Thoughts for a new year

Most of us look away when we pass strangers. It is the expectional person who stops to help the woman maneuvering her kids and groceries up the staircase. We rarely give up in line or on the subway or bus. Locked into our automobiles, we prefer gridlock to giving way.

新年沉思

当我们与陌生人擦肩而过时，多数人往往把目光移开。要是有人停下来帮妇女哄她的小孩和帮她把食品搬上楼梯，反而会被人看成另类。无论是排队还是乘地铁或公共汽车，我们很少让位于他人。坐在自己的汽车里，我们宁愿堵塞交通也不愿给人让路。

These daily encounters, when they are angry or alien, diminish our lives. When they are pleasant, we feel buoyed. Yet when we sit at home and make resolutions, we think about what we can accomplish in private spaces：home, work. Too many have given up the belief that they control the shared, the public world.

这些日常接触，要是气冲冲的或是使人反感的，那便会减少我们生活的乐趣，要是它们令人愉快，那便会使我们精神振奋。然而，当我们坐在家里做出各种决定的时候，我们考虑的仅是在个人天地--家庭和工作里可以实现的目标。太多的人已经放弃了他们也管理着共享的、公共的世界这一信念。

As individuals we can change the contour of a day, the mood of a moment, the way people feel. The demolition and reconstruction of public life is the result of personal decisions made every day：the decision to give up a seat on the bus;the decision to be patient or pleasant against all odds;the decision to let that jerk take a left-hand turn from a right-hand lane without rolling down the window and calling him a jerk.

作为众人的一员，我们可以改变一天的面貌，一时的情绪，以及人们对某件事的感觉。公共生活的毁坏和重建是人们每日所做的种种个人决定的综合结果。这些决定包括：公共汽车上让座，面对逆境而能容忍或具有乐观精神;让那个笨蛋从右车道往左拐而不摇下车窗骂他蠢货。

It’s the resolution to be a civil, social creature. This may be a peak period for the battle against the spread of a waistline and creeping cholesterol. But it is also within our will power to fight the spread of urban rudeness and creeping hostility. Civility doesn’t stop nuclear holocaust and doesn’t put a roof over the head of the homeless. But it makes a difference in the shape of a community, as surely as lifting weights can make a difference in the shape of a human torso.

这是做一个文明的、社会的人的决定。今天也许是人们为减少腰围和降低胆固醇而斗争的高峰期。然而，反对城市野蛮行为和人际敌对态度的蔓延，也是我们只要愿做就能做到的事。有礼貌不能制止核战争，也不能为无家可归者提供栖身之所，但它的确能改变一个社会群体的面貌，犹如举重定能改变一个人的体形一样。