As they examine how Mr Baumgartner and others reverse morbid patterns of thought, the authors set out a rule of thumb: “It takes four good things to overcome one bad thing.” Accordingly, they are less keen on accentuating life’s positives than on trying to muffle its negatives. In part that means reframing adversity, like wounded soldiers who view injury “not as something that shattered their plans but as something that started them on a new path”. 

在研究鮑姆加特納等人如何逆轉(zhuǎn)病態(tài)思維模式時，兩位作者提出了一條經(jīng)驗法則:“四件好事才能克服一件壞事?！币虼耍麄儾惶珶嶂杂趶娬{(diào)生活的積極面,，而是試圖掩蓋生活的消極面,。這在一定程度上意味著重新規(guī)劃逆境，就像受傷的士兵一樣,，他們認(rèn)為受傷“不是破壞了他們的計劃,，而是讓他們走上了一條新的道路”。

——《經(jīng)濟學(xué)人》

 基本釋義 

If you describe a person or their interest in something as morbid, you mean that they are very interested in unpleasant things, especially death, and you think this is strange.

adj. 病態(tài)的

 追根溯源 

單詞morbid里的詞根mor部分來源于羅馬神話里的死神墨爾斯(Mors),。在西方文化中,，墨爾斯常被描繪為身著黑色長袍，手持長柄鐮刀,，用來砍倒將死之人,。所以，包含mor/mort的英語單詞,，多跟“死亡”相關(guān),，例如：

mortal   adj.致命的；凡人的

immortal  adj.不朽的  n.神仙

mortuary  n.停尸房,，太平間

在美劇《生活大爆炸》中,，Howard跟Raj聊起來他的媽媽,，對話中就用到了這個單詞：

Howard: My mom's been kind of an emotional wreck since that dentist she was dating dumped her.