(完整word版)Unit13OurSchedules,OurSelves课文翻译综合教程三.doc

Unit 13 Our Schedules, Our Selves Jay Walljasper 1 DAMN! You re 20 minutes —no, more like half an hour — late for your breakfast meeting, which you were hoping to scoot out of early to make an 8:30 seminar across town. And, somewhere in there, there that cosnference call. Now, at the last minute, you have to be at a 9:40 meeting. No way you can miss it. Let s see, the afternoon is totally booked, but you can probably push back your 10:15 appointment and work through lunch. That would do it. Whew! The day has barely begun and already you are counting the hours until evening, when you can finally go home and happily, gloriously, triumphantly, do nothing. You ll skip yoga class, blow off the neighborhood meeting, ignore the piles of laundry and just relax. Yes!…No! Toni ght the ni ght of the con cert. You promised Nathan and Mara weeks ago that you would go. DAMN ! 2 Welcome to daily grind circa 2003 — a grueling 24-7 competition against the clock that leaves even the winners wondering what happened to their lives. Determined and sternly focused, we march through each day obeying the orders of our calendars. The idle moment, the reflective pause, serendipity of any sort have no place in our plans. Stopping to talk to someone or slowing down to appreciate a sunny afternoon will only make you late for your next round of activities. From the minute we rise in the morning, most of us have our day charted out. The only surprise is if we actually get everything done that we had planned before collapsing into bed at night. 3 On the job, in school, at home, increasing numbers of North Americans are virtual slaves to their schedules. Some of what fills our days are onerous obligations, some are wonderful opportunities, and most fall in between, but taken together they add up to too much. Too much to do, too many places to be, too many things happening too fast, all mapped out for us in precise quarter-hour allotments on our palm pilots or day planners. We are not leading our