Recently I was chatting with a thoughtful young woman about love. She asked: 'What is a soulmate? Do you get just one?'
最近，我与一个挺有想法的女孩聊起了爱情。她问我：“什么是灵魂伴侣？你会找到一个吗？”
You become soulmates
在时间流逝中成为灵魂伴侣
I do not believe that the universe prepares one perfect person who is your destiny, whom you need to go out to find, after which your lives will be forever happy.
我认为宇宙不会为你准备好一个是你真命天子的完美之人，你需要走出去寻找，之后你的生活将永远幸福下去。
I believe the world contains multiple people with whom you could fall in love. You choose one (of course, he needs to choose you too). You and he decide to build a life together. Together, you go through life's ups and downs.
我相信世上有几个你可能会爱上的人。你选择了其中一个（当然他也需要选择你），你和他决定共同开创生活，一同经历人生的起起伏伏。
Then over time, your bond becomes symbiotic, like yin and yang. Over time, you become soulmates.
随着时间的流逝，你们将变得和谐共生，就像阴和阳。你们是在时间流逝中成为灵魂伴侣的。
What about destiny?
如何看待缘分？
Some of my readers protest at the whole idea of choosing or headhunting! - a mate. They think it's unromantic. On my Weibo they ask: But what about yuanfen (destiny)?
有些读者对上篇专栏中“挑选甚至是猎寻一个伴侣”的观点提出了异议，她们认为这个观点太不浪漫了。有读者在微博上问我：“如何看待缘分呢？”
For those of us who have fallen in, and out, of love, more than once, we know from experience that falling in love is easy. But those early tidal waves of emotion are not enough to sustain a lifetime. This can be really confusing, because no other experience is quite as exhilarating as falling in love.
对我们这些已经陷入或走出爱河不止一次的人来说，经验告诉我们，陷入爱河很容易，但最初的爱终不能永远澎湃。这的确让人迷惑──因为没有其他经历能像陷入爱河一般让人迷醉。
Marriage is nothing like dating
婚姻与约会大不相同
Some couples are so busy gazing into each other's eyes that they don't realize it's more important that as they face the future, they're looking out in the same direction.
有些恋人总在深情对望，却没有意识到，面对未来，更重要的是两个人的眼睛要看着同一个方向。
Here's a typical modern marriage scenario: Date someone you happen to know who happens to like you. After a period of time, marry him.Then make a lot of compromises and work really hard to try to make it work. When it doesn't work, get divorced or drift apart living separate lives.
典型的现代婚姻是这样的：与某个你恰巧知道他正好也喜欢你的人约会，约会一段时间之后就和他结婚了，接下来做出很多妥协、非常努力地维系婚姻，当这些都行不通时便离婚或彼此疏远分居而过。
What was different about the mountain lovers Xu Chaoqing and Liu Guojiang?
那么，“爱情天梯”的主人公徐朝清和刘国江有什么不同之处？
They knew HOW to love
他们知道如何去爱
It's easy to fall in love. Even the term 'fall in love' makes it seem like an accident. 'Oops! Fell in love again!'Teenagers can fall in love with passion and abandon. But stay in love for a lifetime? That's a different matter.
陷入爱河很容易，“陷入爱河”（Fall in love）这个词句本身也使它显得就像是一次意外。“哎呀！又陷入爱河了！” 十几岁的孩子也会爱得激情忘我，爱得抛下一切。但是永浴爱河呢？这又是另外一码事了。
Love is a skill. In fact, I've come to believe that learning to truly connect with another human being is life's hardest but most important skill. It requires learning respect, empathy and kindness, for both oneself and others.
爱是一种技能。实际上，我慢慢相信学会与另一个人真正地融合在一起是人生当中最艰难也是最重要的技能。它需要你学会尊重、移情（empathy）和善良，对自己和对他人都是如此。
And having to live beside and cooperate every single day with another human being is the ultimate test of one's emotional skills. Xu and Liu passed that test. Without nannies or outside childcare, they survived on the land and successfully raised seven children together. That took a huge amount of cooperation.
每一天都必须与另一个人共同生活和合作是对一个人情感技能的终极考验。徐朝清和刘国江老人通过了这个考验。在没有保姆和外界帮助照看孩子的情况下，他们在那片土地上活了下来，而且一同成功养大了七个孩子。
They wanted the same things out of life
他们对生活有同样的期望
If at any point, either Xu or Liu had decided to opt for a life with electricity, hot water, great restaurants, a busy social life, and a career in the big city, then we now would not have 6,000 steps to ponder on.
在某一时候，如果徐朝清或刘国江决定选择去过大城市里的生活，那里有电、热水、高档餐厅、忙碌的社交和自己的事业，那6000级引起我们深思的“爱情天梯”现在都不会存在。
But even after their children went off into the world, they both were devoted to their beautiful, rustic life. And that was crucial to their ability to stay together over half a century.
然而，即使在他们的孩子离开他们进入社会之后，他们二人也专心过着他们美好的乡村生活，这对他们能半个多世纪相濡以沫至关重要。
Human beings are diverse in our values, and that diversity is what makes society interesting.
人们的价值观各不相同，而正是这种多样性让社会变得丰富多彩。
But a soulmate shares the same basic values as you. He wants the same things out of life that you do. You love and cherish his friends and family. He loves and cherishes yours.
灵魂伴侣应该与你拥有相同的基本价值观，他对生活的期望与你对生活的期望相同。你爱并珍惜他的朋友和家人，他也如此。
They were true partners
他们是真正的伴侣
We now revel in the romance of the mountain lovers, but their daily lives were not all about candle-lit dinners with violins playing in the background. They planted their own vegetables, caught their own fish, ground their own flour, fended off wild beasts, lived by the light of one kerosene lamp, and got soaked when it rained. With a family of nine.
当我们沉醉于“爱情天梯”的浪漫故事中时，要意识到，他们的日常生活并不是有小提琴伴奏的烛光晚餐。他们要自己种菜、捕鱼、磨面粉、驱赶野兽、只靠一盏煤油灯照明，每当下雨时还浑身淋透。而且，这还是一个九口之家。
Marriage is nothing like dating. Marriage is more like a mundane small business in which you and he are co-partners and co-employees for life. For your little company to succeed, you must believe in each other, and trust in each other's good judgment. You must agree on who does what. You must agree on the direction of your company and the values by which it will run.
婚姻与约会大不相同。婚姻更像一个世俗的小企业，你和你的丈夫既是联合雇主又是联合雇员。为了让你们的小企业获得成功，你们必须信任彼此，相信对方拥有良好的判断力；你们必须确定哪些事情要完成以及由谁来完成；你们必须在企业的发展方向和经营理念上达成共识。
Those values will be especially tested if you choose to produce offspring. Because children learn by example, and they'll start off their lives with the emotional skills and values that you model.
如果你们选择繁衍后代的话，这些理念会受到特别的考验。因为孩子们会模仿你们，他们将会用你们展现出的情感技能和理念开始他们的生活。
All this talk of small businesses may make marriage sound boring, but when you get it right, it can be really really nice, and something worth fighting for. And that's why the story of the mountain-top soulmates makes all of our hearts skip a beat.
关于小企业的说法或许会使婚姻听上去很枯燥，不过如果你经营得当，它会非常非常棒，是值得我们去争取的东西。这也是为什么“爱情天梯”灵魂伴侣的故事让所有人的心灵为之一颤的原因吧。