什麼是真正的靈魂伴侶? What is a soulmate?

Recently I was chatting with a thoughtful young woman about love. She asked: 'What is a soulmate? Do you get just one?'

最近，我與一個挺有想法的女孩聊起了愛情。她問我：“什麼是靈魂伴侶？你會找到一個嗎？”

You become soulmates

在時間流逝中成爲靈魂伴侶

I do not believe that the universe prepares one perfect person who is your destiny, whom you need to go out to find, after which your lives will be forever happy.

我認爲宇宙不會爲你準備好一個是你真命天子的完美之人，你需要走出去尋找，之後你的生活將永遠幸福下去。

I believe the world contains multiple people with whom you could fall in love. You choose one (of course, he needs to choose you too). You and he decide to build a life together. Together, you go through life's ups and downs.

我相信世上有幾個你可能會愛上的人。你選擇了其中一個（當然他也需要選擇你），你和他決定共同開創生活，一同經歷人生的起起伏伏。

Then over time, your bond becomes symbiotic, like yin and yang. Over time, you become soulmates.

隨着時間的流逝，你們將變得和諧共生，就像陰和陽。你們是在時間流逝中成爲靈魂伴侶的。

What about destiny?

如何看待緣分？

Some of my readers protest at the whole idea of choosing or headhunting! - a mate. They think it's unromantic. On my Weibo they ask: But what about yuanfen (destiny)?

有些讀者對上篇專欄中“挑選甚至是獵尋一個伴侶”的觀點提出了異議，她們認爲這個觀點太不浪漫了。有讀者在微博上問我：“如何看待緣分呢？”

For those of us who have fallen in, and out, of love, more than once, we know from experience that falling in love is easy. But those early tidal waves of emotion are not enough to sustain a lifetime. This can be really confusing, because no other experience is quite as exhilarating as falling in love.

對我們這些已經陷入或走出愛河不止一次的人來說，經驗告訴我們，陷入愛河很容易，但最初的愛終不能永遠澎湃。這的確讓人迷惑──因爲沒有其他經歷能像陷入愛河一般讓人迷醉。

Marriage is nothing like dating

婚姻與約會大不相同

Some couples are so busy gazing into each other's eyes that they don't realize it's more important that as they face the future, they're looking out in the same direction.

有些戀人總在深情對望，卻沒有意識到，面對未來，更重要的是兩個人的眼睛要看着同一個方向。

Here's a typical modern marriage scenario: Date someone you happen to know who happens to like you. After a period of time, marry make a lot of compromises and work.really hard to try to make it work. When it doesn't work, get divorced or drift apart living separate lives.

典型的現代婚姻是這樣的：與某個你恰巧知道他正好也喜歡你的人約會，約會一段時間之後就和他結婚了，接下來做出很多妥協、非常努力地維繫婚姻，當這些都行不通時便離婚或彼此疏遠分居而過。

What was different about the mountain lovers Xu Chaoqing and Liu Guojiang?

那麼，“愛情天梯”的主人公徐朝清和劉國江有什麼不同之處？

They knew HOW to love

他們知道如何去愛

It's easy to fall in love. Even the term 'fall in love' makes it seem like an accident. 'Oops! Fell in love again!'Teenagers can fall in love with passion and abandon. But stay in love for a lifetime? That's a different matter.

陷入愛河很容易，“陷入愛河”（Fall in love）這個詞句本身也使它顯得就像是一次意外。“哎呀！又陷入愛河了！” 十幾歲的孩子也會愛得激情忘我，愛得拋下一切。但是永浴愛河呢？這又是另外一碼事了。

Love is a skill. In fact, I've come to believe that learning to truly connect with another human being is life's hardest but most important skill. It requires learning respect, empathy and kindness, for both oneself and others.

愛是一種技能。實際上，我慢慢相信學會與另一個人真正地融合在一起是人生當中最艱難也是最重要的技能。它需要你學會尊重、移情（empathy）和善良，對自己和對他人都是如此。

And having to live beside and cooperate every single day with another human being is the ultimate test of one's emotional skills. Xu and Liu passed that test. Without nannies or outside childcare, they survived on the land and successfully raised seven children together. That took a huge amount of cooperation.

每一天都必須與另一個人共同生活和合作是對一個人情感技能的終極考驗。徐朝清和劉國江老人通過了這個考驗。在沒有保姆和外界幫助照看孩子的情況下，他們在那片土地上活了下來，而且一同成功養大了七個孩子。

They wanted the same things out of life

他們對生活有同樣的期望

If at any point, either Xu or Liu had decided to opt for a life with electricity, hot water, great restaurants, a busy social life, and a career in the big city, then we now would not have 6,000 steps to ponder on.

在某一時候，如果徐朝清或劉國江決定選擇去過大城市裏的生活，那裏有電、熱水、高檔餐廳、忙碌的社交和自己的事業，那6000級引起我們深思的“愛情天梯”現在都不會存在。

But even after their children went off into the world, they both were devoted to their beautiful, rustic life. And that was crucial to their ability to stay together over half a century.

然而，即使在他們的孩子離開他們進入社會之後，他們二人也專心過着他們美好的鄉村生活，這對他們能半個多世紀相濡以沫至關重要。

Human beings are diverse in our values, and that diversity is what makes society interesting.

人們的價值觀各不相同，而正是這種多樣性讓社會變得豐富多彩。

But a soulmate shares the same basic values as you. He wants the same things out of life that you do. You love and cherish his friends and family. He loves and cherishes yours.

靈魂伴侶應該與你擁有相同的基本價值觀，他對生活的期望與你對生活的期望相同。你愛並珍惜他的朋友和家人，他也如此。

They were true partners

他們是真正的伴侶

We now revel in the romance of the mountain lovers, but their daily lives were not all about candle-lit dinners with violins playing in the background. They planted their own vegetables, caught their own fish, ground their own flour, fended off wild beasts, lived by the light of one kerosene lamp, and got soaked when it rained. With a family of nine.

當我們沉醉於“愛情天梯”的浪漫故事中時，要意識到，他們的日常生活並不是有小提琴伴奏的燭光晚餐。他們要自己種菜、捕魚、磨麪粉、驅趕野獸、只靠一盞煤油燈照明，每當下雨時還渾身淋透。而且，這還是一個九口之家。

Marriage is nothing like dating. Marriage is more like a mundane small business in which you and he are co-partners and co-employees for life. For your little company to succeed, you must believe in each other, and trust in each other's good judgment. You must agree on who does what. You must agree on the direction of your company and the values by which it will run.

婚姻與約會大不相同。婚姻更像一個世俗的小企業，你和你的丈夫既是聯合僱主又是聯合僱員。爲了讓你們的小企業獲得成功，你們必須信任彼此，相信對方擁有良好的判斷力；你們必須確定哪些事情要完成以及由誰來完成；你們必須在企業的發展方向和經營理念上達成共識。

Those values will be especially tested if you choose to produce offspring. Because children learn by example, and they'll start off their lives with the emotional skills and values that you model.

如果你們選擇繁衍後代的話，這些理念會受到特別的考驗。因爲孩子們會模仿你們，他們將會用你們展現出的情感技能和理念開始他們的生活。

All this talk of small businesses may make marriage sound boring, but when you get it right, it can be really really nice, and something worth fighting for. And that's why the story of the mountain-top soulmates makes all of our hearts skip a beat.

關於小企業的說法或許會使婚姻聽上去很枯燥，不過如果你經營得當，它會非常非常棒，是值得我們去爭取的東西。這也是爲什麼“愛情天梯”靈魂伴侶的故事讓所有人的心靈爲之一顫的原因吧。