新編大學英語第三冊unit6 Text B: Success Means Never Feeling Tired

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UNIT 6 AFTER-CLASS READING 1; New College English (II)

Success Means Never Feeling tired

1 Failure is probably the most fatiguing experience a person ever has. There is nothing more frustrating than not succeeding being blocked, not moving ahead. It is a vicious circle. Failure breeds fatigue, and the fatigue makes it harder to get to work, which compounds the failure.

2 We experience this tired ness in two main ways: as start-up fatigue and performance fatigue. In the former case, we keep putting off a task that we feel we are obliged to do. Either because it is too tedious or because it is too difficult, we shy away from it. And the longer we postpone it, the more tired we feel.

3 Even if it is not actually physical, this start-up fatigue is very real. The remedy is obvious, though perhaps not easy to apply: an exertion of willpower. The moment I find myself turning away from a job, or putting it under a pile of other things I have to do, I clear my desk of everything else and attack the objectionable item first. To prevent start-up fatigue, always tackle the most difficult job first.

4 Years ago, when editing Great Books of the Western World, I undertook to write 102 essays, one on each of the great ideas discussed by the authors of those books. The writing took me two and a half years, working at it among my other tasks seven days a week. I would never have finished if I had allowed myself to write first about the ideas I found easiest to explain. Applying my own rule, I determined to write the essays in strict alphabetical order, from ANGEL to WORLD, never letting myself skip a tough idea. And I always started the day's work with the difficult task of essay-writing. Experience proved, once again, that the rule works.

5 Performance fatigue is more difficult to handle. Here we are not reluctant to get started, but we cannot seem to do the job right. Its difficulties appear impossible to overcome. No matter how hard we work, we fail again and again. That mounting experience of failure carries with it an ever-increasing burden of mental fatigue. In such a situation, I work as hard as I can then let the unconscious take over.

6 When I was planning the fifteenth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, I had to create a topical table of contents for its alphabetically arranged articles. Nothing like this had ever been done before, and day after day I kept coming up with solutions that fell short. My fatigue became almost overwhelming.

7 One day, mentally exhausted, I put down on paper all the reasons why this problem could not be solved. I tried to convince myself that what appeared insoluble really was insoluble, that the trouble was with the problem, not me. Having gained some relief, I sat back in an easy chair and went to sleep.

8 An hour or so later, I woke up suddenly with the solution clearly in mind. In the weeks that followed, the correctness of the solution given to me by my unconscious mind was confirmed at every step. Though I worked just as hard as before, if not harder, my work was not attended by any weariness or fatigue. Success was now as exhilarating as failure had been depressing. Life offers few pleasures more stimulating than the successful exercise of our faculties. It gives us the energy to do additional work.

9 Sometimes the obstacle is not in the problem itself, but in the social situation or so it appears. Other people somehow seem to prevent us from succeeding. But, as Shakespeare wrote, "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars but in ourselves." Why blame other people and shrug off our own responsibility for misunderstandings? Doing a job successfully means doing whatever is necessary and that includes winning the cooperation of others.

10 More often, the obstacle that blocks us is purely personal. Subject to human distractions, we let personal problems weigh on us, producing a fatigue-failure that blocks our productivity in every sphere.

11 A friend of mine got depressed about a family problem that she had neglected. Her daughter had secretly married a man she thought her father would disapprove of. The daughter told her mother but made her promise to keep silent. Worrying about the problem, and carrying a burden of guilt over the secrecy, exhausted the mother. Her fatigue affected her job and turned her usual success there into failures. She was saved from serious depression only when other people intervened and told the father who didn't display any of the anticipated negative reaction. It seems incredible that a person can complicate his or her life in this fashion, but this is what can happen to problems if they aren't solved as they come along.

12 So, our first step should be to use inexplicable fatigue that has no physical base as a radar an early-warning system and trace the fatigue to its source; to find the defeat we are covering up and not admitting. Then we must diagnose the cause of this failure. In rare cases, it may be that the task is really too difficult for us. If so, we can acknowledge the fact and give up. Or the block may simply be in refusing to confront the problem. In most cases, it can be solved by patient attention to the task at hand with all the skill and resolution we can muster. That, plus the inspired help of the unconscious.

13 I have already given an example of one way of achieving a breakthrough. First, put down all the reasons why the problem is insoluble. Try to box yourself in, like Houdini, so no escape appears possible. Only then, like Houdini, can you break out. Having tied yourself up in knots, stop thinking consciously about the problem for a while. Let your unconscious work on untying the knots. Nine times out of ten, it will come up with a solution.

14 The worst mistake we can make is to regard mental fatigue as if it were physical fatigue. We can recover from the latter by giving our bodies a chance to rest. But mental fatigue that results from failure cannot be removed by giving in to it and taking a rest. That just makes matters worse. Whatever the specific stumbling-block is, it must be cleared up, and fast, before the fatigue of failure swamps us.

15 Human beings, I believe, must try to succeed. This necessity is built into our biological background. Without trying to define success, it's enough to say that it is related to continuous peak performance, to doing tasks and solving problems as they come along. It is experiencing the excitement and the joy that goes with the exercise of one's human capabilities.

16 Success, then, means never feeling tired .