Your English Five a Day #46.1

E372: 🎙️ Welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast, your go-to resource for enhancing your English listening skills and expanding your active vocabulary. I'm Anna, and you're listening to Week 46, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day.

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🌟 Today we’ll start off by exploring the nouns "abundance" and "hedonic treadmill". Then, we'll delve into the adjective "default" and the verb "strive". Last but not least, we'll take a look at the verb "fade".

After some quick pronunciation practice and a recap to test your memory, we visit Carrie in today's story, who is keen to find out why people in wealthy societies aren’t necessarily happier, despite having an abundance of possessions. She learns about the hedonic treadmill and reflects on her own life, realising the importance of relationships over striving for material success.

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Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast. My name is Anna and you're listening to Week 46, Day 1 of Your English Five a Day. This is your healthy daily dose of English. We are expanding your vocabulary, improving your listening skills, and hopefully keeping you company while you're doing whatever it is you are currently doing. So, let's start today's episode with the noun abundance, abundance. We spell this A B U N D A N C E, abundance, abundance. Abundance describes a large quantity that is more than enough. If you have abundance in your life, then you have more than enough. And it usually describes things in a positive way. Though you could say,"I have bad news in abundance." There, it wouldn't be very positive. But generally, when people talk about abundance, they're normally talking about positive things. Here's an example sentence,"The garden was filled with an abundance of colourful flowers, attracting butterflies and bees throughout the summer." Hopefully, this podcast provides you with an abundance of resource, an abundance of learning material, an abundance of vocabulary and new phrases for you to sink your teeth into on a regular basis. In the ELAN Community, we try very hard to provide an abundance of opportunity for people to take part in speaking activities, writing, reading, and listening activities. Abundance is what ELAN is all about, as much as we can possibly offer. Okay, moving on. Next, we have a noun, and it is hedonic treadmill. Hedonic treadmill. This is an interesting one. Let me spell it for you. Hedonic, H E D O N I C, hedonic. Hedonic treadmill, T R E A D M I L L, hedonic treadmill, hedonic treadmill it's like a psychology and it describes a tendency of a person to quickly return to a stable level of happiness despite big events happening in life. So let me give you an example. Imagine you win the lottery. You are going to be extremely excited, happy. You're going to experience these big emotions. This is a big, life-changing event. However, the hedonic treadmill means that you will soon return to your normal baseline of happiness, regardless of that win. So it suggests that we all have a baseline of happiness. If you're generally a happy person, then you have a higher level of happiness. If you are generally a miserable person, a doom and gloom person, what I would call an Eeyore. Eeyore is the donkey character in The Winnie the Pooh series, and he's always quite miserable, quite low. He suffers with sad, just like me. Your hedonic treadmill will bring you back to that baseline regardless of what events happen in your life: big, happy, very sad events, whatever it is, you will experience it, then return to your baseline of happiness. Here's another example,"No matter how much we gain in terms of wealth and success, we often find ourselves back on the hedonic treadmill, seeking the next source of pleasure." Now I can certainly relate to that. I've always been this person who chases success. I'm always looking to achieve something. It's like I'm never satisfied with my achievements. I started a YouTube channel decades ago or a decade ago. I started a YouTube channel and it started getting views and I got a thousand subscribers. What an achievement! But that wasn't enough. I wanted more. So I took my channel to a hundred thousand subscribers. That wasn't enough. I started another YouTube channel. I got that one to a hundred thousand subscribers. That wasn't enough. I needed more. So I opened more YouTube channels. Then I get my channel to a million subscribers. That's not enough. I need a successful Instagram account. I need a Facebook page. I need a TikTok. I need a successful podcast. I need more, more, more. I need to get a degree. I need to get a first-class degree. I need to get a Master's degree. I need to appear on a West End stage. I need to sing on a cruise ship. I need to do all these things. I'm always chasing achievement. And no matter what I achieve, for a short time I think,"Woohoo!" But then I very quickly come back to this baseline of want and need and desire to do more. That's my hedonic treadmill. Next on the list is the adjective default, default. Let me just spell it for you, D E F A U L T. As an adjective, default refers to a situation that exists or happens unless someone or something changes it. So the basic baseline situation. For example, my basic clothing choice each day is comfort. So unless something special is happening. Maybe I'm going to play squash in which case I need my sportswear, or I may be going walking in the mud and the rain, in which case I need my raincoats, some thick trousers and my walking boots. Or maybe I'm filming, in which case I want to look good for you guys, so I put on my best outfits. But usually, I'm a lady of comfort. I am just quite happy wearing baggy jeans. They're usually ripped at the knee because no matter what kind of jeans I buy, they always rip at the knee. So I've got baggy, ripped jeans. I like to wear layers, so I normally wear a vest and then a jumper. And I normally have a headband on to just pull my hair out of my face because I'm not high maintenance. I'm just about function and comfort. So am I warm? Am I comfortable? Are my jeans practical? Do I feel good in what I'm wearing? I don't look good, but I feel good. So