【英语语言学习】学会克服遭拒绝后产生的恐惧情绪

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

We're introducing you this morning to Invisibilia. It's the name of a new NPR program that's all about the invisible forces that shape human behavior. This week's episode focuses on fear. And to give just a taste of one of Invisibilia's co-hosts, Alix Spiegel, brings us the story of a man with a debilitating¹ fear of rejection².

ALIX SPIEGEL, BYLINE³: The evolution of Jason Comley, freelance IT guy from Cambridge, Ontario, began one sad night several years ago.

JASON COMELY⁴: That Friday evening in my, you know, one- bedroom apartment trying to be busy. But really, I knew that I was avoiding things.

SPIEGEL: See, nine months earlier, Jason's wife had left him.

COMELY: She, my ex-wife, had found someone that was taller than I was, had money more money than I had and was better-looking than I was. So yeah, yeah, it was...

SPIEGEL: And since then, Jason had really withdrawn⁵ from life. He didn't go out, avoided talking to people, especially to women. And that Friday, he realized that this approach was taking a toll⁶.

COMELY: I had nowhere to go and no one to hang out with. And so I just broke down and started crying. It was just something that made me realize that I'm afraid. And then I just - I asked myself, afraid of what?

SPIEGEL: And sitting there, he says, it just suddenly hit him, why he was so afraid.

COMELY: It was rejection. I thought, I'm afraid of rejection. And so this is going to sound a little bit weird⁷, but when I realized that it was rejection, I was kind of thinking about the Spetsnaz.

SPIEGEL: The who?

COMELY: Do you know about the...

SPIEGEL: No.

COMELY: ...The Spetsnaz?

SPIEGEL: No.

The Spetsnaz, apparently⁸, are an elite⁹ Russian military unit with a really, really intense training regime.

COMELY: You know, I heard of one situation where they were locked in a room, a windowless room, with a very angry dog, and they'd only be armed with a spade. And only one person's going to get out, either the dog or the Spetsnaz.

SPIEGEL: And then a strange thought occurred to Jason - maybe he could somehow use the rigorous approach of the Spetsnaz against his fear.

COMELY: So I thought, you know, I'm going to try to apply their training methodology to this situation.

SPIEGEL: So if you're a freelance IT guy, living in a one- bedroom apartment in Cambridge, Ontario, what is the modern equivalent of being trapped in a windowless room with a rabid dog and nothing to protect you but a single, handheld spade?

COMELY: I had to get rejected at least once every single day by someone.

SPIEGEL: He started in the parking lot of his local grocery store, went up to a total stranger and asked for a ride across town.

COMELY: And he looked at me, like, and just said, I'm not going that way, buddy¹⁰. Yeah, just like - and I was like, thank you.

SPIEGEL: It felt great.

COMELY: It was like got it. I got my rejection.

SPIEGEL: Because Jason, he had totally inverted¹¹ the rules of life. He took rejection and made it something that he wanted so that he would feel good when he got it.

COMELY: It was sort of like walking on my hands or living underwater or something. It was just like a different reality. The rules of life had changed.

SPIEGEL: So he kept going - went to Wal-Mart, tried to give a flyer for his Mormon church to this woman he found in the aisles¹².

COMELY: And she looked me squarely in the eye and sort of spoke¹³ very slowly so that I would completely understand. And she just went, no.

(LAUGHTER)

SPIEGEL: Jason eventually came up with a name for this makeshift game he'd created. He called it rejection therapy. Then one day, Jason got another idea - he wrote down all of his real-life rejection attempts...

COMELY: Ask for a ride from a stranger, even if you don't need one.

SPIEGEL: ...Had them printed up...

COMELY: Before purchasing something, ask for a discount.

SPIEGEL: ...On a deck of cards.

COMELY: Ask a stranger for a breath mint.

SPIEGEL: And he began to sell those cards online, you know, to make his game more official. And slowly, rejection therapy, it became a kind of small, cult¹⁴ phenomenon with people playing all over the world.

MATT RAMIS: Hi, sir, do you have any chewing gum by any chance? No? OK.

SPIEGEL: Like this guy, a student in California named Matt Ramis.

