不是每个穷人都不快乐，就像不是每个富人都快乐一样。富人有富人的烦恼。英籍知名作家彼得·梅尔在其著作《有关品位》里就曾写道：“几年前的一个晚上，我在一对迷人的夫妇家中作客。这对夫妇太有钱了，有钱得使生活都有些反常了。那天，他们的一位客人，或许就是我，现在我终于想起来了，就在起居室的一幅黑乎乎的油画边，我无意间轻轻碰了一下那个沉甸甸的镀金画框。结果警铃大作，害得主人不得不打电话给保安，百般保证家中并无异常……”
没有人会拒绝变富有，但富有并不等同于快乐。正如该文末尾引用的心理分析学者曼弗雷德·凯茨·德·弗里斯的观点那样，“It’s not what you have but what you do that makes you ultimately happy.” ——Lavender
文字难度：★★★
For some people, flying first class represents the height of luxury. But not Prince 1)Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who has become the first person to buy an 2)Airbus A380 3)superjumbo to use as a private jet. Another billionaire spent ￡83 million on a flat in the 4)Richard Rogers Partnership’s new Hyde Park development.
对于一些人来说，乘飞机时坐头等舱就是很奢侈的事情了。但沙特阿拉伯的王子阿尔瓦利德·本·塔拉尔可不这么看，他是第一个买下一架超大型空中客机A380作为私人飞机使用的人。另一个亿万富翁花了8300万英镑（约11.82亿元）买下理查德·罗杰斯建筑合伙公司新建的海德公园开发区内的一套房子。
Such excessive spending might not be a sign of 5)conspicuous consumption but of addiction. For the super-rich, houses, yachts, cars and planes are like new toys that they play with for five minutes and then lose interest in. The super-rich are increasingly 6)succumbing to what has been labelled Wealth Fatigue Syndrome (WFS). When money is available in near-limitless quantities, the victim sinks into a kind of 7)inertia.
这类过度消费也许并不意味着挥霍，而是一种沉溺。对于超级富有的人来说，房子、游艇、汽车和飞机就像他们的新玩具一样，他们玩了5分钟就丧失了兴趣。这类人逐渐陷入所谓的“财富疲劳综合症”。当他们拥有着近乎无限量的金钱以后，就会沉迷于消费的惯性中。
Feeling any sort of excitement means taking more and more risks, financially and physically. Luxury holidays are replaced by 8)abseiling in Australia and swimming with sharks. The first-class ticket of old becomes a private jet such as Prince Alwaleed’s.
如今，要感觉到任何刺激，就意味着进行越来越多金钱和身体上的冒险。奢侈的假期被在澳大利亚玩崖降，以及和鲨鱼同泳这些冒险活动所取代。过去人们坐头等舱都觉得奢侈，如今连飞机都变成了私有财产，就像阿尔瓦利德王子那台超大型空中客机A380那样。
“The rich are never happy, no matter what they have,” said Frank James, a researcher. “There was this man who owned a 100ft yacht. I said: ‘This is a terrific boat.’ He said: ‘Look down the harbour.’ We looked down the marina, and there were boats two and three times as large. He said: ‘My 100ft yacht today is like a dinghy compared to these other boats.’ When else in history has someone been able to call a 100ft yacht a dinghy?”
“富人从不快乐，不管他们拥有什么。”研究员弗兰克·詹姆斯说道。“有个男人拥有一艘100英尺（约30.48米）长的游艇。我说：‘这艘船棒极了！’他说：‘你低头看看海港。’我们俯视码头，那里有比他那游艇大两倍，甚至三倍的船只。他说：‘和那些船比起来，我这艘不过100英尺长的游艇就像一叶小舟。’历史上有谁曾经把一艘100英尺长的游艇称作小舟呢？”
“A lot of my clients made money in commodities, and consequently everything—including houses and boats—is treated like shares,” says Peter Graham, a project mana-ger for the rich and famous. “When the houses have outlived their purpose, they are sold.”
“我的很多客户通过商品赚钱，他们最终发展到把包括房屋和游艇在内的一切东西视作股份的地步。”一位替富豪和名人工作的项目经理彼得·格雷厄姆说道，“当富人们厌倦了他们的房子，就会把它们卖掉。”
Gardens arrive on the back of trucks; art collections fill entire 9)wings overnight, though the owners often can’t recall the artists’ actual names. I have seen 20-year-old 10)cypress trees craned into gardens—and out again when the owner got bored with that year’s fashionable look.
整片草地被卡车运载而来。艺术收藏品一夜之间摆满了私宅的艺廊，尽管主人通常无法叫得出那些艺术家的名字。我看见过有20年树龄的柏树成批被起重机运进园子，当主人厌倦了园子当年那种时尚的面貌时，又把柏树统统拔起运走了。
One neighbour in Holland Park tore up her house, employing the most expensive interior designer in England. But after spending the better part of ￡2 million on refurbishment, she decided she was more a traditiona-list than a 11)minimalist, and tossed the contents into the 12)skip outside.
我们在荷兰公园小区的一个邻居推翻了她房子的室内装修，雇用了英国价码最高的室内设计师来帮她设计房子。但差不多花掉了200万英镑（约2848万元）来重新装修后，她又说相比极简主义风格来说，她更喜欢传统风格的装修，于是把完好的装修又毁掉，把家装材料统统扔进外面的倒卸车里。
Some of our friends have jumped from nice five-bedroom houses in 13)South Kensington to gated mansions in 14)St. John’s Wood. But many who join the super-rich find it hard to keep their old circles of support. Happiness studies have repeatedly shown that being marginally 15)better off than your neighbours makes you feel good, but being a hundred times richer makes you feel worse. So either you change your friends or live with the envy of others.
