Passage 5 When I decided to quit my full time employment it never occurred to me that I might become a part of a new international trend. A lateral move that hurt my pride and blocked my professional progress prompted me to abandon my relatively high profile career although, in the manner of a disgraced government minister, I covered my exit by claiming “I wanted to spend more time with my family".
- ACuriously, some twoandahalf years and two novels later, my experiment in what the Americans term “downshifting" has turned my tired excuse into an absolute reality. I have been transformed from a passionate advocate of the philosophy of “have it all", preached by Linda Kelsey for the past seven years in the pages of She magazine, into a woman who is happy to settle for a bit of everything.
- BI have discovered, as perhaps Kelsey will after her muchpublicized resignation from the editorship of She after a buildup of stress, that abandoning the doctrine of “juggling your life", and making the alternative move into “downshifting” brings with it far greater rewards than financial success and social status. Nothing could persuade me to return to the kind of life Kelsey used to advocate and I once enjoyed: 12-hour working days, pressured deadlines, the fearful strain of office politics and the limitations of being a parent on “quality time”.
- CIn America, the move away from juggling to a simpler, less materialistic lifestyle. is a-well-established trend. Downshifting — also known in America as “voluntary simplicity” — has, ironically, even bred a new area of what might betermed anti-consumerism. There are a number of bestselling downshifting self help books for people who want to simplify their lives; there are newsletters, such as The Tightwad Gazette, that give hundreds of thousands of Americans usefultips on anything from recycling their clingfilm to making their own soap; there are even support groups for those who want to achieve the mid'90s equivalent of dropping out.
- DFor the women of my generation who were urged to keep juggling through the '80s, downshifting in the mid'90s is not so much a search for the mythical good life — growing your own organic vegetables, and risking turning into one — as a personal recognition of your limitations.
- E第67题:Which of the following is true according to paragraph 1?
- FA Fulltime employment is a new international trend.
- GB The writer was compelled by circumstances to leave her job.
- HC “A lateral move" means stepping out of fulltime employment.
- ID The writer was only too eager to spend more time with her family.