Why the key to happiness is a 16-minute commute？

为什么通勤16分钟是通往幸福之路的关键？

王淑怡 供稿

Many people look forward to a lengthy work commute as it provides them with an opportunity to awaken their senses before entering the office and starting their workday. Others, however, prefer commutes under half an hour in length, as long ones make them feel drained and exhausted before even stepping foot into their place of work.

许多人喜欢漫长的通勤时间，因为这可以让他们在到达办公室、开启一天的工作之前唤醒身体感官。然而，另一些人更喜欢通勤时间在半小时以内，因为长时间的通勤会让他们在到达办公室之前就已经筋疲力尽。

It’s perhaps not surprising that our commutes make us miserable. The UK’s Office for National Statistics has found that “commuters have lower life satisfaction, a lower sense that their daily activities are worthwhile, lower levels of happiness and higher anxiety on average than non-commuters”. In fact, if your commute takes longer than an hour, feelings of happiness decrease with every successive minute of travel. If a lengthy commute makes us unhappy, then it should follow that a shorter commute improves our happiness levels.

通勤让我们苦不堪言，这也许并不奇怪。英国国家统计局调查发现“相比非通勤人员，通勤人员通常生活满意度较低、更不容易体会到日常活动的意义、幸福指数更低，而焦虑感更高”。事实上，如果你的通勤时间超过一小时，时间每增加一分钟，你的幸福感也会随之相应下降。既然漫长的通勤时间剥夺了我们的幸福感，那么就应该缩短通勤时间，以提高我们的幸福指数。

What’s the ideal commute that is necessary to ensure work efficiency and general happiness? Prepare to be surprised. It turns out that the ideal commute is actually not no commute at all. A study of more than 1,000 workers in San Francisco found that their ideal one-way commute was 16 minutes. Fewer than two per cent of people wanted a commute time shorter than four minutes, while only 1.2 per cent wanted no commute time at all.

多少时间才称得上是理想的通勤，既能保证工作效率，又能确保整体幸福感？答案出乎人们的意料。研究表明理想的通勤并不是完全不需要通勤。通过对旧金山1000多名工人进行调查发现，他们理想中的单程通勤时间为16分钟。只有不到2%的人希望通勤时间小于4分钟，另外仅有1.2%的人希望完全避免通勤。

It seems that people do appreciate some separation between work and home – using the travel time as a psychological tool to decompress from the day. And it’s backed up by science. An increasing amount of research shows that ‘active commutes’, which involve walking or cycling, can make life better – even as important to wellbeing as a marriage or a pay rise.

人们希望办公地点与住所能保持适当的距离，这样他们可以利用这段通勤时间缓解一天的心理压力。这在科学上是有根据的。现在越来越多的研究表明“积极通勤”（包括步行或骑单车）能够让生活变得更美好，其对于幸福的意义甚至如同婚姻或加薪一样重要。

If the ideal commute for most people is a 16-minute stroll each way, how should businesses respond? “Gone are the days of making employees spend unproductive time traveling to a central location and working to fixed hours that date back to Victorian times,” says Richard Morris, UK CEO at Regus. “Businesses of every size investigating flexible work options that enable employees to work closer to home and to vary their hours to better suit their circumstances.”

如果大多数人理想的通勤时间是每天单程步行16分钟，那么企业对此如何回应呢？“自维多利亚时代以来，员工每天在路上花费一段毫无成果的时间前往中心区域并按照固定时间工作，这样的日子已经一去不复返了，”雷格斯英国首席执行官Richard Morris表示，“各种规模的企业研究可行的弹性工作制，使员工能够在离家较近的地方工作，并能改变自己的上班时间，以更好地适应的各自不同的生活状况。”

If, as the ancient Athenian historian Thucydides suggests, “The secret to happiness is freedom”, the opportunity to choose where to work and how to get there could make all the difference to weary commuters across the world.

古希腊历史学家修昔底德说：“幸福的秘诀是自由。”对于世界各地疲惫的通勤者来说，如果能够自己选择工作地点和通勤方式，那将具有非凡的意义。

【VOCABULARY】

1. drain v. 耗尽

2. commuter n. 通勤者；每日往返上班者

3. decompress v. 使减压；使解除压力

4. stroll n. 漫步；闲逛

5. unproductive adj. 非生产性的；徒劳的

6. weary adj. 疲倦的；厌烦的

7. Athenian adj. 雅典的；雅典人的

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