that's my default outfit. My default outfit is baggy jeans and a baggy jumper unless something important is happening. That means I have to change that. What's your default outfit? Here's another example of default,"His default response to criticism is to stay silent and reflect before speaking." Okay, next on the list is a verb and it is strive, strive. To strive for something. We spell this S T R I V E. To strive for something is to try very hard to do something or to make something happen, especially if you're doing it for a long time or against difficulties. For example, I am striving to build a world-class English learning resource. I'm striving to create a world-class English learning podcast enjoyed by millions of people around the world, helping you to all improve your English on a daily basis. That is what I am striving to do. I've already been doing it for, how long now? A year and a half? Or is it... it can't be two years. It must be coming up to two years. I've been doing it for a long time. It's not been easy, this takes a lot of time, a lot of money to create, and yet, here I am, still pushing away every day, striving to make it happen. What have you been striving to achieve, striving to do? Here's another example,"The university strives to promote environmental responsibility." Next on the list is the verb fade, fade. We spell this F A D E, fade, fade. To fade means to disappear gradually, very, very slowly. You could, if you're editing, you probably see this when you're watching television programmes or YouTube videos. You'll see one scene, one clip, fade into another clip. So one clip slowly disappears while another clip slowly emerges. That's a fade or a crossfade, that's actually called that transition from one clip to another. If you are looking after somebody who's quite old and fragile, unfortunately, in many cases, you have to witness them slowly fading away. They become less and less like themselves. That person who was once vibrant and energetic is slowly disappearing. It's very sad. Here's another example,"The flowers in the garden fade quickly once autumn arrives." Okay, so that's our five. Let's do a quick recap. We started with the noun abundance, which describes a large quantity that is more than enough. We then went on to the noun hedonic treadmill, which is that tendency to return to a baseline of happiness or stable level of happiness despite big events in your life, whether they're positive or negative. We have the adjective default, which is a situation that exists or happens unless something or someone actually changes it. Then we had the verb strive, which is to work very hard to do something or make something happen, usually over a long period or against opposition. And then we had the verb fade, which is to disappear gradually. Now it's time for pronunciation practice. So please repeat after me. Abundance. Abundance. Hedonic treadmill. Hedonic treadmill. Default. Default. Strive. Strive. Fade. Fade. Fantastic. Okay, let me quickly test your memory now. If I am enjoying food in large quantities, there's more than enough food here. What noun could I use? What noun could I say that I have when it comes to food? I have an abundance of food. Absolutely. And if I'm describing the situation that usually exists unless something specific changes it. What would I use to describe that situation? What adjective describes that usual situation? In my example, I was talking about my clothing, my outfit. Default. Yes, my default outfit being jeans and a jumper. Now, if I want to talk about the idea that people have this same level of happiness that they always come back to, regardless of these huge life changing events, what would I be talking about? What's the noun? The hedonic treadmill. Yes, very good. Now, if I'm working really hard to try and do something, and I've been doing it for a long time, what verb could you use? I am striving. Absolutely. We are all striving to improve, aren't we? That's what this podcast is all about. Self-improvement, self-development. And finally, if something disappears gradually, what verb would we use here? Fade. Very good. Okay. Listen out for these items once again during today's storytime. Carrie was working on an article for a magazine about happiness in the modern world. Despite an abundance of possessions, experiences and opportunities in rich countries, people weren't necessarily happier than they were earlier in their lives. She wanted to understand why. So she spoke to some researchers in psychology. In fact, she spoke to happiness researchers yes, they really exist! Carrie discovered a key concept that explains why more money or nicer stuff, doesn't necessarily lead to lasting happiness the hedonic treadmill. The researchers explained it to her like this. Let's say you get a new car. At first, you're excited and you enjoy that new car smell. But the excitement fades, sometimes quite quickly. It's the same with any positive change; getting married, getting a new job, buying a bigger house. No matter the improvement, your happiness goes back down to its default level. But people don't know they're on the hedonic treadmill. That's why Carrie was so excited to share the concept with the general public. She was on the treadmill herself. Like many people do, she had strived hard to become a journalist, so she could have more money to live in a nice apartment with nice things. But was she really any happier than when she was a student, sharing a small apartment with friends? Although now she had a big place all to herself, back then she was less lonely. That was something else the researchers had told her relationships are key to happiness, no matter how much money you have. As Carrie reflected on her life, she sat down to write her article, excited to share her findings with a wide audience. She wrote the opening line: You're constantly striving for more, yet never feeling any happier you're on the hedonic treadmill and it's time to get off. And that brings us to the end of today's episode. I do hope you found it useful. Remember you can get even more resource and support for your English within the ELAN Community as a Club Member. So do consider joining the community. I'll leave a link in the show notes. Until tomorrow, take very good care, and goodbye.