首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Like most recovering overachievers, I have a complicated relationship with self-help books. That is, I approach the entire genre
Like most recovering overachievers, I have a complicated relationship with self-help books. That is, I approach the entire genre
admin
2016-03-10
28
问题
Like most recovering overachievers, I have a complicated relationship with self-help books. That is, I approach the entire genre with a mixture of interest and dread. While I am certain I can become a better version of me with the help of someone who has a research staff and a lucrative book contract, I know my relationship with the self-help book of the moment will end badly. It always does.
Everyone wants to be better at something. Right? Wasn’t this very country founded 238 years ago on the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of flat abs(平坦腹肌)? I dare y°u to name someone who does not want flat abs. And yet they are so difficult to attain, unless you are an Olympic swimmer or under the age of 10.
This is the problem with self-help generally: real change is hard. So while you could fill whole libraries with the books that have been published in an effort to help us all get flat abs, when it comes to said books, there’s no such thing as strength in numbers. There is only strength in crunches, planks and other core exercises you probably wish didn’t exist. But if you are a recovering overachiever, the drive for self-improvement remains so persistent that it creates a selective memory in which all failed attempts at effectively using self-help books— to attain flat abs or to do just about anything else—are magically erased, along with the pain of childbirth and the tragedy(for me and all the other vans in the world)of the Dutch losing the 2010 World Cup final. Which explains why, when Daniel J. Levitin’s The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload landed on my desk, I thought, " Oh goody, something that can help me become a better me at work and at home!"
After spending decades in consumer magazines, I can say with certainty that after flat abs, what Americans want most in life is organized closets. And I know, as Levitin does, that you cannot have an organized closet without first having an organized mind. His book is full of amazing tidbits(趣闻), like the chart that compares the average global temperature with the number of pirates in the world. What does that have to do with organizing? Who knows? Levitin is a professor, and he easily summons up lots of diverting facts to illustrate how distracted we are. For example, he knows that women’s Cortisol(皮质醇)levels spike when they are confronted with clutter but men’s don’t, which gave me a fantastic idea for my own self-help book: How to Live Happily With a Man Who Doesn’t Notice the Pile of Crapola at the Bottom of the Stairs.
Did Levitin’s book change my life? Well, first I need a leave of absence from work to finish it, as it is 512 pages long. Which brings us to another problem with self-help: those most likely to own self-help books are those least likely to have time for self-help books. Years ago, when my children were small and the working-mother routine felt particularly Sisyphean(永远做不完的), my well-meaning husband gave me a book called How to Calm Down. It sat on my night table for six months or so until I realized that what would calm me down most was less time spent awake. I do, however, have an awesome framed photograph of my middle son holding the book and laughing maniacally. So it was good for something.
The one self-help book I have ever been able to get through is Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish’s How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, because the margins are very wide and half the book is fill-in-the-blank exercises, so the part you actually have to read is quite short. If you haven’t read it, here’s the key takeaway: when your child comes home and says, "I’m so mad that my math teacher took away my phone when I was texting in class," you are not supposed to problem-solve or scold or, heaven forbid, call the school. You are just supposed to say, "Wow, it sounds like you’re really mad. " That’s right: parenting as parroting. Weirdly, it totally works, in part because it’s such an easy concept that even time-pressed lunatics can remember it.
As for the rest of the self-help volumes on your night table? Face it: they are dusty markers of inadequacy, reminders of the better you that will never be. They mock you, just like the fancy cookbooks with recipes for things like coq au vin that you will never learn to spell, much less make: the glue gun you absolutely will never use to DIY anything: the set of Rosetta Stone CDs for a language that it turns out you can get by fairly well without. Taken together, these little failures are all quite bad for your self-esteem. And you will certainly never get flatter abs if you don’t take care of your self-esteem problem first.
"they are dusty markers of inadequacy" in the last paragraph is an example of______.
选项
A、personification
B、hyperbole
C、euphemism
D、synecdoche
答案
D
解析
修辞题。dusty markers of inadequacy出现在最后一段第二句。根据上下文,此处表达的意思是这些书最终落满灰尘,并提醒读者书籍本身具有不足之处。提取dusty这一特点,将这些书比喻为markers of inadequacy,这种以局部代整体的比喻方法属于提喻,也称举隅法,故答案为[D]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/zB7O777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Whyaretheresomanycorporateabusestoday?
Agoodmodernnewspaperisanextraordinarypieceofreading.Itisremarkablefirstforwhatitcontains:therangeofnewsf
Asmoreschoolsaresetuptoday,learningiscompulsory.ItisanOught,evenworse,aMust,enforcedbyregularhoursandrigi
Therearetwoapproachestotranslating:first,youstarttranslatingsentenceandsentence,forsaythefirstparagraphorchap
Therearetwoapproachestotranslating:first,youstarttranslatingsentenceandsentence,forsaythefirstparagraphorchap
Firthused______toillustratethecloserelationshipbetweenlanguageuseanditsco-occurrencefactors.
OnaLosAngelesstreetcornerin2000,Iwasthe"insideman"inaclassiccongamecalledthepigeondrop.AmagiciannamedDa
OnaLosAngelesstreetcornerin2000,Iwasthe"insideman"inaclassiccongamecalledthepigeondrop.AmagiciannamedDa
Whatisthefindingintroducedbytheinterviewee?
Nowadays,manypeopleusecomputerstohandleordinaryissuessuchasbankingandofficework,andtospendtheirsparetimeon
随机试题
Theyoungworkersset______theirworkwithgreatenthusiasm.
某热电厂从某煤矿购煤200吨,约定交货期限为2007年9月30日,付款期限为2007年10月31日。9月底,煤矿交付200吨煤,热电厂经检验发现煤的含硫量远远超过约定标准,根据政府规定不能在该厂区燃烧。基于上述情况,热电厂的哪些主张有法律依据?()
典型二阶系统的特征方程为s2+2ξωns+ωn2=0,则()。
飞机库的每个防火分区至少应有两个直通室外的安全出口,其最远工作地点到安全出口的距离不应大于()m。
以下不是国家助学贷款的发放对象的是()。
某企业2017年利润总额为300万元,当年为开发新产品发生的研发费用为50万元(未形成无形资产,计入当期损益)。假设除此之外无其他纳税调整事项,税法规定研发费用可实行加计扣除政策。该企业2017年应缴纳企业所得税()万元。
包括若干客观性评价指标,以游客满意度为导向的是()评价。
担任科(局)级正职行政职务的人民警察可授予()至一级警司。
进入新单位后,领导没有给你明确工作目标,假如是你,该怎么办?
①权力的过多干预并不能起到很好的效果,甚至还有反作用②搞体育就像搞经济,有些时候,权力的干预越少越好,权力跑得越远越好③举重、体操、乒乓球、跳水都可以,但是足球之类的集体项目不可以④而只有市场化和协会化的管理组织才会比官办足球更有活力,就像市场经济之
最新回复
(
0
)