杯中之水

張超

A group of students got together to visit their teacher. The teacher was happy to see them， and their talking soon turned into complaints about their difficulties in studies and life.

一群學生一同去拜訪他們的老師。老師看到他們很開心，但不久學生們就滿腹牢騷地抱怨他們學習和生活中的壓力了。

The teacher just smiled and went to the kitchen to get all kinds of cups：some porcelain， some plastic，some glass， some looking plain and some looked rather expensive and beautiful. The teacher offered his students the cups to get drinks for themselves.

老師只是笑笑，然后到廚房取來各式各樣的杯子：瓷杯、塑料杯、玻璃杯等等。有些外表平平，有些看起來漂亮名貴。老師將這些杯子遞給他的學生，讓他們自己倒水喝。

When all the students had a cup in hand with water， the teacher spoke，“If you noticed， all the nice looking， expensive cups were taken up， leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal that you only want the best for yourselves， that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you wanted was water， not the cup， but you all went for the better cups.”

當學生們人手一杯水時，老師便發話了：“不知你們發現沒有，所有好看的、昂貴的杯子都被拿走了，剩下的都是一些普通的和便宜的杯子。大家都想為自己拿到最好的，這屬人之常情，不過這也是你們出現問題和壓力的根源所在。其實你們真正需要的是水，不是杯子，但我們都情不自禁地拿了更好的杯子。”

Just like in life， if life is water， then the jobs， money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold life， but the quality of life doesnt change. If we only concentrate on the cup， we wont have time to enjoy the water in it.

生活也是如此，如果生活是水，那么工作、金錢和社會地位都只是杯子。這些只是用來盛水的工具，而實際上生活的本質并未改變。如果我們只將注意力放在杯子上，那就沒有時間來享受杯里的水了。

張秋偉摘自《中學生英語》