我们的一些朋友从南肯辛顿的有着5个卧室的漂亮房子搬到圣约翰丛林地区有围墙的府邸居住。但许多跻身超级富人之列的人发现很难留住过去的朋友。针对“快乐”主题所做的调查已一再显示，生活过得比你的邻居好一点能让你感觉良好，但比你的邻居富有100倍则会让你感觉很糟。所以，要么你换掉你的朋友，要么在别人的嫉妒下生活。
When a relationship becomes unequal, it becomes difficult. If you’re out in a three-star restaurant, how do you split the bill when he is a super-millionaire? And if he has a driver and you consider a taxi a luxury, you stop having shared experiences. In the end, the super-rich become isolated—and the only way to find 16)empathy is to surround themselves with people as rich as themselves.
当一种关系变得不平等，相处就会变得困难。如果你和朋友一起外出，到一间三星级的餐馆吃饭，而他是一个超级富有的百万富翁，你们如何分付帐单？如果他有一个司机，而对于你来说坐计程车都是一种奢侈，那你们就不会再结伴同行了。超级富人最终会被孤立——而求得共鸣的唯一方式，是结交一帮和他们一样富有的人。
“The poorer everyone else gets, relative to the rich, the more isolated the rich become,” says Dr. Burchall. “Soon you end up like the Russian 17)oligarchs, needing bodyguards and electric gates outside your house.”
“一般人的相对财富越少，富人就越会被孤立。”伯彻尔博士说道，“很快你就会像俄罗斯那些寡头政治家一样，需要贴身保镖，以及在你的房子外面加装电门防贼了。”
The happiest nations, he says, are those where people feel most equal, even if that means being less wealthy. 18)Pentecost, a tiny island in the South Pacific, has recently been voted the happiest place on earth. They don’t have WFS—in fact, they don’t have money; they use pigs’ 19)horns instead.
他说，最快乐的民族是那些内心感觉最平等的人们，即使那意味着没那么富有。南太平洋的一个小岛彭特科斯特最近被评为地球上生活最快乐的地方。那里的人没有“财富疲劳综合症”——事实上，他们没有钱，还在用野猪的长獠牙来易物。
In places such as Pentecost, people ac-tually talk to each other—indeed, belonging to a community is one of the single most important 20)prerequisites for happiness. But when you jet between the Scottish estate, the London mansion and the 21)chalet in 22)Aspen, there isn’t much time to get to know the neighbours.
在像彭特科斯特这样的地方，人们真的会彼此聊天——确实，对于一个群体有归属感是获得快乐的其中一个最重要的先决条件。但当你在苏格兰的庄园、伦敦的府邸和阿斯彭的农舍式木造别墅之间飞来飞去，你就没那么多时间来了解你的邻居了。
One of the most common complaints among the super-rich is loneliness. People stop calling them. They assume they’re too busy, or they are simply too intimidated.
超级富有的人最常抱怨的其中一点就是孤独。人们不再给他们打电话，要不觉得他们太忙，要不就只是害怕他们。
Families, too, can fall victim to WFS. As the men get richer, the wives are either tossed out in favour of a new model or become engaged in 23)inane, busy-making activities. Shopping trips to Paris and Milan get tedious for them. “Super-rich wives are effectively unemployed, and have all the same mental issues as the real unemployed,” says Jon Stokes, an organizational psychologist.
富人的家庭成员也一样会成为“财富疲劳综合症”的受害者。随着男主人变得越来越富有，他们的妻子若不是由于丈夫迷上某个新模特而被晾在一旁，就是忙着参加没事找事的无聊活动。前往巴黎或者米兰购物对她们来说也变得单调乏味。“事实上，没有工作的超级富妻，和真正的失业者有着同样的精神问题。”组织心理学者乔恩·斯托克斯说道。
Affluent Children are just as prone to 24)antisocial behaviour as those from inner cities. One in five of them also suffers from clinical depression. One of the reasons given was absent parents: “These kids just get sent from house to house on private jets with nannies and tutors on board,” says a teacher who works for the very rich during the holidays. “No one engages with them who isn’t staff.”
富人的孩子也和内陆城市的孩子们一样不擅长交际。富人的孩子中每五个就有一个罹患临床抑郁症。其中一个原因据说是父母在他们日常生活中的缺席：“这些孩子乘坐着私人飞机，被从一座房子送往另一座房子，飞机上只有他的保姆和家庭教师。”一位在假期受雇于超级富豪的老师说道，“除了雇来的人以外，没有人和他们交流。”
According to psychoanalyst 25)Manfred Kets de Vries, the only cure for the boredom and anxiety is to give something back. “These people need to return to small pleasures and to stop worrying about having bigger and better toys,” he says. “It’s not what you have but what you do that makes you ultimately happy.”
根据心理分析学者曼弗雷德·凯茨·德·弗里斯的观点，唯一能治愈厌倦感和焦虑的方法就是回报他人。“这些富人需要回到为小小的乐趣而快乐生活的阶段，并停止担忧怎样获得更大更棒的玩具。”他说，“说到底，能使你从根本上快乐的不是你所拥有的东西，而是你所做的事情。”
