know Burkeman -- as a curious journalist rooting around for an argument, not as a born-again guru who uses his own story of suffering and healing to prove the validity of his personal brand of self-improvement. In each chapter he sits down with someone who has dedicated his or her professional life to exploring a particular negative path to happiness. He punctuates each interview with clear prose about human traits that make a negative path to happiness difficult to adopt. For example, in a chapter on methods for embracing failure, he writes bluntly that "perfectionism, at bottom, is fear-driven striving … [at] its extremes, it is an exhausting and permanently stressful way to live."

    In the chapter on the danger of setting too many goals, Burkeman recounts meeting a man named Steve Shapiro in a bar in the West Village. Shapiro is a consultant who travels around the country hosting self-help seminars for business audiences. Unlike most consultants, Shapiro preaches against goal setting. He found this calling at a time when his obsession with career advancement had ruined his marriage. He argues that once you abandon the five-year-plan approach to life and business, you immediately have more focus and energy for the present moment. Pretty soon you are spending more time with your family and performing better at work.

    Like more typical self-help gurus, Shapiro's method is designed to make your life happier and more productive. Which is why Shapiro is a perfect metaphor for this book. The Antidote argues that pursuing happiness leads to exhaustion and disappointment. Still, just as Shapiro is at home in a success-hungry business environment with his boardroom seminars and PowerPoint presentations, The Antidote is at home in the self-help section at Barnes and Noble. After all, Burkeman is not above making suggestions. In his Epilogue he offers, "You can treat these ideas [presented in the previous chapters] as a toolkit."

    Unlike many self-help authors, however, Burkeman doesn't offer neat, 12-step prescriptions for health, wealth, or happiness. After painstakingly establishing the various negative paths to happiness -- Buddhist meditation, rejection of goals, acceptance of death's inevitability -- he winds up discouraged by his inability to wrap things up neatly. His language becomes clunky: "The negative path to happiness … [is] a path to a different kind of destination. Or maybe it makes more sense to say that the path is the destination? These things are excruciatingly hard to put into words, and the spirit of … [negative thinking] surely dictates that we do not struggle too hard to do so."