Are New Year's resolutions powerful or pointless ？
新年立flag真的有用还是毫无意义？
Almost every year of my adult life, I’ve started the New Year with a set of resolutions that I’ve been determined to keep. The results, predictably, have been variable.
几乎在我成年后的每一年，我都会带着一系列flag开始新的一年，并且决心要把它们坚持下去。不出所料，结果充满变数。
In 2021, I mostly kept to my fitness goal of doing 20-minute workout each day, but I failed miserably at my aim of quitting social media. According to my weekly screen-time reports, I still spend between two and three hours each day on my phone, much of that time doomscrolling.
2021年，我基本上达成了每天锻炼20分钟的健身目标，但在戒掉社交媒体这一目标上惨败。根据我的每周屏幕使用时间报告，我每天仍会花两到三个小时在手机上，其中大部分时间都是在看些负面新闻。
I am far from alone in my determination to start each new year with a plan for self-improvement. At least a quarter of people typically make at least one New Year’s resolution, and a large portion of those good intentions end in disappointment.
一到年初就立flag的人远不止我一个。通常，至少有四分之一的人会立至少一个flag，而这些美好的愿望中有很大一部分将以失望告终。
For those who don’t follow this tradition, the very act of creating a New Year’s resolution can seem illogical. Rationally speaking, 1 January should be no better than any other day to make a life change – so why put the needless pressure on ourselves to ‘upgrade’ our lives at the opening of a new calendar?
对于那些不遵循这一惯例的人来说，新年立flag的行为似乎是不合逻辑的。理性来讲，1月1日并不比其他任何日子更适合改变生活——那么为什么要在新一年开始时给自己施加不必要的压力来“升级”我们的生活呢？
重点词汇
1. resolution /ˌrez.əˈluː.ʃən/ a promise to yourself to do or to not do something 决心
I made a resolution to give up chocolate.
2. pointless /ˈpɔɪnt.ləs/ having no useful purpose 毫无意义的
It seemed pointless to continue.
3. doomscrolling /ˈduːm.skrəʊ.lɪŋ/ the activity of spending a lot of time looking at your phone or computer and reading bad or negative news stories 刷手机看负面新闻
Experts warn that doomscrolling can be harmful to your mental health.
重点句型
1. …that I’ve been determined to keep.
该句是that引导的定语从句，修饰先行词resolutions，that在从句中作宾语，可省略。
2. ... who don’t follow this tradition...
该句是who引导的定语从句，修饰先行词those，who在从句中作主语，不可省略。
延伸阅读
Recent psychological research, however, suggests that there are many good reasons to begin a new regime on the first day of a new year. And by understanding and capitalising on those mechanisms, we can all increase our chances of sticking to our new goals for 2022.
然而，最近的心理学研究表明，在新年的第一天开始执行新计划的理由是十分充分的。通过理解和利用这些心理机制，我们都可以增加达成2022年新目标的可能性。
The fresh-start effect
“崭新开始”效应
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly when our tradition of making New Year’s Resolutions was first established. Anna Katharina Schaffner, a cultural historian and author of The Art of Self-Improvement, notes literary references to self-improvement go back centuries, to Chinese antiquity and the Roman Stoics, for example. The practice of pegging goals to a particular calendar date was already well-established by the 1860s, as seen in one of Mark Twain’s letters.
很难准确地说，我们新年立flag的传统是从什么时候开始的。文化历史学家、《自我提升的艺术》一书的作者安娜·卡塔琳娜·沙夫纳指出，有关自我提升的文学文献可以追溯到几个世纪以前，比如中国古代和罗马的斯多葛学派。将目标和特定日期联系在一起的做法在19世纪60年代就已经成为习惯了，就像马克·吐温在一封信中所写的那样。
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