Learn English with the News – Making Difficult Decisions Makes You Happier

Researchers have found that making difficult decisions, even if you didn’t spend time reflecting on it, can make you happier in the long term. Our Learn English with the News segment today focuses on a study all about making difficult decisions. Do the accompanying exercises below.

The news is a consistent source of entertainment, knowledge and discovery that never ceases to exist and always comes out with more and more material each day. Because it plays such a vital part in our lives and is so important to keep up with, it is without a doubt a piece of your everyday routine that can’t go ignored.

Whether it is to understand the ramifications of recent legislation passed, to hear about recent events and grasp the potential consequences to your country, or simply hear about what is happening in other countries in order to compare them to what’s happening in yours, the news is certainly a staple in our lives and the most consistent way to get information.

This is why Scrambled Eggs has decided to unite two of your biggest worlds: learning English and keeping up with what is happening in the world. We hope our challenging daily exercises, composed of listening, vocabulary and comprehension exercises in English, will satisfy both of those above worlds in a satisfactory and also entertaining way.

So enough about introductions, let’s get to today’s Learn English with the News topic:

Now that you’ve had a listen, let’s put your knowledge to the test with some of our vocabulary and comprehension exercises:

Full Text:

Facing a difficult life decision? Go against the status quo — you’ll be happier in the long run. That’s the conclusion reached by economist Steven Levitt in a study that was published Monday in “The Review of Economic Studies.” Levitt said that society teaches us that quitters never win and winners never quit, but in reality the data from his experiment suggests we would all be better off if we did more quitting. To run the experiment, Levitt created a website where volunteers were invited to choose major life decisions they were pondering such as “Should I quit my job?” “Should I propose?” or “Should I adopt?” But instead of following the typical paths of reaching big decisions — talking to friends and family, listing to the pros and cons, losing sleep — users would simply flip a virtual coin to get their answer. Those who followed the decision were then sent two surveys following these decisions — one two months later and one six months later. The short-term survey found that participants favored maintaining the status quo, i.e. not making whatever change in their life. But after six months, that changed — most people wished they had switched things up. For participants who were instructed by the coin toss to make a change, particularly for big decisions like getting a divorce or quitting a job, they reported being happier both two months and six months later, and that they would have made the same decision again. So go ahead – take the risk. Or flip the coin and let fate decide for you.

And that’s it for today’s English lesson, where you can improve your English with the news and current events. Do you have any comments or special requests for us for the next edition of Learn English with the News? Be sure to leave any feedback you have in the comments section below, as we would love to help you on your quest to learn the English language!

For other Learn English with the News segments, be sure to check out the rest of our posts:

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