TED演讲英文文稿Procrastination/ pr???kr?st?'ne??n/(拖延症)
00:11
So in college, I was a government major(主修行政管理专业的学生), which means I had to write a lot of papers. Now, when a normal student writes a paper, they might spread the work out a little(一点点地展开工作) like this. So, you know -- 00:25
you get started(=start) maybe a little slowly, but you get enough done in the first week that, with some heavier(=busier) days later on(infml后来), everything gets done, things stay civil/?s?vl/(文明的).
00:33(Laughter/?lɑ:ft?(r)/笑声)
00:34
And I would want to do that like that. That would be the plan. I would have it all ready to go, but then, actually, the paper would come along(出现), and then I would kind of(用于表示不确定，“有点，可以这么说”) do this. 00:45(Laughter)
00:47And that would happen every single paper. 00:50
But then came my 90-page senior thesis(/?θi:s?s/毕业论文), a paper you're supposed to spend a year on. And I knew for a paper like that, my normal work flow(工作流程) was not an option(/??p?n/选择). It was way(used with prep or adv.非常) too big a project. So I planned things out(精心安排，筹划), and I decided I kind of had to go something like this. This is how the year would go. So I'd start off(开始) light(ad.轻松地), and I'd bump it up(to increase sth.) in the middle months, and then at the end, I would kick it up into high gear(/g??(r)/全力冲刺) just like a little staircase. How hard could it be to walk up the stairs? No big deal(没什么大不了的), right? 01:22
But then, the funniest thing happened. Those first few months? They came and went, and I couldn't quite(=really) do stuff /st?f/. So we had an awesome(/???s?m/very good) new revised(/r??va?z/改变，调整) plan.
01:30(Laughter) 01:31And then -- 01:32(Laughter) 01:34
But then those middle months actually went by, and I didn't really write words, and so we were here. And then two months turned into one month, which turned into two weeks. And one day I woke up with three days until(在…之前) the deadline, still not having written a word, and so I did the only thing I could: I wrote 90 pages over 72 hours, pulling not one but two all-nighters
-- humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters(开两晚夜车) – sprinted(/spr?nt/飞跑，冲刺) across campus(/?k?mp?s/校园), dove(dive,扑向，冲向) in slow motion(/?m???n/移动，运动), and got it in(--manage to do sth.) just at the deadline. 02:10
I thought that was the end of everything. But a week later I get a call, and it's the school. And they say, \thesis(/?θi:s?s/毕业论文).\02:28(Laughter)
02:31(Applause/??pl?:z/掌声)
02:35That did not happen. 02:37(Laughter)
02:39It was a very, very bad thesis. 02:42(Laughter) 02:44
I just wanted to enjoy that one moment when all of you thought, \02:50(Laughter) 02:51
No, no, it was very, very bad. Anyway(不管怎么说), today I'm a writer-blogger guy. I write the blog Wait But Why. And a couple of years ago, I decided to write about procrastination (/pr???kr?st?'ne??n/拖延症). My behavior has always perplexed(/p??pleks/使迷惑) the non-procrastinators(/pro??kr?s.t?.ne?.t??/拖延者) around me, and I wanted to explain to the non-procrastinators of the world what goes on in the heads of procrastinators, and why we are the way we are. Now, I had a hypothesis(/ha??p?θ?s?s/假设) that the brains of procrastinators were actually different than the brains of other people. And to test this, I found an MRI(核磁共振成像) lab that actually let me scan(/sk?n/扫描) both my brain and the brain of a proven non-procrastinator, so I could compare them. I actually brought them here to show you today. I want you to take a look carefully to see if you can notice a difference. I know that if you're not a trained brain expert, it's not that(=so) obvious(/??bvi?s /明显的), but just take a look, OK? So here's the brain of a non-procrastinator. 03:42(Laughter)
03:45Now ... here's my brain. 03:49(Laughter) 03:54
There is a difference. Both brains have a Rational(/?r??n?l /理智的) Decision-Maker in them,
but the procrastinator's brain also has an Instant Gratification(/?gr?t?f??ke??n /满足) Monkey. Now, what does this mean for the procrastinator? Well, it means everything's fine until this happens. 04:08
[This is a perfect time to get some work done.] [Nope!] 04:11
So the Rational Decision-Maker will make the rational decision to do something productive(/pr??d?kt?v /富有成效的), but the Monkey doesn't like that plan, so he actually takes the wheel(/wi:l /方向盘), and he says, \let's read the entire(/?n?ta??(r)/整个，全部) Wikipedia(维基百科) page of the Nancy Kerrigan/ Tonya Harding scandal(/?sk?ndl/丑闻), because I just remembered that that happened. 04:27(Laughter) 04:28Then -- 04:29(Laughter) 04:30
Then we're going to go over to the fridge(/fr?d? /冰箱), to see if there's anything new in there since 10 minutes ago. After that, we're going to go on a YouTube spiral(/?spa?r?l /) that starts with videos of Richard Feynman talking about magnets(/?m?gn?t/磁铁) and ends much, much later with us watching interviews with Justin Bieber's mom. 04:46(Laughter) 04:48
\any work today. Sorry!\04:54(Sigh/sa?/叹气) 04:57
Now, what is going on here? The Instant Gratification Monkey does not seem like a guy you want behind the wheel. He lives entirely(=completely) in the present moment. He has no memory of the past, no knowledge of the future, and he only cares about two things: easy and fun. 05:15
Now, in the animal world, that works fine. If you're a dog and you spend your whole life doing nothing other than(除了) easy and fun things, you're a huge success! 05:24 (Laughter) 05:26
And to the Monkey, humans are just another animal species(/?spi:?i:z/物种). You have to keep