If only you had a bigger salary, a nicer boss, a more flexible schedule.Then you’d love your job! But if you’re convinced that a few minor tweaks would turn your ho-hum nine-to-five into your dream job, you very well might be mistaken. Here, we show you five common things we all believe would make our professional lives infinitely better, but that simply may not deliver the boost we expect.
要是你有更高的工资、更好的老板、更灵活的工作时间，那么你会喜欢自己的工作！但是，如果你相信一些小调整会把沉闷的朝九晚五变成梦想工作的话，你很可能想错了。在这里，我们将给您看大家都相信会让工作境况变好，但可能达不到预期的五个常见事情。
1. The So-Called Happiness Boost: A Shorter Workweek
1. 据说能增加幸福感的事：更短的工作时间
Why you think it will make you happier: Who doesn’t think that the solution to workplace happiness is working fewer hours? Spending less time at work means having time to devote to the activities that really make you happy. You can hang out more with your family and friends, participate in your hobbies, get more exercise and blessed sleep—you believe.
为什么你认为它让你更快乐：有谁不认为工作时间减少能带来职场幸福感呢？在工作上花更少的时间意味着有更多的时间参加真正让你快乐的活动。你可以与家人和朋友出去玩、做喜欢的事情、有更多时间运动和睡觉——所以你相信。
Why it doesn’t always work: It turns out people aren’t very good at using their newly freed-up time on happiness-boosting activities. A recent study reported on an experiment that occurred when South Korea reduced its workweek from 44 hours per week to 40 hours a week. And employees could only work five days instead of six. The result: Worker hours decreased by about 10 percent, but self-reported job satisfaction and life satisfaction didn’t budge. Translation: A happier worker isn’t always the one who works fewer hours in a week.
为什么它不总是有效：原来人们不擅长把多出来的时间用在令人开心的活动上。最近的研究报道了发生在韩国的实验，他们把工作时间从每周44小时减少到每周40小时，而且员工一周只要工作五天而不是6天。结果是：工时下降了约10%，但员工认为自己的工作满意度和生活满意度没有改变。也就是说：更快乐的员工并不总是那些一周工作时间更少的。
2. The So-Called Happiness Boost: More Vacation Time
2. 据说能增加幸福感的事：更多的休假时间
Why you think it will make you happier: You already cherish your time off, so having more of it seems like just what the doctor ordered. Maybe that way you could replace a few desk-bound days with the ski trip or yoga retreat you can never find time to take. In fact, maybe an extra week would put an end to “vacation math”—trying to figure out how you’re going to squeeze in all the trips you want to take with the days you have left—altogether!
为什么你认为它让你更快乐：你珍惜不工作的光阴，所以有更多时间似乎正合你心意。也许这样你可以用埋头苦干的日子去一直没时间计划的滑雪旅行或瑜伽。事实上，也许一个星期就能通通结束“假期计算”——弄清楚你如何在剩下的日子里挤时间去旅行！
Why it doesn’t always work: A recent article compared the number of vacation days in the U.S. with those in similar countries and found that many of our European neighbors, from Austria to Switzerland, had at least 20 legally mandated paid vacation days—while the U.S. has zero. However, here’s the rub: People who live in countries with more vacation days aren’t necessarily happier. 73% percent of Americans report job satisfaction, whereas only 57% of Italians, who receive 20 paid vacation days and 11 paid holidays per year, are happy with their jobs.
为什么它不总是有效：最近一篇文章把美国的假期天数与和它情况类似的国家比较，发现从奥地利到瑞士的很多欧洲邻国都至少有20天的法定带薪年假——而美国没有。然而问题在于：有更多法定假期的人不一定更快乐。73%的美国人表示对工作满意，而意大利人每年有20天的带薪年假和11天带薪假期，却只有57%的人满意他们的工作。
3. The So-Called Happiness Boost: A Promotion or Raise
3. 据说能增加幸福感的事：晋升或加薪
Why you think it will make you happier: Gaining a better title will earn you more respect at work, right? And we all perpetually covet a boost in pay to afford whatever luxuries are currently on our Just Out of Reach list, be it a gorgeous winter coat or newly renovated kitchen.
为什么你认为它让你更快乐：获得更好的职位头衔将帮你在工作中赢得更多的尊重，对吧？而且我们都渴望涨工资去买任何差一点就能买到的东西，不管是华丽的冬衣还是新装修的厨房。
Why it doesn’t always work: Our brain adapts really quickly in regard to how we perceive that new figure on our paycheck. We set goals because we believe we will be happy when we achieve them. But as soon as we do, our brain changes the goalposts of the success.
为什么它不总是有效：我们的大脑对工资单上的新数字适应得很快。我们设定目标是因为相信当实现它们时我们会很开心。但是一旦我们完成了，大脑会改变成功的目标。
4. The So-Called Happiness Boost: A New Job
4. 据说能增加幸福感的事：一份新工作
Why you think it will make you happier: You swear that you dream of telling your boss to “take this job and shove it.” Then, or so the fantasy goes, you’d never have to deal with the horrible commute again. You’d never waste another minute in another pointless meeting. You’d get a shiny new job and it would be everything that your old job wasn’t, with the “new is always better” rule in full effect.
为什么你认为它让你更快乐：你发誓你做梦都想告诉老板“接手自己的工作。”然后就像你幻想的那样，你再也不用面对可怕的通勤。你不再浪费时间参加毫无意义的会议。你会得到一份崭新的工作，它和旧工作完全不同，“新的总是更好的”充分发挥了效果。
Why it doesn’t always work: Maybe you are over your job. Maybe it is time to move on. But there are also plenty of times that it’s not necessarily the gig itself, but your attitude toward it that’s holding you back. Before you throw in the towel, try this happiness-boosting trick: You can train your brains to be grateful and appreciative of the environment that you’re in, and to find ways to improve it.
为什么它不总是有效：也许你的能力超出了工作要求。也许是时候向前走了。但也有很多时候不一定是工作本身，而是你的态度在阻碍你。你放弃之前，试试这种小把戏：你可以让大脑对工作环境心存感激和珍惜，并想办法改善它。
5. The So-Called Happiness Boost: “More Meaningful” Work
5. 据说能增加幸福感的事：“更有意义”的工作
Why you think it will make you happier: As human beings, we want to feel a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, that’s why people fantasize about ditching their corporate jobs to volunteer overseas or teach in a struggling classroom. We dream of curing cancer or climbing mountains, and think, without that, our work lacks import.
为什么你认为它让你更快乐：作为人类，我们想让生命有意义和目的，这就是为什么人们幻想抛弃工作去当跨国志愿者或支教。我们梦想治愈癌症或者攀登高峰，而且觉得如果没有这些，我们的工作缺乏意义。
Why it doesn’t always work: When Dan Ariely, a leader in the field of behavioral economics, conducted a study to explore what makes people find meaning in their work, the outcome truly surprised him. In one experiment, he asked subjects to build sculptures out of Legos for $3 a piece. Then, he gradually lowered the price he would pay them for making the same creations. Surprisingly, his participants kept on toiling as the price they were paid got steadily lower.
为什么它不总是有效：当行为经济学领域的权威丹·艾瑞里，进行了一项探究什么东西能使人们找到工作意义的研究时，结果真的令他惊讶不已。在一项实验中，他要求实验者搭乐高积木，每个3美元。然后他渐渐降低愿意为同样物品支付的价格。令人惊讶的是，当得到的报酬稳步降低时，他的参与者继续辛苦的做着。