晨讀英語美文100篇六級The 50-Percent Theory of Life

[ti:] [ar:] [al:] [by:] [00:02.00]Passage 41. The 50-Percent Theory of Life [00:09.10]I believe in the 50-percent theory. [00:13.92]Half the time things are better than normal; the other half, they are worse. [00:19.18]I believe life is a pendulum swing. [00:22.02]It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, [00:26.50]and that gives me the perspective to deal with the surprises of the future. [00:31.65]Let’s benchmark the parameters: Yes, I will die. [00:36.57]I’ve dealt with the deaths of both parents, a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. [00:43.13]Some of these deaths have been violent, before my eyes, or slow and agonizing. [00:49.15]Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale. [00:53.20]Then there are those high points: romance and marriage to the right person; [00:58.89]having a child and doing those Dad things like coaching my son’s baseball team, [01:04.69]paddling around the creek in the boat while he’s swimming with the dogs; [01:08.95]discovering his compassion so deep it manifests even in his kindness to snails, [01:15.31]his imagination so vivid he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos. [01:21.43]But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. [01:28.43]This is what convinces me to believe in the 50-percent theory. [01:33.03]One spring I planted corn too early in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. [01:40.36]I felt chagrined at the wasted effort. [01:43.09]Summer turned brutal—the worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. [01:48.23]The air-conditioner died, the well went dry, the marriage ended, the job lost, the money gone. [01:55.01]I was living lyrics from a country tune—music I loathed. [01:59.61]Only a surging Kansas City Royals team, bound for their first World Series, buoyed my spirits. [02:07.16]Looking back on that horrible summer, [02:09.79]I soon understood that all succeeding good things merely offset the bad. [02:15.59]Worse than normal wouldn’t last long. [02:18.87]I am owed and savor the halcyon times. [02:21.71]They reinvigorate me for the next nasty surprise and offer assurance that I can thrive. [02:27.52]The 50-percent theory even helps me see hope beyond my Royals’ recent slump, [02:33.09]a field of struggling rookies sown so that some year soon we can reap an October harvest.

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