What are problems in trying to achieve balance life? Solution

ĐỀ 8/3/2012

What are problems in trying to achieve balance life? Solution 

- Make great sacrifices

- Unstable Economic foundation

- Pressure from the boss

- Lose their identity- work becomes the national obsession

Solution

- List priorities

- Boss reduces their demand

- Social fixed scheme in leisure time

Hurry sickness is a modern disease as claimed by experts. There are people trying out there to avoid it and redress the balance in their life while others enjoy the so-called imbalance, believing it as a natural trend. My essay will shed light on the problems people are suffering in an effort to create a balanced life and solutions suggested.

Numerous troubles are listed in an attempt to fight for our balance of life. To some, to become balanced is to make sacrifices. Being obsessed with their work for years and dreaming of promotional opportunities, people are hardly able to give up their jobs for a while to enjoy leisure time while women who are labeled themselves as inborn housewives feel stressed with house-chores and desire to be outdoor or take outside jobs. The clear picture is that as a result of concentrating on a target for long, it would be a struggle for them to re-arrange their time-tables. Others, for sake of economic pursuit, see themselves in the same rut when if they stop working, they are haunted with the idea that who is going to take care of themselves in the rainy days? Particularly, with couples craving for children’s best education in the future and secure retirement years, their need for work is endless, which, again, drives them out of the balance scale. To make the matter worse, only after the invention of the Internet has become established have people suck in an endless rat race with deadlines calling and productivity forced to be heightened at all cost by bosses who ought to put pressure on their employees; otherwise, the cut-throat competition may dive them down first. Socially speaking, work now turns into a badge for people in any community, by dint of which their ability and personality are conventionally measured. According to the world’s report, since the early twenty century, despite the struggles for fewer working hours, the sad truth is that the amount of working has been on a non-stop rise till the alarming point. Looking at this scenario, we can fathom how hard people find in the endeavor to achieve the balance of their life.

Much as difficult the situation proves to be, there are solutions suggested. Personally speaking, it is time for each person to redefine his goal of life, instead of following the herd voice and mistaking their goal for his. By taking part in a club with people of the same interest such as playing golf, listening to music and others, perhaps, people can again find their balance, staying away from the workaholics and figure their inner voice. Several others opt for the involvement in so-called meditation classes to contemplate in the mental world where they belong to, after which no sooner have they feel relaxed than their balance is set. Another step forward, namely for youngsters, is that they should know that instead of working always, there are equally important needs such as their families, friendship and hobby. Only by integrating such activities into their life schedule are they able to begin what the value of a balanced life is. But individual efforts are rarely sufficient, especially when the society still pushes people to the imbalance by imposing high productivity and demands. To tackle this problem, I strongly believe that governments should take actions to propose a fix scheme on the number of leisure of hours for workers to avoid the escalating requirements of greedy bosses and raise drastic punishments against any boss who violates to protect the right of every worker. After all, they have the right to have a balanced life and are not supposed to live in the dream of bosses only. In some nations, positively, that each citizen is recently entitled to have the entire Saturday, Sunday and at least 40 hours off is a must.

-         Redress /ri’dres/ (v)(n) sửa lại, uốn nắn (sai lầm, tật xấu…)

-         House-chores (n) công việc lặt vặt trong nhà

-         Rut (n) vết lún, vết đường mòn, rãnh

-         Pursue (v) – (n) pursuit

-         Haunt (n) nơi hay lui tới (v) hay lui tới / ám ảnh = obsess

-         Crave/ long / thirst / aspire (v) + for sth :  khao khát – (adj) eager/ avid +for

-         Cut-throat competition (n) cuộc cạnh tranh gay gắt, kịch liệt

-         Meditation (n) sự suy ngẫm, sự trầm tư mặc tưởng

-         Scheme /ski:m/ (n) kế hoạch, sự sắp xếp theo hệ thống

-         Greedy /gri:di/ (adj) tham lam = voracious = rapacious = avaricious

(n) thói tham lam : greed = rapacity / rapaciousness = cupidity

The quality of life in big cities decreases. Causes and solutions ??

ĐỀ 11/5/13

What are causes and solutions to the picture that big cities are witnessing a decrease in the quality of life?

Causes

- environment pollution

-traffic congestion

-technology

-materialistic and career gain

Solutions

-take a rest, slow down lives

-let technology be controlled by us

-bring freshness and nature back to cities

-redefine the goal of life

The quality of life in big cities deteriorates significantly as some claim. Environmental pollution is believed a culprit of demeaning the quality of life while education concern is seen as a contributor. My essay will elaborate on causes and solutions to this trend.

There are several reasons for this bleak situation in big cities. With traffic escalating everyday and populating booming, especially in promising big cities, people suffer respiration-related diseases. In addition, since materialistic and career-oriented mindsets become established in city dwellers, they are soon thrown into a ceaseless rat-race and end up in deep exhaustion. That is why big cities have witnessed a number of people growing nerdy and deciding to then recluse themselves away from real-life. Technology, also, plays a significant role in diminishing the value of life in big cities. Children in cities whose parents are busy their career feel often abandoned, possibly involve themselves in social evils or bury in the virtual world. Here, they find themselves attached to the screen of computers, surfing the unreal world, being confused amidst a mesh of unfiltered information and growing addicted to games online. The results of all of these are that people become more distant from real-life, aggressive, less physically strong and shallower.

