2024年12月四级第2套长篇阅读匹配原文翻译及答案

A) Few topics have been so endlessly analysed as work-life balance The quest to attain this mysterious state has dominated discussion around careers for years-especially for working parents. The concept is often presented as something to achieve, or a goal to reach. And once you've reached it, congratulations: you've made it, you're a successful human being of the 21st century.

很少有话题像工作与生活平衡这样被无休止地分析。多年来，追求这种神秘状态主导了关于职业的讨论，尤其是对于在职父母来说。这个概念常被呈现为需要实现的目标。一旦你达到了，恭喜你：你成功了，你是21世纪的成功人士。

B) But the problem is that we often tell ourselves I'm going to put in eight hours' worth of work, and then I'm going to put in eight hours' worth of 'me time', which will include my family, my hobbies, my workout, my everything," says Anat Lechner, clinical associate professor of management at New York University. "I don't think it's such a simple formula.

但问题在于，我们常常告诉自己：“我要工作八小时，然后我要用八小时来享受‘我的时间’，包括家人、爱好、锻炼等一切。”纽约大学管理学临床副教授阿纳特·莱克纳说。“我认为这不是一个简单的公式。”

C) And, according to new findings, it may not be. Some researchers are now encouraging us to stop thinking about work-life balance as an achievement that you either hit or don't, Instead, they suggest it may be more of a lifelong process a continuous, never ending exercise that requires self-awareness and timely adjustments, Researchers Doana Lup and Mayra Ruiz-Casto argue that work-life balance is "a cycle, not an achievement". In their 2020 study, the researchers interviewed nearly 80 employees at two London-based firms-an equal number of men and women between the ages of 30 and 50, all with at least one dependent child-who worked in middle or senior management roles.

而且，根据新发现，情况可能并非如此。一些研究人员现在鼓励我们停止将工作与生活平衡视为要么达到要么没有达到的成就。相反，他们认为这更可能是一个终身过程——一个持续、永无止境的练习，需要自我认知和及时调整。研究人员多娜·卢普和玛伊拉·鲁伊斯-卡斯托认为，工作与生活平衡是“一个循环，而非一项成就”。在他们2020年的研究中，研究人员采访了伦敦两家公司的近80名员工——男女各半，年龄在30至50岁之间，都有至少一个受抚养子女——这些员工在中级或高级管理职位工作。

D) Although it sounds like the respondents had a lot in common, here's what separated them: about 30% of the men and 50% of the women reported resisting working long hours. The other respondents, meanwhile, all worked long hours because they thought that's what successful professionals should do.

尽管受访者似乎有很多共同点，但区分他们的是：约30%的男性和50%的女性报告说抵制长时间工作。而其他受访者都长时间工作，因为他们认为这是成功专业人士应该做的。

E) Lupu and Ruiz-Castro looked at those who rejected the long hours and they found that those workers actually had strikingly similar strategies for maintaining their work life balance. They had a tendency to reflect and question assumptions in the name of self awareness and regularly took steps to adjust the things standing in their way to work -life balance.

卢普和鲁伊斯-卡斯托研究了那些拒绝长时间工作的员工，他们发现这些员工实际上有惊人相似的策略来维持工作与生活平衡。他们倾向于以自我意识的名义反思和质疑假设，并定期采取措施调整阻碍他们实现工作与生活平衡的因素。

F) Lupu and Ruiz-Cato identified five steps that the respondents in the study who had better work-life balance used in their jobs. First, they paused and reconsidered beliefs such as "I'm a professional, so I should work, work, work", and asked themselves questions like, "What's currently causing me stress?" Second, after identifying the cause, they zeroed in on their resultant emotions. Did they feel angry, sad, energised? Third, they reprioritised, asking " Is working long hours really worth cutting back on family time?", for example. Fourth, they considered their alternatives: is there anything at work that could be changed to accommodate these new priorities? And finally, they implemented changes, like asking their supervisor for greater flexibility, or deciding not to take on every project that comes their way.

卢普和鲁伊斯-卡斯托识别出研究中那些拥有更好工作与生活平衡的受访者在工作中使用的五个步骤。首先，他们暂停并重新考虑诸如“我是专业人士，所以我应该工作、工作、工作”的信念，并问自己问题，比如“目前什么让我感到压力？”其次，在确定原因后，他们聚焦于由此产生的情绪。他们是否感到愤怒、悲伤、精力充沛？第三，他们重新排序优先级，例如问“长时间工作真的值得减少家庭时间吗？”第四，他们考虑替代方案：工作中是否有任何可以改变以适应这些新优先级？最后，他们实施变化，比如向上级要求更大灵活性，或决定不接手每一个到来的项目。

G) This five step process is something anyone can adopt. Going through the steps, and constantly checking in with yourself, can help you shift and adapt your professional life to something that will better harmonise with your personal one. "An awareness of your emotional state is essential in order to determine the changes you want to make in your work and in your life," says Lupu.

