Today is Sathurday. In case you didn't come back very late at night from a party you might have woken up (like me) to a very foggy October morning and wondered whether is it ok to get up from bed or should you just call it a morning and go on sleeping to skip the autumn morning blues. For those of you who decided to wake up, here's an awesome motivational video that makes you recosider your priorities in life. You know it's possible to change everything by Monday, or is it?
The video is followed by transcript, vocabulary definition and so language for you to consider
transcript:
What do you desire? What makes you itch? What sort of a situation would you like?
Let’s suppose, I do this often in vocational guidance of students, they come to me and say, well, we’re getting out of college and we have the faintest idea what we want to do. So I always ask the question, what would you like to do if money were no object? How would you really enjoy spending your life?
Well, it’s so amazing as a result of our kind of educational system, crowds of students say well, we’d like to be painters, we’d like to be poets, we’d like to be writers, but as everybody knows you can’t earn any money that way. Or another person says well, I’d like to live an out-of-doors life and ride horses. I said you want to teach in a riding school? Let’s go through with it. What do you want to do?
When we finally got down to something, which the individual says he really wants to do, I will say to him, you do that and forget the money, because, if you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You’ll be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life that is full of what you like doing than a long life spent in a miserable way.
And after all, if you do really like what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter what it is, you can eventually turn it – you could eventually become a master of it. It’s the only way to become a master of something, to be really with it. And then you’ll be able to get a good fee for whatever it is. So don’t worry too much. That’s everybody is – somebody is interested in everything, anything you can be interested in, you will find others will. But it’s absolutely stupid to spend your time doing things you don’t like, in order to go on spending things you don’t like, doing things you don’t like and to teach our children to follow in the same track.
See what we are doing, is we’re bringing up children and educating to live the same sort of lifes we are living. In order that they may justify themselves and find satisfaction in life by bringing up their children to bring up their children to do the same thing, so it’s all retch, and no vomit it never gets there. And so, therefore, it’s so important to consider this question,
What do I desire?
(P.S If you loved the music as much as I did, you might want to know that it's Ludovico Einaudi playing his song called "Divenire". Here he is playing the same tune in Royal Albert Hall. I suppose this guy has a pretty nice life, since he gets to write music that tends to end up often in motivational videos )
While you're listening to the song without Allan Watts' words of wisdom let's look into some vocabulary
VOCABULARY:
to ITCH - when something itches you feel the urge to scratch it. It's an unpleasant feeling you get from mosquito bites or healing scabs (strup) on your knee after a fall.
not to have THE FAINTEST IDEA - is the same as not to have the foggiest notion (hello October morning) or simply NOT TO KNOW ANYTHING at all about a problem, in other words to not have a clue
OBJECT - it's such a universal word. It perfectly follows the funny rule of the English language that a single word takes at least 3 pages of definitions in the dictionary. My students usually hate that, but I try to encourage them not to, because it usually means that you've got plenty of opportunities to improvise in English, which is what makes it so wonderful to learn (you didn't buy that, did you)
So the word object is at the same time a noun and a verb, if you put the suffic -ive, you can make it into another noun and an adjective.
The Object can be a thing, a topic or a subject, but in our case it is something you don't agree on. If you don' t like something, you object to it and then there is a chance you don't have to do it anymore.
ex. I don't like paying the taxes, I object to it so I don't do it. Police picks me up after one year. I spend quality time in prison.
If something is not an object, it means it's not a problem for you. If money is not an object means that money is not a problem, you have a lot of them, or you just don't care about money and live free under the bridges of Wroclaw.
OUT of DOORS - it comes from indoor and outdoor. If you enjoy indoor lifestyle, you are possibly a couch potato (sitting on the couch and watching M jak Miłość) or an internet addict (stalking your school mates on facebook). If you enjoy outdoor lifestyle, than you are likely to get divorced because your wife/husband or kids hardly ever see you home and wonder what on earth you are doing, so don't exaggerate.
EVENTUALLY - is one of the long list of your FALSE FRIENDS (or your best/worst frenemie) in Polish it sounds like EWENTUALNIE and is very often used like that, which is WRONG!!! Don't do that or the grammar police will arrest you. If you really want to say something in English which sounds like ewentualnie, try the word "POSSIBLY".
Eventually means "finally" or "in the end". If you live your life on the streets dealing drugs,eventually you will find yourself in prison.
For real.
FEE - is something people CHARGE for their SERVICES. The lawyer will charge you 1000 PLN for an advice, the doctor will CHARGE you around 100 PLN for a private visit, and the fees of the dentists are often more painful that the drilling itself.
TO BRING UP children - this has never been easy, and it's availiable to everyone who has kids, without any training and licences. In the past children were brought up strictly and new their place cause otherwise they recieved a smack on their bottoms. Nowadays, parents often bring up children to do whatever they want and have whatever they want whenever they want which is good for the children but bad for everybody else on this planet.
to JUSTIFY - if you screw something up (czyli, jeżeli dodasz za dużo pieprzu) than you have a long justifying to do in order not to be punished for your sins which you most definitely deserve. If you are good in justifying then you should become a lawyer so you can do all the things from the video.
ALL RETCH and NO VOMIT - this is not a very common expression (hopefully) as it does not evoke nice picture in a dream. To retch is to try to throw up desperately and if no vomit comes out of it, that it can be a problem, especially if you swallowed something gross or drank too much.
Generally, to be less specific, it means that you try very hard to do something and nothing happens. There are no results for your hard work. Sometimes this is how life works, hopefully not for you.
If you managed to read everything, try to think about the valuable lessons from the video or at least remember the vocabulary from it. QUIZLET.com or AANKI may help. You don't know what quizlet and aanki are? Well, let me google that for you and do it again
Have a nice sathurday! The fog will eventually go away and you are free to enjoy all the outdoor activities you can think of.
Stay safe and come back soon :-)
