درسنامه تعاملی اول

Decisiveness – Interactive Essay Lesson A

Hi, this is AJ, and welcome to this month’s VIP interactive A lesson. We have an essay from Mark Manson. It’s called The Do Something Principle. A principle is, it’s like a rule, a general rule, a guideline. Let’s begin.

If we follow The Do Something Principle, failure feels unimportant. When the standard of success becomes merely acting, when any result is regarded as progress and important. When inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite, we propel ourselves ahead. We feel free to fail and that failure moves us forward.

The Do Something Principle not only helps us overcome procrastination, but it’s also the process by which we adopt new values. If you’re in the midst of an existential shit storm and everything feels meaningless, if all the ways you used to measure yourself have come up short and you have no idea what’s next. If you know that you’ve been hurting yourself chasing false dreams or, if you know there’s some better metric you should be measuring yourself with, but you don’t know how, the answer is the same. Do something!

That something can be the smallest viable action towards something else. It can be anything. That’s often all that’s necessary to get the ball rolling. The action needed to inspire the motivation to keep going. You can become your own source of inspiration. You can become your own source of motivation. Action is always within reach. And with simply doing something as your only metric for success, well, then even failure pushes you forward.

Now the vocabulary, let’s go back to the beginning, slowly learning the vocab…

Vocabulary

If we follow The Do Something Principle

Again, a principle is a general guideline or rule.

Failure feels unimportant. When the standard of success becomes merely acting,

Merely – means just, just acting, just acting, only acting. Merely acting.

Standard of success – it means your goal of success.

When any result is regarded as progress and important.

Regarded as – means thought as, considered as, believed to be. So when any result is regarded as progress.

When inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite, Prerequisite – means before required, that’s the direct meaning. Pre – means before, requisite – means required. So it’s something that’s required before something else. For example, most people feel that inspiration is a prerequisite for action. It means you first require inspiration that must come first, it’s a prerequisite. Then the inspiration gives you the energy to take action. Well he’s saying it’s the opposite. He’s saying action is the prerequisite, that action is required first and then inspiration comes after the action, it’s the reward of action.

When inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite we propel ourselves forward.

To propel – means to push forward, to go ahead, to go strongly, to push ourselves ahead, to propel ourselves ahead.

We feel free to fail and that failure moves us forward.

The Do Something Principle not only helps us overcome procrastination, but it’s also the process by which we adopt new values.

Helps us overcome procrastination- procrastination you know that right. Procrastination is waiting to do something that you must do.

You’re in school and you must study for a test, but you wait and you wait and you wait, you don’t do it. The verb is procrastinate, you procrastinate. The noun is procrastination. Procrastination, waiting to do something, avoiding to do something.

It’s also the process by which we adopt new values- okay, by which means how. It’s the process how we adopt new values. It’s the process by which we adopt new values.

Adopt – has a few meanings, but here the meaning is to acquire, to get and keep. So doing something that’s how we get new values.

A value – is a strong belief about what’s important. It’s a belief about what’s most important in your life.

If you’re in the midst of an existential shit storm

Okay we have some slang here and a curse word.

In the midst of – is in the middle of. It means in the middle of. In the midst of. So if you’re in the middle of, if you’re in the midst of an existential shit storm.

Existential – means being. It means existing. So it’s being existence, existential.

Shit storm – means a horrible situation, a really terrible situation. Everything’s going wrong, everything’s terrible. That’s a shit storm, it’s slang. It’s a bit rude, as you might guess. So an existential shit storm means a life shit storm right, being life existence. It means your life, your existence is a shit storm, is terrible. So if you’re in the middle of a terrible life situation an existential shit storm…

And everything feels meaningless, and if all the ways you used to measure yourself have come up short

To come up short – means to fail. To come up short means to fail. It means you don’t do enough to succeed, you come up short. You fail.

And you have no idea what’s next in your life. If you know that you’ve been hurting yourself chasing false dreams

Chasing false dreams – chasing means trying to catch, running around trying to catch.

False dreams – of course a dream, here a dream means a big goal, a big, big goal in your life and a false dream it’s a bad goal. It’s an unhealthy goal. So it’s a big goal for your life that will not make you happy, that’s a false dream. Maybe some people do it, sometimes we do it, we make a goal. We think it’s a good goal but it’s actually a false dream. We chase. We try to catch a bad goal.

Or, if you know there’s some better metric you should be measuring yourself with,

Metric – a metric is a measurement, a kind of measurement.

The answer is the same. Do something! Do something! That something can be the smallest viable action towards something else.

Viable – means effective, useful, possibly successful. That’s viable. So do something, even just a small viable action towards something else.

It can be anything. The action can be anything

That’s often all that’s necessary to get the ball rolling.

Good idiom, this is a good idiom, get the ball rolling.

Get the ball rolling – means get something started, right. It means to get something going. Get something started. Like oh, we have a big project we need to get the ball rolling. We need to get the project started. That’s often all that’s necessary to get the ball rolling.

The action needed to inspire the motivation to keep going.

So he’s saying, first comes action then the action inspires you, gives you ideas and then the ideas, the inspiration motivates you to do more actions. In this way…

You can become your own source of inspiration. Source – means beginning point, the beginning point. It’s what something comes from right. Let’s say the source of a river is the mountains. So the snow is in the mountains and it melts and that creates the beginning of the river. So the snow or the mountains are the source of the river. So he’s saying you can be your own source of inspiration, your inspiration and your motivation will come from inside you.

You can become your own source of motivation. Action is always within reach.

Within reach – means nearby and here it means possible to do, possible, nearby, easy. Action is always within reach. It’s always possible. It’s always close by. And with simply doing something as your only metric for success, well, then even failure pushes you forward.

Okay, with doing something as your only metric for success – again, metric means measurement, measurement for success. So he’s saying, don’t measure yourself by the results right. If you have a good result then that measurement means yeah, I’m successful. If you have a bad result that means you’re bad and it’s terrible. No, he’s like, the result doesn’t matter your only measurement should be action. If you take action that’s good that means you’re successful.

If you don’t take action that means you’re a failure. So he’s saying when you take action and that’s your measurement of success, your metric for success, well then even failure pushes you forward. It means even if your action makes a bad result you still learn something, you still go forward.

All right, that is the end of the interactive A lesson. In part B I’ll ask you questions and you will answer them about this same essay.

See you in part B