这个五步过程是任何人都可以采用的。经历这些步骤，并不断自我检查，可以帮助你调整和适应你的职业生活，使其更好地与个人生活和谐。“意识到你的情绪状态对于决定你想在工作和生活中做出哪些改变至关重要，”卢普说。

H) New York University's Lechner agrees that finding that balance is an ongoing pursuit. It's not simply about dividing up the hours in your day between work, the gym, kids and chores. If the underlying emotional sources of stress are still there, then the time you actually spend at home may not be enjoyable. "We come home and even though physically we are there, mentally we may still be processing things that happened at work. We're not present," she says. What we call "work-life balance" is actually just a substitute to having a sense of fulfillment and contentment.

纽约大学的莱克纳同意，找到这种平衡是一个持续的追求。这不仅仅是关于在一天中分配时间给工作、健身房、孩子和家务。如果压力的根本情感来源仍然存在，那么你实际在家的时间可能并不愉快。“我们回到家，尽管身体在那儿，心理上可能仍在处理工作中发生的事情。我们并不在场，”她说。我们所称的“工作与生活平衡”实际上只是满足感和满足感的替代品。

I) Of course, finding that balance probably shouldn't be something you have to do by yourself. Research by Erin Kelly, professor of work and organisation studies at MIT, shows companies and managers can play a key role in creating a better environment for workers. For her book Overload: How Good Jobs Went Bad and What to Do About It, she and co-author Phyllis Moen split more than 1,000 employees at a Fortune 500 company into two groups, one that worked under a management redesign and one that continued working within the existing management structure.

当然，找到这种平衡可能不应该是你必须独自完成的事情。麻省理工学院工作与组织研究教授艾琳·凯利的研究表明，公司和管理者可以在为员工创造更好环境方面发挥关键作用。在她的书《超负荷：好工作如何变坏以及如何应对》中，她与合著者菲利斯·莫恩将一家财富500强公司的1000多名员工分成两组：一组在管理改革下工作，另一组继续在现有管理结构下工作。

J) Under the management redesign, many steps were taken to ensure better work-life balance and prevent burnout(精疲力竭), Managers were regularly reminded to explicitly support their employees, Workers were allowed to make changes, like canceling am meetings. All of this was done in the name of increasing job satisfaction and giving workers more flexibility, and to show workers that it was something management was committed to, Unsurprisingly, Kelly and Moen found that employees in the redesign group reported less stress and less burnout: they were less likely to quit their jobs, indeed, over the next four years, they were 40% less likely to quit than those who kept working under the old policies.

在管理改革下，采取了许多措施来确保更好的工作与生活平衡并防止精疲力竭。管理者定期被提醒要明确支持员工，员工被允许做出改变，比如取消早会。所有这些都是为了增加工作满意度、给予员工更多灵活性，并向员工表明这是管理层致力于的事情。不出所料，凯利和莫恩发现，改革组的员工报告的压力和精疲力竭更少：他们更不可能辞职，实际上，在接下来的四年里，他们辞职的可能性比那些在旧政策下工作的员工低40%。

K) "Work-life balance is understood to be an individual's response, so people think 'it's up to me to manage the craziness of my work life'," says Kelly, But organisations need to examine the demands they're placing on employees. "The root problem is not how the two pieces of work and life come together. It's that we have unrealistic expectations of what we're asked to do on the work side." If your workplace isn't an environment where work-life balance is possible in the first place, any effort you attempt to make toward it on a personal level will be in vain.

“工作与生活平衡被视为个人的反应，所以人们认为‘管理我工作生活的疯狂取决于我自己’，”凯利说，“但组织需要审视他们对员工的要求。” “根本问题不在于工作和生活两部分如何结合。而在于我们对工作方面要求做的事情抱有不切实际的期望。” 如果你的工作场所一开始就不是一个可能实现工作与生活平衡的环境，那么你个人层面尝试做出的任何努力都将徒劳无功。

L) That's a conversation that appears to be gathering pace. The new prevalence of remote and flexible working models will likely all play important roles in how we balance our professional and personal lives. And if it seems like finding that perfect balance remains difficult to achieve, the experts say that keeping some perspective can help. For millions of people, work is about being able to put food on the table. Talking about work-life balance "is a very privileged conversation", says Lechner. "If we're reflecting, maybe we should also reflect on that."

这场对话似乎正在加速。远程和灵活工作模式的新流行可能都在我们如何平衡职业和个人生活方面发挥重要作用。如果看起来找到那种完美的平衡仍然难以实现，专家们说保持一些视角会有帮助。对数百万人来说，工作是为了能养家糊口。谈论工作与生活平衡“是一个非常特权的对话”，莱克纳说。“如果我们在反思，也许我们也应该反思这一点。”