Taking charge of yourself involves putting to rest some very prevalent myths. At the top of the list is the notion that intelligence is measured by your ability to solve complex problems; to read, write and compute at certain levels, and to resolve abstract equations quickly. This vision of intelligence asserts formal education and bookish excellence as the true measures of self-fulfillment. It encourages a kind of intellectual prejudice that has brought with it some discouraging results. We have come to believe that someone who has more educational merit badges, who is very good at some form of school discipline, is “intelligent.” Yet mental hospitals are filled with patients who have all of the properly lettered certificates. A truer indicator of intelligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each present moment of every day.
If you are happy, if you live each moment for everything it is worth, then you are an intelligent person. Problem solving is a useful help to your happiness, but if you know that given your inability to resolve a particular concern you can still choose happiness for yourself, or at a minimum refuse to choose unhappiness, then you are intelligent. You are intelligent because you have the ultimate weapon against the big N. B. D—Nervous Break Down.
“Intelligent” people do not have N. B. D.'s because they are in charge of themselves. They know how to choose happiness over depression, because they know how to deal with the problems of their lives.
You can begin to think of yourself as truly intelligent on the basis of how you choose to feel in the face of trying circumstances. The life struggles are pretty much the same for each of us. Everyone who is involved with other human beings in any social context has similar difficulties. Disagreements, conflicts and compromises are a part of what it means to be human. Similarly, money, growing old, sickness, deaths natural disasters and accidents are all events which present problems to virtually all human beings. But some people are able to make it, to avoid immobilizing depression and unhappiness despite such occurrences, while others collapse or have an N. B. D. Those who recognize problems as a human condition and don’t measure happiness by an absence of problems are the most intelligent kind of humans we know; also, the most rare.
According to the author, the conventional notion of intelligence measured in terms of one’s ability to read, write and compute ________.
以读、写、和计算等能力作为衡量聪明才智的标准是最广泛认同的，但是确实不恰当的。第一段开头 说明了管理好自己就要改变一些大家公认的看法，首先要改变的就是以读、写、和计算，解决抽象问题等 能力作为衡量聪明才智的标准的看法。后半部分指出：大家普遍认为，学习好就是智商高，但是精神病院 里有很多学历很高的病人，真正有才智的人是那些是能每天生活得快快乐乐的人。
It is implied in the passage that holding a university degree ________.
第一段最后一句指出：精神病院里有很多学历很高的病人，因此，真正有才智的人是那些是能每天生 活得快快乐乐的人。言外之意就是学历高并不能说明这个人是具备高智商。
The author thinks that an intelligent person knows ________.
根据第二段，“If you are happy, if you live each moment for everything it is worth...”以及第三段“They know how to choose happiness over depression...”可知聪明的人是每天快乐的人，这样的人每分每刻都生活得 很有价值，并且能避免抑郁，选择快乐。
In the last paragraph, the author tells us that ________.
根据最后一段第二句，“The life struggles are pretty much the same for each of us. Everyone who is involved with other human beings in any social context has similar difficulties.”可知，每个人所面临的困难和不 如意都相似。不同之处在于，聪明的人选择快乐，其他人很容易感到沮丧，抑郁。
According to the passage, what kind of people are rare?
根据本文最后一段最后一句，最聪明的人不是没有烦恼的人，而是意识到面临的困难还可以保持快 乐的人，这种人同时也是最稀少的。