The quiet power of enough

学习目标

• 梳理从生活故事到抽象观点的推进过程。
• 辨析 enough 与 less，理解作者的价值判断。
• 用英文描述一件你已经觉得“足够”的事情。

When I moved into a smaller apartment, I discovered that I owned twelve coffee cups. I lived alone, rarely had visitors, and always reached for the same blue cup.

搬进一间更小的公寓时，我发现自己有十二只咖啡杯。 我独自生活，很少有访客，而且总是去拿同一只蓝色杯子。

Keeping the others had once seemed sensible: one day, I might need them. But that imagined future had quietly taken up space in my present.

留下其他杯子曾经显得很合理：某一天，我也许会用得上。 但那个想象中的未来，已经悄悄占据了我当下的空间。

I gave most of the cups away and felt an unexpected sense of relief. The cupboard was easier to use, and the remaining cups were enough.

我把大部分杯子送了出去，意外地感到轻松。 橱柜变得更方便使用，剩下的杯子也已经足够。

Enough is not a fixed number that works for everyone. It is a question about the kind of life we actually want to live.

“足够”不是一个适用于所有人的固定数字。 它关乎一个问题：我们真正想过怎样的生活？

When we stop measuring our lives only by what we can add, we may begin to value what we can enjoy. Sometimes freedom looks less like having more choices and more like being content with one.

当我们不再仅仅以能够增加什么来衡量生活时，我们或许才开始重视自己能够享受什么。 有时，自由与其说是拥有更多选择，不如说是能满足于其中一个。