四六级精读 ｜ 学会原谅自己

　　

　　今天是小芳老师陪你精读外刊的第167天

　　泛读原文（盲听1遍，泛读1遍，对照文本听1遍）

　　When it comes to first impressions, we all want to make a good one. And that’s why we tend to focus on our best traits and qualities. However, we often fall into the trap of thinking that everything about us needs to be perfect. But that’s just unrealistic. We all have imperfections. It’s part of being human. And while it’s easy to believe that our ‘supposed flaws and imperfections’ make us less attractive, here are some that can actually make us seem more appealing to others:

　　Our refusal to forgive ourselves for our mistakes tends to hang on a strong sense of how much these were in the end avoidable. We obsessively go back over our slips and errors, and contrast what did happen with what could so easily have been skirted if we had not been so fatuous and so witless. We experience recurring jabs of pain at the disjuncture between the agonising present and its now-vanished alternative: we should never have written that email, we should never have become involved with that person, we should have listened more closely to the advice, we should have never borrowed the money… Alongside the pain come questions: why didn’t we have greater foresight? Why couldn’t we muster more self-restraint? How could we have been so indiscreet?

　　From this close-up, there are no realistic, let alone kind, ways to answer our punitive self-interrogations; and they are, as a result, likely to go on forever, without let-up in agony. We will at best conclude that we messed up because we were greedy, because we were vain, shallow, intemperate and weak-willed; that we have ruined our lives because we are lustful, harebrained, immature and egocentric. Our self-hatred will grow ever more intense as we contrast our soiled lives with the impeccable choices of others. They – the reasonable and good ones, the calm and happy ones – had it right all along: they didn’t succumb to temptations; they stayed steady and dutiful, they kept their priorities straight and paid due respect to public opinion. The overall conclusion is that we are ultimately simply awful people – who should probably (depending on the severity of the problem we are in) kill ourselves forthwith.

　　If we are to avoid eternal self-loathing or suicide, we will have to find another approach. We cannot forever explain our mistakes by examining this or that local flaw in our characters. We need to lean on a far more holistic and objective answer. We messed up because we are human – which in this context means that we belong to a species that is compelled by its very nature to steer through life without the knowledge and experience required to ensure goodness and wisdom, kindness and happiness.

　　

　　We may regret this or that error, but from the right distance, we are fundamentally steering blind and are therefore doomed to slip up with greater or lesser severity at some point or other. We can’t know exactly who we should marry. We don’t have foolproof knowledge of where our real talents lie, let alone how the economy will perform, and therefore can’t determine the sort of career we should optimally invest ourselves in. We may make a reasonable guess at what activities and situations might be dangerous, but we cannot know ahead of time exactly where the true risks lie; there are landmines buried everywhere. Assumptions made in one era may fail to be correct in another. We can be caught out by swift changes in more ways: what could have been acceptable at one point can turn into an indecency a few years later.

　　Certainly, we may have experienced a particularly jagged edge of life which has destroyed us in a very specific way. But though the wound is local, injury is almost endemic. It could have been foretold from the start that something rather bad would at some moment happen to us, not because there is anything especially deficient about us, but because human brains are lacking the necessary matter to lead us faultlessly through the decades-long obstacle course of life.

　　

　　That said, our self-contempt tends to be heightened because we refuse to think about luck. We look at where we have ended up and compare it with the more fortunate places of others and come to only one verdict: we must have been more stupid than they are, our characters must have been more corrupt than theirs. But in the process, we miss out on a critical explanatory factor: whatever our flaws may have been, we may have had to contend with a particularly vicious swerve of fate. There have been people every bit as hasty or unreasonable as us who (for now) have sailed on unmolested. Events have pressed more harshly on the vulnerable parts of our personalities. Anyone who would have been tested as we were would have failed in comparable ways. In assessing our destiny, we should remember to claim a very large role for the forces of foul luck.

