第191期：procrastination

*Issue 191

今天我们来聊一个很普遍的现象——拖延症（procrastination）。

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英文释义很简单：the action of delaying or postponing something.

Wikipedia上这样解释这个词：

Procrastination (from Latin’s “procrastinare”, that translates in to: the prefix pro-, ‘forward’, and the suffix -crastinus, ’till next day’ from cras, ‘tomorrow’) is the avoidance of doing a task that needs to be accomplished. Sometimes, procrastination takes place until the “last minute” before a deadline.

学过词根的朋友应该很容易记住这个词，尽管看上去很长。表示“向前”的前缀pro，加上表示“以后、明天”的后缀crastinus，就构成了动词procrastinate.

英语中三分之一强的词汇源自拉丁语，学词根其实很有趣，也是几何级扩大英语词汇量的不二法宝。

英国作家Charles Dickens（狄更斯）有句名言：

Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!

拖延症是光阴的盗贼。抓住他！

想更深入了解拖延症的朋友可自行参考Psychology Today网站。

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/procrastination

网站上有篇文章，11 ways to overcome procrastination: easy tips to stop putting things off

拖延症之所以被称为“症”，是因为“拖延本不是症，拖的人多了，就做下了病。”(to coin a phrase of Lu Xun’s famous quote).

Procrastination is a trap that many of us fall into. In fact, according to researcher and speaker Piers Steel, 95 percent of us procrastinate to some degree.

95%的人都或多或少有拖延的毛病，剩余的5%其实就是所谓的成功人士了。