英语专业晨读美文精选

2017-03-03

英语专业晨读美文精选

逆境求生

In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft, alone. His supplies were few. His chances were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later (the longest anyone has survived a shipwreck on a life raft alone), he was alive-much skinnier than he was when he started, but alive.

1982年史蒂文·卡拉汉独自驾驶着帆船横渡大西洋，途中帆船遇难下沉。他在救生艇里孤独地漂浮着，远离了航道。当时他身上的食物所剩无几，生存机会非常渺茫。但76天后，三个渔民发现了他，他还活着 (他是世界上遭遇海难，在救生艇上存活最长时间的人)，他当时瘦骨嶙峋，与出航前相比简直判若两人，然而他还活着。

His account of how he survived is fascinating. How he ingeniously managed to catch fish, how he fixed his solar still, which evaporates seawater to make fresh water, is very interesting.

关于他大难不死的故事让人惊叹。其中他是如何巧妙地抓鱼，如何固定太阳蒸馏器来提取淡水的事情都非常有趣。

But the thing that caught my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no point in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his life raft was punctured and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to fix it, it was still leaking air and wearing him out to keep pumping it up. He was starved. He was desperately dehydrated. He was thoroughly exhausted. Giving up would have seemed the only sane option.

但我最感兴趣的还是在他感到彻底绝望的时候，当一切抗争都似乎已毫无意义的时候，当灾难苦苦折磨着他的时候，他是如何支撑着活下来的?救生艇穿了洞，他强撑着虚弱的躯体，花了一周多的时间去修理，可救生艇仍然漏气，于是他耗尽了所有的力气去吹气。饥肠辘轳的他极度脱水，精疲力竭，就算放弃也完全在情理之中。

When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their minds that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in similarly desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the guts to carry on in spite of overwhelming odds.

如果人们能够战胜这种情况，那么他们的脑海中一定有什么信念支撑着他们。许多人在遭遇类似的绝境时会选择放弃或精神失常，但幸存下来的人，靠的是心中的信念，是信念给予了他们战胜一切恶劣情况的勇气和决心。

"I tell myself I can handle it," wrote Callahan in his narrative. "Compared to what others have been through, I"m fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over, building up fortitude….

“我跟自己说我一定可以挺过去的，”卡拉汉在他的叙述中写到。“跟别人的遭遇相比，我已经算是幸运的。我由始至终都这样鼓励自己，在自己心中建立起永不放弃的信念。”

I wrote that down after I read it. It struck me as something important. And I"ve told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed far off or when my problems seemed too overwhelming. And every time I"ve said it, I have always come back to my senses读完这几句，我就把它们抄下了，并深深地为之震撼。当我觉得自己的目标似乎遥不可及又或者我遇到了似乎无法解决的问题的时候，我就用它们来勉励自己。而每每念及它们，我总能有所醒悟。

The truth is, our circumstances are only bad compared to something better. But others have been through much worse. I"ve read enough history to know you and I are lucky to be where we are, when we are, no matter how bad it seems to us compared to our fantasies. It"s a sane thought and worth thinking事实上，不幸都是相对而言的，有些人比我们更不幸。不管现实和理想相距多远，纵观历史，我们应该为现在所处的时代和景况感到幸运。这样的想法是明智的，而且也值得思考

So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of survival, are words that can give us strength. Whatever you"re going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Compared to what others have been through, you"re fortunate. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the rough spots with a little more fortitude.

从这个大难不死的的故事中，我们学到了能给予我们勇气和力量的话语。无论你遭遇了什么，你都要对自己说：一定能挺过去的。和其他人的不幸相比，你已经算幸运了。要一遍一遍地用此话鼓励自己，这个信念将会使你更有决心去度过难关。

英语专业晨读美文阅读

Up to You 由你决定

Jerry was the kind of guy who was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say.

One day I went up to Jerry and asked him, “I don’t get it! You can’t be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?” Jerry replied, “Each morning I wake up and say to myself, ‘Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.’ I choose to be in a good mood.”

“Yeah, right, it’s not that easy,” I protested.

“Yes it is,” Jerry said. “Life is all about choices. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. It’s your choice how you live life.”

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I changed my job. We lost touch. Several years later, I heard that Jerry was robbed and was shot. I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, “I feel really good.”

I asked him what had gone through his mind when he was taken to the hospital.

Jerry replied, “The first thing came to my mind was that I should have closed the back door. Then I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could to die. I choose to live.”

Jerry continued, “The nurse kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses scared me. In their eyes, I read, ‘He’s a dead man.’ I knew I needed to take action.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, a nurse asked if I was allergic to anything,” said Jerry, “‘Yes,’ I replied. The doctors and nurses were waiting for my reply…I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets!’ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘ I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live positively.

英语专业晨读美文学习

Tiny Steps, Big Changes寻求大改变，从小处做起

If you have failed in the past at trying to make big changes in you life,try again now,one tiny step at a time.

如果你曾企图对你的生活做很大的改变,但却总是失败,现在可以试试,每次做一个小改变

Every year it's the same.As December comes to an end ,you think about the new year and all the ways you want you want to improve your life.But as you start to write down your hopes for the new year,you think about last year.you excitedly wroto down all the changes you were going to make,but by the end of January those ideas got lost in your crowed life.

每年都如此.当十二月接近尾声,你憧憬新年,你想用许多方法去改变生活.但当你写下新年愿望时,你想起了去年,那时,你也兴奋的写下了你想改变的事.但一月还没完,这些主意就消失在你紧张的生活中.

Here's a suggestion:Forget the overreaching,hard-to-achieve goals.Just think small."We have this extreme-makeover culture that thinks you've got to do everything in big steps,even though the evidence is overwhelming that it doesn't work,"says psychologist Robert Maurer,who recently published one small step can change your life."what we try to do is to break down to a step so small that people couldn't possibly resist or have an excuse not to do it."

给你一个建议:忘掉那些不可达到、难以完成的目标.从小处着眼."我们的文化总是强调大改变,即使有充分的证据证明它不需要这么做",心理学家罗伯·莫特在他新出版的<<踏出一小步,人生大不同>>的书中说."我们要试着将大目标分解成小目标—人们不能拒绝,没有借口不去做的目标!"

The technique is called kaizen,a japanese word for an American business philosophy adapted to change behavior and attitudes.During World War Ⅱ,American factory managers increased productivity by trying small,continuous improvements rather than sudden radical change.After the war,U.S.occupation forces brought that philosophy to a rebuilding Japan,which made it a cornerstone of the country's amazing economic rebound.The Japanese called it kaizen,which means"improvement". 这种方法叫kaizen,一个日本单词.指一种改变行为与态度的美式企业哲学.第二次世界大战时，美国工厂管理人员试图通过持续的小幅改进，而非突如其来的巨变提高生产力.战后，美国占领军把那套哲学带到正重建的日本，使之成为这个国家经济神奇复苏的基础.日本人称它为kaizen,意思是"改善".

Maurer,who teachs at the UCLA and University of Washington medical schools,says he began studing whether the idea could help people who couldn't tackle big challenges."Some of it is psychological,and some of it is just their overwhelmed lifestyles," he says."They don't have the time to go to the gym and do all those other things we know are good of us. So kaizen seemed a loqical thing to experiment with." 在加州大学洛山矶分校和华盛顿大学医学院任教的莫勒表示,自己已开始研究这种方法能否帮助无法应付重大挑战的人.他说:"有些问题在于心理因素,有些则是他们的生活方式.他们没有时间去健身房,也无法做我们认为有益的事,所以'kaizen'很值得尝试."

英语专业晨读美文精选

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