When author Gretchen Rubin embarked¹ on a yearlong "Happiness Project" to figure out what true happiness looks like and how to actually -- realistically -- achieve it, the experience led her to some powerful revelations. Among them are Rubin's practical "secrets to adulthood²," the principles she's managed to grasp as she has become an adult.

为了知道快乐是什么样子，为了知道如何真正地在现实中得到快乐，作家格雷琴•鲁宾开启了一项为期一年的“快乐计划”，这段经历让她得到了一些充满力量的启示，其中包括了鲁宾自己的实用“成年秘密”，这些是她在成长为成年人的过程中领悟到的。

Even though some secrets on the list may not be particularly profound, each one becomes a true revelation once you finally figure it out for yourself. And together, these principles help move you toward a happier life.

虽然列出来的秘密中有些可能不是特别高深，但等到你自己领悟到的那一天，你会发现每一条都是实实在在的。

Though Rubin acknowledges that her list of secrets is evolving and, as she tells Oprah during an interview on "SuperSoul Sunday," others may have different things on their own list, there are still three major secrets that seem to be universal.

鲁宾承认，她的秘密列表还在不断完善中（在“星期天超级灵魂”节目的采访中她也是这么告诉奥普拉的），其他人自己的列表上也可能会有不一样的东西，但仍然有三条主要的秘密似乎是大家共有的。

1. PEOPLE DON'T NOTICE YOUR MISTAKES AS MUCH AS YOU THINK THEY DO.

1. 人们没有你想象中的那么关注你的错误。

Everyone stumbles in life, some more than others. But regardless of the scale of a screw-up, many of us end up feeling as if there's a massive spotlight³ on our missteps and flaws. It's an incredibly common concern, but Rubin has learned that it's mostly unfounded.

生活中每个人都会出错，有的人错得比别人都多。但每当失足犯错，不管错误是大是小，很多人都会觉得好像有盏聚光灯在照着他们。这种想法极其普遍，但鲁宾已经发现，在大部分情况下这么想是毫无根据的。

"We all feel like everyone's paying attention to us," she says. "But they're paying attention to a lot of other things."

“我们觉得每个人都在关注自己，”她说。“但其实人们还有很多其他事情要关注呢。”

Even someone as well known as Oprah has come to realize this. "Every time somebody would say something about me that wasn't true, I would get so upset," she admits. "It was Quincy Jones who said to me one time this exact law of adulthood. He said, 'Baby, if you knew how little people were thinking about you, you wouldn't even be upset.'"

连奥普拉这样的名人也意识到了这点。“以前每次有人说我的是非，我心理总会很不舒服，”她承认道。“直到有一次昆西•琼斯把这条成年定律告诉了我。他说：‘宝贝，你要是知道别人是几乎不怎么关注你的话，你压根儿就不会觉得不舒服了。’”

2. IT'S OK TO ASK FOR HELP.

2. 请求帮助是没有问题的。

You may understand this idea in principle, but welcoming it into your life as a practice is a real game-changer. And yet, asking for help is something that many adults -- including Rubin -- have a hard time doing.

你可能也大概明白这个道理，而真正在生活中贯彻它会让一切都变得不一样。但是，请求帮助对很多人（包括鲁宾）来说都不是件容易的事。

"I don't understand why I struggle with this so much," she says. "It's OK to ask for help. And usually when you ask for help, you get help. Things get easier when you ask for help."

“我不明白为什么这对我来说这么难，”她说。“请求帮助是没有问题的，而且通常只要你开口，别人都会帮你的，这样一切都会变得更轻松。”

3. HAPPINESS DOESN'T ALWAYS MAKE YOU FEEL HAPPY.

3. 快乐不会总是让你感到快乐。

Strange, but true, Rubin says. As an example of this, she points to a story from a man who had been spending a lot of time at the bedside of his very sick father.

鲁宾说，这很奇怪，但却是事实。她举了一个人的例子，这个人花了很多时间陪伴卧病在床的父亲。

"His father had been a terrible father, so they didn't have a loving relationship. It was no fun to go to the hospital. And [the son] was saying, 'I don't know why I'm doing this,'" Rubin says. "Well, he wanted to be a good son. So, in one way, it was making him happy because he was being a good son."

“他的爸爸是个很糟糕的爸爸，所以他们关系并不亲密。去医院一点儿都不好玩，儿子一直在说：‘我不知道自己为什么会去看他。’”鲁宾说。“他是想当个好儿子吧。从某种意义上来说，他为自己当了个好儿子而感到高兴。”

This shift in your view of happiness is important to keep in mind. "People act like happiness is always going to send us skipping down the street. It doesn't always work out that way," Rubin says.

这种对快乐看法的改变很重要，我们要牢记在心。“人们表现得好像快乐总会让我们高兴得蹦蹦跳跳，但事实并不总是那样的，”鲁宾说。