(Advanced)) Why It Is So Hard to Live in the Present

The period of time we find hardest to inhabit is the present; for a range of powerful reasons we should take on board.


1.

Discuss these questions yourselves and then listen:

1. What tends to happen to our minds when we are experiencing the "now"?

2. Why are so many events easier to appreciate when they are over?

3. How does the speaker define "nostalgia"?

4. What emotion do we feel most of the time, but often forget about in retrospect?

5. How do our bodies stop us from enjoying the present?

6. What do we need to remember about other people?


2.

Go through this vocab: try using a synonym in the gap in brackets.

a stretch of time (p_____)

a rival (com__________)

to plot (to p___ )

when something is "over" (f_______)

to foreshorten  (to magnify or en______)

dull (adj) (b_____)

raw footage (une_______d)

settings (pl_____ and situ_______)

mediocrity (av______ness)

nostalgia (senti______ feelings about the past)

editing (removing or reorganising inf_____)

anxiety (w_____y)

gruesome (horr_____)

theoretical (purely id__)

non-specific (g_______)

to come to pass (to actually h_______)

to anticipate (to exp______)

itinerary (sch_____ or ag_____)

dissonant (unple______t)

to turn in on oneself (to with_____)

to have little to do with ( to be unrel______)

ungrateful (to fail to appr______)

entity (th____ or bei___)

to take in (to abs____ or dig____)

to fixate (to become ob_______ with)

to berate ourselves (o tell ourselves ____ )

to lay on a party for sb (to org____ and host)

an encounter (an intera____)

to give way to (to let sth rep____e sth)

Listen and check:

Why it is so hard to live in the present


3.

Adjectives

Why It Is So Hard to Live in the Present

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APPALLING	CAVERNOUS	CHAOTIC
CONSEQUENTIAL	DELICATE	DISSONANT
DULL	FIXATED	FORESHORTENED
GRUESOME	IMAGINARY	LIMITED
MEANINGFUL	NON-SPECIFIC	SHEER
SIGNIFICANT	SKILLED	SLENDER
UNGRATEFUL	UNINSPIRED	WEIRD

4.

For a challenge, try listening again and numbering the words above in the order you hear them.

Order here:

1. slender
2. delicate
3. imaginary
4. significant
5. foreshortened
6. dull
7. skilled
8. uninspired
9. consequential
10. meaningful
11. sheer
12. gruesome
13. non-specific
14. limited
15. appalling
16. dissonant
17. cavernous
18. chaotic
19. ungrateful
20. fixated
21. weird