Я, например, согласна - сейчас модно быть занятым. Со всех сто | Use your English!

Я, например, согласна - сейчас модно быть занятым. Со всех сторон только и слышишь “Ой, тут у меня все расписано”, “Столько дел, столько дел”, люди как будто хвастаются тем, что ничего не успевают. Для себя я научилась работать с приоритетами - я тоже не успеваю “всего”, но важное - я успеваю. И хвастаюсь тем, что иногда - ничего не делаю, не тороплюсь, читаю, смотрю сериалы, ухожу гулять, и пусть весь мир подождет.

В книге “Overwhelmed”, которую мы с вами будем читать и обсуждать во время одного из уроков курса Use your Girl Power! автор Brigid Schulte разговаривала с Ann Burnett, ученой, которая обратила внимание, что люди пишут о своей занятости даже (и особенно) в рождественских поздравлениях. Читайте, слушайте, обязательно пишите, что думаете на тему!

“Ann Burnett, a petite woman with straight dark blond hair that hangs to her shoulders, speaks slowly and deliberately [обдуманно] . She began studying busyness one December several years ago. As a scholar of how the language we use creates our reality, she’d been noticing people increasingly [все больше] talking about being “strapped” for time. [не хватает времени] Terms like “time-starved” [недостаток, дословно - голод - времени] and “time famine” had become common. With time pressure on her mind, Burnett opened the annual holiday letters that had begun to arrive in her mailbox. “I began to count how many times people said, ‘We’re busy.’ ‘We’ve had a busy year.’ ‘We’re busy, busy, busy.’ ”

Intrigued, she began to collect holiday letters, keeping her own, asking friends and colleagues for redacted copies of theirs. Soon, as word spread that she was analyzing the language in these annual “brag sheets,” [сборники хвастовства] people began sending her letters from all over. Her stash, [копилка] which now numbers in the thousands, dates back to the 1960s. They serve as an archive of the rise of busyness. [повышение занятости]

She pulls thick files out of the cabinets in her cramped [тесный] office and we begin to page through sheaves of letters adorned [украшенный] with candy canes and Christmas trees. It quickly becomes apparent how previous heartfelt [популярные ранее добросердечные] “blessings of the season” are quickly dispensed with so writers can dive headfirst into the jumble of their lives [растворяются, и авторы писем ныряют с головой в перечисление того, как сильно они заняты] . “Our schedules have always been crazy, but now they’re even crazier!” writes one. “We’ve had an action-packed year!” enthuses another. “I don’t know where my time goes,” writes a mother who juggles a job and three kids. “But it seems that I work hard all the time and never seem to accomplish [достигать] anything.”

Throughout the festive letters, Burnett has circled words and phrases that appear with astonishing frequency [удивительная частота] : “hectic,” [суматошный] “whirlwind,” [круговорот] “consumed,” [занятой] “crazy,” “hard to keep up with it all,” “on the run,” and “way too fast.” Days are full. Time races past. “Ever faster the planets spin,” writes one. One letter has even turned the joy of the season into another to-do list: “Set up Dickens Village. Check. [сделано] Make caramels, flatbread, chex mix and krumkake. Check.” One family confessed they’d been too busy to make a Christmas deadline: “We hope you’ll consider this our VALENTINE to you.”

The more Burnett read, the more she saw that people seemed compelled [вынуждены] to be, or at least portray [как минимум казаться] their lives as being, busy. Some writers even appeared to be boasting [кажется хвастались] about their busyness, living life “constantly on the go,” as if showing off their near superhuman ability to cram [впихнуть] an ever-greater number of activities and achievements into a finite amount of time.”

А еще, кроме мнения про то, модно ли сейчас быть занятым, пишите ОДНО СЛОВО, которое было новым и вы хотели бы его запомнить - так вы запомните его гораздо скорее.