As a recent college grad, I was starting to figure out this adult life thing — I got a job, found a place to live and managed to balance a social life with these new 9-5 responsibilities. Things were going according to plan, until they weren’t. I lost my dad suddenly to cancer, and that’s when it felt as if nothing would ever be good again.

作為一個剛剛走出校園的大學畢業生，我開始適應成年人的生活——我找到一份工作，找了一個住的地方，努力試著平衡社交生活和朝九晚五的新職責。一切都依計劃進行著，直到有一天戛然而止。我突然因為癌癥失去了父親，從那時起，好像一切都不會再好起來了。

I second-guessed all of my choices and simultaneously assumed that everyone else had it all figured out. I counted the ways I felt cheated: My grief felt crippling; my job started to lose its luster; I didn’t have the bank account I wanted; I didn’t like the way I felt on the inside, which translated to how I felt about how I looked and how I acted. I was cranky... a lot. I was tired of seeing friends accelerating into adult life while each day felt like a challenge I had to overcome. I was sad from top to bottom and from the inside out — until I heard a quote that quite literally changed my life.

我重新審視了自己所有的選擇，與此同時感覺其他人好像都過得清楚明白。我歷數自己感覺自欺的地方：我的悲傷愈演愈烈;工作開始失去光彩;我還沒有存下自己想要的錢;我不喜歡內心的感覺，也就是說我不喜歡自己的樣子、自己的處事方式。我崩潰了……非常嚴重。我厭倦了去見那些加速奔向成年生活的朋友們，每天都好像是不得不克服的挑戰。我從上到下、從里到外都浸著悲傷——直到有一天我聽到一句格言，才真正改變了我的生活。

"If you can’t change a situation, change your mind."

“如果你無法改變環境，那么就改變心境。”

I was in the middle of a yoga class, and it felt like the teacher was speaking directly to me. I can’t remember which pose I was in, the song that was playing or the day of the week, but I do remember feeling his words reverberate in my bones. It was a wake up call, and I chose to listen.

我當時正在上瑜伽課，這句話就好像是老師直接對我說的。我不記得當時正在做什么姿勢、房間里播放著什么樣的音樂、那天是星期幾，但我清楚地記得感覺他的話在我的骨髓里久久回響。那是將我喚醒的聲音，而我選擇了聆聽。

Grief is real. And the things dragging me down were mostly out of my control, but my attitude was something only I could manage. So I started over. I fiercely protected my attitude and reactions to situations the way a mother bear might care for her cub. I had always been such a happy person and I wanted to be that person again.

悲傷是真實的，那些將我拖下去的事務也多半是無法掌控的，但我的態度是我唯一可以控制的東西。所以我讓一切重新開始。我奮力地保護著我對外界環境的態度和反應，就像一只熊媽媽保護幼崽那樣。我曾經是一個那么快樂的人，我希望能再次成為那個人。

I wrote the quote down on post-it notes and stuck them everywhere: on my bedroom mirror, across the back of my phone case and even on my laptop keyboard. I doodled it on my to-do lists and wrote it in my journal. I repeated it to myself constantly. I wanted to feel better, and now I had a plan. Timing is everything. If I wasn’t ready, the best advice of my life might have fallen on deaf ears. But I wanted so badly to feel better.

我把這句格言寫在便利貼上，貼在所有的地方：臥室鏡子上、手機殼背面，甚至是筆記本電腦鍵盤上。我把它涂寫在待辦事項清單上，把它寫進日記里。我不斷地對自己重復這句話。我希望感覺好一些，而現在我已經有了一個計劃。時機就是一切。如果我沒有做好準備，就很可能會對這句最好的人生建議充耳不聞，但我是那么渴望感覺好起來。

Slowly, I formed a new habit. "If you can’t change a situation, change your mind" became my go-to response for everything from a claustrophobic subway car to a terrible date to a disagreement with a friend. Of course there were days when I felt awful despite my best efforts. And there are still moments when negativity gets the best of me.

慢慢地，我形成了一個新的習慣。“如果你無法改變環境，那么就改變心境”成了我遇事的第一反應，從幽閉的地鐵到糟糕的約會再到朋友間的齟齬。當然，有些日子盡管盡了最大努力，仍然感覺很糟，有時候消極思想還是會占據上風。

But I made a promise to myself to wake up every day and try. Feeling angry and upset won’t change anything about so many situations I found myself in — in fact, it usually made things worse. Changing something I could control, like my mind, made all the difference.

但我向自己承諾每天都要起床奮斗。感到憤怒和不安并不能讓我所處的環境出現任何改變——事實上，這樣做常常會讓事情變得更糟。而改變我可以掌控的東西，比如改變心境，卻能讓一切發生變化。