【設問】
Ⅱ 次の英文を読んで，下線部を日本語に訳しなさい。
I’ve often wondered how to find a way to stop being disturbed about small things that happen on a day-to-day basis, things that do not really matter much in the long run, but that can ruin your day. How do I find a way not to let small things bother me more than they should? I’ll give you an example. Last month, I decided to get a snack from a convenience store. As I walked to the door, there was another customer ahead of me. He opened the door for himself without looking back, and the door almost hit me in the face.
How rude I thought. Who doesn’t hold the door open for someone behind them! I got my snack, returned to my car, and kept thinking about the incident. It annoyed me so much that I could not stop thinking about it. Didn’t he see me? Did he do that on purpose? The thoughts were the only thing on my mind as I drove around. These thoughts even continued over the next few days when I thought about how rude that man was.
I read some books written by experts on this subject. I found out that if you find yourself in a situation in which someone bothers, offends or is rude to you, then pretend that you have a clock in your head that allows you a few seconds to pause before reacting. Yes, recognize your feelings, but do not act before you think about how your response might affect the other person. You don’t want to say anything that might hurt that person’s feelings. Then consider what else might be going on in the person’s life to make them act in the way they did. Let’s go back to the customer who didn’t hold the door open for me at the convenience store. I assumed he must’ve seen me, but maybe he didn’t realize I was there.
There are negative thinking traps and ways to avoid them, according to Ethan Kross, who is a Yale University mental health experts. If we don’t pause to consider other possibilities, according to Kross, we may get stuck in “a negative thought loop” that can affect our ability to find good solutions to the problem and move ahead with our lives.
When I finally took a moment to examine why that customer might have shut the door on me, it allowed me to stop thinking that he did it on purpose. And I found myself getting less and less upset about the incident. So you have to train yourself to look at these moments from another perspective. If you still can’t ignore a bad comment or bad action, you can try distancing yourself from it in your mind.
It might seem like an unusual approach, but doing this type of thinking makes us more likely to deal with these feelings, according to experts. I found that this completely different viewpoint, in which I see myself from a distance, helps me think about the incident more clearly without letting my emotions get in the way.
【解答例】
このように全く違う考え方をすることによって，自分自身を遠くから眺めることになり，自分の感情に邪魔されることもなく，あの出来事についてもっと明瞭に考えることができるのだということに気がついた。
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