Solutions are various. One step forward is to slow down people away from the so-called disease hurry sickness. Stop themselves for a moment to ask what the meaning of life is,

what their short-term or longer-term goalsare and the like. It is time that governments set a limit on the non-stop flock of immigrants into big cities to avoid over-population which is often accompanied by an increase in unemployment and crime rate. Technology, despite its great advantages of being convenient, should hardly be seen as a master of our life. A moderate amount of time of using media like television or computers should be imposed by parents for children in big cities. To refresh the entire cities, more artificial rivers, gardens, nest of birds and spacious areas for walking are strongly recommended to be constructed to attach people here to nature, settle their mind at peace after crazy hours at world and bring people together to socialize. In other words, let's bring life back to big cities where should be barely battle fields of only money, power and mundane desires.

-         Traffic congestion (n) tắc nghẽn giao thông

-         Materialistic (adj) duy vật, thiên về vật chất

-         Redefine (v) thay đổi, đánh giá lại, xác định lại

-         Demean (v) hạ giá trị, làm mất phẩm giá = deteriorate = diminish

-         Elaborate (v) nói thêm chi tiết (adj) tỉ mỉ, công phu, phức tạp

-         Bleak /bli:k/ (adj): trống trải, lạnh lẽo, hoang vắng, ảm đảm = gloomy

-         Recluse (adj) sống ẩn dật, xa lánh xã hội (n) người sống ẩn dật

-         Rat-race (n) cuộc đấu tranh sinh tồn khốc liệt

-         Nerdy (adj) mọt sách

-         Bury + in (v) vùi đầu vào

-         Mesh (n) mắc lưới, (pl) cạm bẫy, mạng lưới  (v) đưa vào cạm bẫy

-         Artificial (adj) nhân tạo

-         Spacious (adj) rộng lớn, rộng rãi

People are not paying attention to environmental protection. Causes and solutions ??

ĐỀ 16/4/2011

People are not paying attention to environmental protection. Give causes and solutions.

Causes :

-         Governments : lack of effort and law enforcement

-         Objective reasons : economic imbalance between nations

Solutions:

-         Governments : prohibition of natural exploitation, discouragement of private transportation, establishment of international treaties.

-         Citizens: awareness of environment protection through educational programs

-         Children : inculcating with consequences of environmental damage

Environment is calling our name worldwide, especially with the frequent occurance of natural disasters from tsunami to earthquakes. That is the acknowledged threat to the survival of humankind, but the truth remains that people seem to be busy with something else, rather than the mission of salvaging the world before it is too late. Reasons for peole’s blatant ignorance of this fact are various, subjectively and objectively.

Governments are partly to be condemned for their lack of serious effort and radical law enforcement on environment protection. The fact is that people around the globe are still releasing a huge amount of waste, without being heavily penaltized or get away with this, perhaps by simply lobbying government or bribing some key figures in the authorities. Also, despite the fact that authorities are urging people into using environment friendly products and campaigns to keep the environment clean, ironically, they are, simultaneously, allowing businessmen to produce as many cars as possible and advertisers to spur consumerism among people. This is undeniably the catalyst for the booming of air pollution and early exhaustion of natural resources.

Objectively, economic imbalance between nations is another culprit of people’s little attention to save the environment. While some nations pass their economic heights, being willing to voice their protests against any action dirtying the environment, others are too hectic with the prodding call of poverty and illiteracy of citizens and find themselves at variance with priorities of developed world. In this case, any attempt to slow down the development of the latter proves paradoxical, and for that reason, our environment stays fully exploited. The painful truth is that the inherent basic instinct of people, after all, is to feed themselves as much as possible, before thinking of preserving their environment.

Solutions to this head-aching issue are suggested.Drastic measures implemented by governments to minimize pollution are the prohibition of natural exploitation above the limit, discouragement of private means of transportation, and establishment of international treaties, for instance, Kyoto. Nevertheless, this means no worth if each citizens, himself of herself, pays no heed. Long-term remedies, educational programs to raise people’s awareness of environment protection are strongly recommended. It would be such an effective method to inculcate in our little children the immediate consequences of environmental damage, by introducing the environment protection as the mandatory subject at school and frequently showing videos of environment hazards on TV everywhere. I strongly believe that once these threats caused environment degradations are deeply embeded in our minds, especially, children’s, our environment will soon be away from jeopardy and our world will be green again.

-         Salvage (v) cứu nguy – (n) salvaging : sự cứu vớt

-         Blatant (adj) rành rành, hiển nhiên = evident = obvious = patent

-         Subjective (adj) chủ quan > < objective (adj) khách quan

-         Condemn (v) lên án, chỉ trích

-         Penalize (v) phạt, trừng trị

-         Lobby (v) vận động hành lang

-         Bribe /braib/ (n) (v) hối lộ, đút lót

-         Ironically (adv) nực cười, mỉa mai, trớ trêu

-         Simultaneously (adv) đồng thời

-         Protest + again (v) (n) phản đối, phản kháng

-         Hectic (adj) cuồng nhiệt, sôi nổi, say sưa

-         Prod (v) thúc giục, kích động

-         Variance (n) sự không ăn khớp, sự mâu thuẫn, mối bất hòa

-         Paradoxical (adj) ngược đời, nghịch lý

-         Instinct (n) bản năng, năng khiếu

-         Drastic measures are inplemented : các biện pháp quyết liệt được thực thi

-         Heed (v) chú ý, lưu ý = notice = mind = pay attention to

-         Hazard (n) mối nguy hiểm = jeopardy = danger = peril

-         Embed in one’s mind : ghi vào trí nhớ = engrave = inculcate