　　

　　At the same time, we do ourselves an injury by comparing ourselves only with those above us, rather than considering our state in the round. In our abject moods, we look enviously at those who are presently riding high while failing to consider the hundreds, even millions, of those who have endured destinies ever bit as cruel as our own. The human condition has seldom been a smiling one: we should not compound our difficulties by refusing to consider all those who have wept every bit as much, and lost even more than us. Nor should we keep equating ourselves with people who, while they might have some superficial similarities with ourselves in terms of age or educational background, in the end, had incomparably different psychological beginnings. They didn’t have our mother or our father, they didn’t have to go through what we did, they didn’t have to master our emotional immaturities. They may seem to be our equals, but they in fact belong to a more blessed cohort. We should nurture a sympathy for ourselves based on a fine-grained appreciation of the specific burdens we had to take on.

　　A degree of regret may sometimes be helpful: it can help us to take stock of errors and to avoid the worst of the pitfalls next time. But runaway self-hatred serves no useful purpose whatsoever; it is in its masochistic way an indulgence we can’t afford. We may be foolish, but this doesn’t single us out as particularly awful or unusual; it only confirms that we belong to the human race, a fact for which we deserve limitless sympathy and compassion.

　　精读原文

　　When it comes to first impressions, we all want to make a good one. And that’s why we tend to focus on our best traits and qualities. However, we often fall into the trap of thinking that everything about us needs to be perfect. But that’s just unrealistic. We all have imperfections. It’s part of being human. And while it’s easy to believe that our ‘supposed flaws and imperfections’ make us less attractive, here are some that can actually make us seem more appealing to others:

　　重点词汇：

　　forgive：原谅 例句：It's important to forgive others when they make mistakes.

　　avoidable：可避免的 例句：The accident was avoidable if the driver had been more careful.

　　fatuous：愚蠢的 例句：His fatuous decision led to the company's downfall.

　　self-restraint：自我控制 例句：She showed great self-restraint in not reacting to his insults.

　　indiscreet：不慎重的 例句：His indiscreet comments cost him his job.

　　punitive：惩罚性的 例句：The punitive measures taken by the government were criticized for being too harsh.

　　holistic：整体的 例句：We need to take a more holistic approach to solving this problem.

　　fundamental：基本的 例句：The fundamental problem with the plan is that it's too expensive.

　　endemic：普遍存在的 例句：Corruption is endemic in many countries around the world.

　　masochistic：受虐狂的 例句：Her masochistic tendencies led her to seek out abusive relationships.

　　长难句：

　　"Our refusal to forgive ourselves for our mistakes tends to hang on a strong sense of how much these were in the end avoidable."

　　这个长句是一个复合句，包含一个主句和一个从句。主句是"Our refusal to forgive ourselves for our mistakes tends to hang on a strong sense"，从句是"how much these were in the end avoidable"，修饰sense。从句中用了how much引导的宾语从句，修饰avoidable。

　　"We may regret this or that error, but from the right distance, we are fundamentally steering blind and are therefore doomed to slip up with greater or lesser severity at some point or other."

　　这个长句也是一个复合句，包含一个主句和一个从句。主句是"We may regret this or that error"，从句是"but from the right distance, we are fundamentally steering blind and are therefore doomed to slip up with greater or lesser severity at some point or other."，修饰regret。从句中用了but引导的转折关系，和and连接两个并列谓语。

　　阅读理解题目：

　　What is the main reason for our self-hatred according to the passage?

　　A. We lack foresight and self-restraint.

　　B. We are ultimately simply awful people.

　　C. We refuse to think about luck.

　　D. We compare ourselves only with those above us.

　　What is the author's view on regret?

　　A. It is helpful in avoiding mistakes in the future.

　　B. It is a sign of weakness.

　　C. It serves no useful purpose whatsoever.

　　D. It is an indulgence we can't afford.

　　What is the author's main argument in this passage?

　　A. We should forgive ourselves for our mistakes.

　　B. We should compare ourselves with those who have suffered more.

　　C. We are fundamentally flawed as human beings.

　　D. We should avoid self-hatred and nurture sympathy for ourselves.

　　滑动查看答案

　　答案

　　DAD

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