[al:新概念英语（三）] [ar:MP3 同步字幕版（英音）] [ti:New Year Resolutions] [by:更多学习内容，请到chazidian.com搜索“新概念”] [00:01.45]Lesson 50 [00:03.08]New Year resolutions [00:11.09]What marked the end of the writer's New Year resolutions? [00:17.14]The New Year is a time for resolutions. [00:20.86]Mentally, at least, most of us could compile formidable lists of 'dos' and 'don'ts'. [00:27.27]The same old favourites recur year in year out with monotonous regularity. [00:33.14]We resolve to get up earlier each morning, eat less, [00:37.10]find more time to play with the children, do a thousand and one jobs about the house, [00:42.86]be nice to people we don't like, drive carefully, and take the dog for a walk every day. [00:50.19]Past experience has taught us that certain accomplishments are beyond attainment. [00:55.66]If we remain inveterate smokers, [00:58.23]it is only because we have so often experienced the frustration that results from failure. [01:03.90]Most of us fail in our efforts at sel-improvement because our schemes are too ambitious and we never have time to carry them out. [01:13.48]We also make the fundamental error of announcing our resolutions to everybody [01:18.73]so that we look even more foolish when we slip back into our bad old ways. [01:24.75]Aware of these pitfalls, this year I attempted to keep my resolutions to myself. [01:30.80]I limited myself to two modest ambitions: to do physical exercises every morning and to read more of an evening. [01:40.27]An all-night party on New Year's Eve provided me with a good excuse for not carrying out either of these new resolutions on the first day of the year, [01:50.69]but on the second, I applied myself assiduously to the task. [01:55.88]The daily exercises lasted only eleven minutes and I proposed to do them early in the morning before anyone had got up. [02:04.42]The self-discipline required to drag myself out of bed 11 minutes earlier than usual was considerable. [02:12.37]Nevertheless, I managed to creep down into the living room for two days before anyone found me out. [02:19.33]After jumping about on the carpet and twisting the human frame into uncomfortable positions, [02:25.60]I sat down at the breakfast table in an exhausted condition. [02:29.86]It was this that betrayed me. [02:32.38]The next morning the whole family trooped in to watch the performance. [02:36.73]That was really unsettling but I fended off the taunts and jibes of the family good-humouredly and soon everybody got used to the idea. [02:46.26]However, my enthusiasm waned. [02:49.80]The time I spent at exercises gradually diminished. [02:53.87]Little by little the eleven minutes fell to zero. [02:58.72]By January 10th, I was back to where I had started from. [03:03.21]I argued that if I spent less time exhausting myself at exercises in the morning, [03:08.51]I would keep my mind fresh for reading when I got home from work. [03:12.92]Resisting the hypnotizing effect of television, [03:16.39]I sat in my room for a few evenings with my eyes glued to a book. [03:21.35]One night, however, feeling cold and lonely, I went downstairs and sat in front of the television pretending to read. [03:29.76]That proved to be my undoing, for I soon got back to my old bad habit of dozing off in front of the screen. [03:37.41]I still haven't given up my resolution to do more reading. [03:40.96]In fact, I have just bought a book entitled How to Read a Thousand Words a Minute. [03:47.22]Perhaps it will solve my problem, but I just haven't had time to read it!