2017届黑龙江省大庆市高三英语一轮阅读理解训练（2）及答案_高考复习指南

2017届黑龙江省大庆市高三英语一轮阅读理解训练（2）及答案

　　Ask an unmarried man why he refuses to get married even though he finds dating to be less and less satisfying. If he’s honest, he will tell you that he is afraid of making a commitment (承诺). For commitment is in fact quite painful. The single life is filled with fun, adventure and excitement. Marriage has such moments, but they are not its most distinguishing features.

　　Similarly, couples that choose not to have children are deciding in favor of painless fun over painful happiness. They can dine out whenever they want and sleep as late as they want. Couples with babies are lucky to get a whole night’s sleep or a three-day vacation. I don’t know any parent who would choose the word fun to describe raising children.

　　The way people stick to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equals happiness actually reduces their chances of ever achieving real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equal to happiness, then pain must be equal to unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is true More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.

　　As a result, many people avoid the very efforts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain unavoidably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment and self-improvement.

　　Understanding and accepting that true happiness has nothing to do with fun is one of the most liberating (解放) realizations we can ever come to. It liberates time now we can devote more hours to activities that can truly increase our happiness. It liberates money buying that new car or those fancy clothes that will do nothing to increase our happiness now seems pointless. And it liberates us from envy we now understand that all those rich and glamorous people we were so sure are happy because they are always having so much fun actually may not be happy at all.