A Mask was Stifling Me');

面具让我窒息

I believe that everyone wants to love and be loved and that happiness stems from a facing and acceptance of self that allows you to give and receive love.

Some think of love as a passionate, hungry, dramatic feeling, all consuming in intensity and desire. As I see it, this is, rather, immature love: it is a demand on others, not a giving of oneself. Mature love, the love that brings happiness, flows out of an inner fullness, and accepts, understands and is tender toward the other person. It does not ask to be served but only where it may serve.

我相信，爱与被爱是每个人的渴望。一个人是否幸福，关键在于他是否拥有爱并能够接受爱。

在有些人看来，爱就是一种充满活力、渴望且极富戏剧性的情感，是占有一切的激情与欲望。而我认为，这种爱是极不成熟的爱：它是向他人的索求，而不是奉献。只有成熟的爱才能带来幸福，它是内心真挚情感的流露，能够接受并理解他人，给予对方温柔与体贴。它不索求服务，而是处处提供服务。

Six years ago I could hardly breathe because of acute sinus. My stomach was always upset and full of queasiness and I had trouble sleeping, even though I felt exhausted all the time. In desperation, after doctors who treated the physical symptoms failed to ease the pain, I tried psychoanalysis. I was lucky to find a wise, compassionate man who showed me what it meant to be able to trust myself and others.

The physical ills are gone, but more than that, I have at long last started to acquire a philosophy of living. I had never possessed one. I had lived on dogma and dicta which I had accepted unquestioningly through the years, even though I believed little of it, because I feared to question. But by being unable to live naturally and at peace with myself I was flying in the face of nature. She was punishing me with illness and, at the same time, informing me all was not well just in case I wanted to do something about it.

6年前，由于身患急性鼻窦炎，我几乎难以呼吸。胃部也常感不适，易恶心呕吐。失眠问题也一直困扰着我，即使我感到疲惫不堪却依然辗转难眠。可是，医生对我的病症所做的治疗却毫不奏效，我的痛苦丝毫未减。绝望中，我尝试了心理疗法。很幸运的是，我找到了一位博学、热情的医生，他让我懂得了，能够相信自己与他人的意义所在。

我身体的疾病得以治愈，而更多的是我最终开始学会一门生活的哲学。我一直是一个循规蹈矩的人，虽然我并不相信那些教条与格言，但多年来，由于不敢质疑，我一直不假思索地将其视为生活的准则。然而我却难以正常而平静地生活，总是坐立不安。最终，我受到了惩罚，病魔缠身，同时也得到了启示：必须对现状做出改变，否则将万事不顺。