RAMIS: Hi, excuse me, do you guys have chewing gum by any chance?

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: No, I don't, sorry.

RAMIS: All right. It's all right.

SPIEGEL: ...Or this guy, Joey Chandler from San Francisco.

JOEY CHANDLER: You want to come play golf with us tomorrow night?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: When?

CHANDLER: Tomorrow night.

MAN: I would love to. I don't know if I can.

SPIEGEL: Jason's heard from a teacher in Colorado, a massage¹⁵ therapist in Budapest, a computer programmer in Japan and even a widowed Russian grandmother. She's using rejection therapy to pick up men.

COMELY: It's really cool. So there's an 80-year-old babushka playing rejection therapy.

SPIEGEL: So what has Jason learned from all of this? That your fears, most of them anyway, aren't grounded in reality in the way that you think that they are. They're just a story that you tell yourself, and you can choose to stop repeating it. You can choose to stop listening.

COMELY: Don't even bother trying to be cool. Just get out there and get rejected. And sometimes it's going to get dirty, but that's OK because you're going to feel great after. You're going to feel like, wow, I disobeyed my fear. You know, I disobeyed fear.

Say hello to three people at the grocery store. Offer to pay for someone's order. Introduce yourself to a stranger. Make yourself look radically¹⁶ different today. Knock on a neighbor's door, request something. Ask someone out on a date. Sit beside a stranger. Strike up a conversation. Smile at every person you walk past today.

GREENE: That story came to us from Alix Spiegel. She is co-host of Invisibilia. You can hear the program on many public radio stations this weekend. The podcast is available for download at npr.org and on iTunes.

1 debilitating   

a.使衰弱的

参考例句：

• The debilitating disease made him too weak to work. 这个令他衰弱的病，使他弱到没有办法工作。
• You may soon leave one debilitating condition or relationship forever. 你即将永远地和这段霉运说拜拜了。

2 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 comely   

adj.漂亮的，合宜的

参考例句：

• His wife is a comely young woman.他的妻子是一个美丽的少妇。
• A nervous,comely-dressed little girl stepped out.一个紧张不安、衣着漂亮的小姑娘站了出来。

5 withdrawn   

vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出

参考例句：

• Our force has been withdrawn from the danger area.我们的军队已从危险地区撤出。
• All foreign troops should be withdrawn to their own countries.一切外国军队都应撤回本国去。

6 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

7 weird   

adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的

参考例句：

• From his weird behaviour,he seems a bit of an oddity.从他不寻常的行为看来，他好像有点怪。
• His weird clothes really gas me.他的怪衣裳简直笑死人。

8 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。

9 elite   

n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的

参考例句：

• The power elite inside the government is controlling foreign policy.政府内部的一群握有实权的精英控制着对外政策。
• We have a political elite in this country.我们国家有一群政治精英。

10 buddy   

n.（美口）密友，伙伴

参考例句：

• Calm down,buddy.What's the trouble?压压气，老兄。有什么麻烦吗？
• Get out of my way,buddy!别挡道了，你这家伙！

11 inverted   

adj.反向的，倒转的v.使倒置，使反转( invert的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Only direct speech should go inside inverted commas. 只有直接引语应放在引号内。
• Inverted flight is an acrobatic manoeuvre of the plane. 倒飞是飞机的一种特技动作。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 aisles   

n. (席位间的)通道, 侧廊

参考例句：

• Aisles were added to the original Saxon building in the Norman period. 在诺曼时期，原来的萨克森风格的建筑物都增添了走廊。
• They walked about the Abbey aisles, and presently sat down. 他们走到大教堂的走廊附近，并且很快就坐了下来。

13 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

14 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

15 massage   

n.按摩，揉；vt.按摩，揉，美化，奉承，篡改数据

参考例句：

• He is really quite skilled in doing massage.他的按摩技术确实不错。
• Massage helps relieve the tension in one's muscles.按摩可使僵硬的肌肉松弛。

16 radically   

ad.根本地，本质地

参考例句：

• I think we may have to rethink our policies fairly radically. 我认为我们可能要对我们的政策进行根本的反思。
• The health service must be radically reformed. 公共医疗卫生服务必须进行彻底改革。