晨读英语美文60篇(含lrc字幕)The 50-Percent Theory of Life
 音频下载[点击右键另存为]同步字幕下载[点击右键另存为][00:00.00]The 50-Percent Theory of Life [00:06.94]I believe in the 50-percent theory. [00:16.22][00:10.00]Half the time things are better than normal; [00:13.10]the other half, they are worse. [00:15.17]I believe life is a pendulum swing. [00:18.36]It takes time and experience to understand what normal is, [00:22.95]and that gives me the perspective [00:25.34]to deal with the surprises of the future. [00:27.76]Let’s benchmark the parameters: [00:30.15]Yes, I will die. [00:31.91]I’ve dealt with the deaths of both parents, [00:34.85]a best friend, a beloved boss and cherished pets. [00:39.33]Some of these deaths have been violent, [00:42.41]before my eyes, or slow and agonizing. [00:47.00]Bad stuff, and it belongs at the bottom of the scale. [00:51.04]Then there are those high points: [00:54.01]romance and marriage to the right person; [00:56.62]having a child and doing those Dad things [00:59.90]like coaching my son’s baseball team, [01:02.32]paddling around the creek in the boat [01:05.17]while he’s swimming with the dogs, [01:06.91]discovering his compassion so deep [01:10.07]it manifests even in his kindness to snails, [01:13.58]his imagination so vivid [01:16.20]he builds a spaceship from a scattered pile of Legos. [01:19.50]But there is a vast meadow of life in the middle, [01:23.21]where the bad and the good flip-flop acrobatically. [01:27.03]This is what convinces me to believe in the50-percent theory. [01:31.29]One spring I planted corn too early [01:35.14]in a bottomland so flood-prone that neighbors laughed. [01:38.74]I felt chagrined at the wasted effort. [01:43.08]Summer turned brutal—the worst heat wave and drought in my lifetime. [01:46.71]The air-conditioner died, the well went dry, [01:50.23]the marriage ended, the job lost, the money gone. [01:54.16]I was living lyrics from a country tune—music I disliked. [01:59.63]Only a surging Kansas City Royals team, [02:02.92]bound for their first World Series, buoyed my spirits. [02:06.74]Looking back on that horrible summer, [02:09.36]I soon understood [02:10.45]that all succeeding good things merely offset the bad. [02:14.05]Worse than normal wouldn’t last long. [02:17.24]I am owed and savor the peaceful and happy times. [02:21.57]They reinvigorate me for the next nasty surprise [02:25.82]and offer assurance that I can thrive. [02:29.34]The 50 percent theory even helps me [02:32.28]see hope beyond my Royals’ recent slump, [02:35.34]a field of struggling rookies sown [02:38.85]so that some year soon we can reap an October harvest. [02:42.78]Oh, yeah, the corn crop? [02:45.32]For that one blistering summer, [02:48.15]the ground moisture was just right, [02:50.21]planting early allowed pollination before heat withered the tops, [02:54.94]and the lack of rain spared the standing corn from floods. [02:59.19]That winter my crib overflowed with corn—fat, [03:03.12]healthy three-to-a-stalk ears filled with kernels from heel to tip— [03:08.49]while my neighbors’ fields yielded only brown, empty husks. [03:12.42]Although plantings past may have fallen [03:16.16]below the 50-percent expectation, [03:18.22]and they probably will again in the future, [03:21.60]I am still sustained by the crop [03:24.57]that flourishes during the drought. |
