GRE作文范文 Issue-36

“Most people choose a career on the basis of such pragmatic considerations as the needs of the economy, the relative ease of finding a job, and the salary they can expect to make. Hardly anyone is free to choose a career based on his or her natural talents or interest in a particular kind of work.”

嘉文博译Sample Essay

It is an unfortunate reality of life that most people view work as a chore – something that must be done in order to put money in the bank and food on the table. Very few people are fortunate enough during their lives to have a job that they love and can actually make a living while performing it. But it would be an incorrect statement to say that people are not “free to choose” their careers based on his or her natural talents or interests. The main problem with choosing a career is that many times, regardless of their individual right to choose, people simply give up that right and surrender to the demands of family and society.

First of all, in almost every country in the world, people are free to choose what it is that they want to do for their life’s work. Mostly gone are the days of totalitarian regimes forcing children to develop a particular skill at a very young age in order to play a government mandated role in society. Although this is a providential and perhaps inevitable development, it does not mean that all individuals actually pursue a career doing what they love for a living. Indeed, it is a rare individual who loves his or her work and can therefore wholeheartedly put his or her natural skills and interest to the test in order to become successful. These people can count themselves as fortunate, although they probably believe that it is only natural to do something that you like as a career. Though the freedom to choose a career is almost always there, there are many reasons why people choose their work based primarily on pragmatic reasons.

Most of us know what we want to be when we grow up from a very young age: doctors, lawyers, truck drivers or firefighters are common examples. The problem is that as we mature, we lose the clear-headed thinking that is natural for children. Somewhere along the way between childhood and adulthood, we lose the ability to follow our dreams and instead base our choice of career on how much money we can make or maybe simply on what jobs are available in the place that we choose to live. There is a “short-circuit” somewhere between what we always wanted to be as children and what we actually become when we grow up. Perhaps it is because as we mature, we believe that our childhood dreams were somehow foolish and that we never could have become a world famous singer or movie star anyway. Whatever the reason, it is a sad fact of life that somewhere along the way, most of us give in to society’s demands and leave our youthful fantasies to some forgotten place in our minds.

Usually, what an individual’s choice of career comes down to is that the person follows the path of least resistance rather than pursuing something that they possibly believe is an unreachable goal. Perhaps the person falls in love early on, or simply gets tired of going to school and goes to work in a factory, always believing that someday he or she will somehow “make it” to a better station in life. Years pass by before the person realizes that, while working to support the family, pay the mortgage and buy the latest cars and clothes, the opportunity to fulfill those childhood dreams has forever passed them by. Truly fortunate are those who, for whatever reason, have the tenacity to go after what they want and do whatever it takes to make those childhood dreams become reality rather than simply going to work to pay the bills.

(672 words)

参考译文

大多数人在选择职业时基于实用的考虑，例如经济的需要，找工作相对容易，以及他们希望得到的工资报酬等。很少有人因为他/她的天赋或对某工作的兴趣而自由选择职业。

大多数人把工作看成是不得不做的一件事——为了挣钱存在银行里以及挣到餐桌上的食物，这是生活中不幸的现实。很少有人一生中非常幸运，能够去从事他们爱干的工作，而且是干工作本身就可以谋生。但是，说人们不能根据他们的天赋或兴趣“自由地选择”他们的职业，这是不正确的。选择职业的主要问题是，在许多情况下，人们尽管拥有个人选择的权利，但是他们不得不屈服于家庭和社会的需要而放弃他们的权利。

首先，在世界上几乎任何国家，人们都有自由选择他们想做的事情作为其毕生职业的权利。极权主义政权强迫儿童在很小的年龄培养某一技能以便完成政府授予的任务，这种日子已是在很大程度上一去不复返了。尽管这是不以人们的意志而转移的，或许是必然的进步，但是这并不意味着每个人实际上都可以选择一个他们所喜爱的职业并以此谋生。的确，很少有人热爱他/她的工作而且因此全身心地把自已的才能和兴趣投入到工作中去以便获得成功。这样的人可算是幸运之人，虽然他们可能认为做你喜欢的工作是很自然的。诚然，选择职业的自由是永远存在的，然而有许多理由说明为什么人们依照实用的原因选择工作。

我们大多数人在成长过程中知道我们想成为什么样的人。医生、律师、卡车司机、或者救火队员等等。问题是在我们成熟时，我们失去了儿童时拥有的头脑清晰的思维。在我们从童年到成年这一过程的某个时期，我们失去追寻梦想的能力，取而代之的是根据挣钱多少或在我们居住的地区能找到什么工作来选择职业。我们童年时想做什么和成年后实际做什么，两者之间在某阶段出现了“短路”。或许是因为，当我们成熟时我们相信童年的梦幻有点傻或者认为我们不会成为举世闻名的歌星或影星。无论何种原因，我们大多数人在成长过程的某个阶段不得不屈服于社会的需要，把我们年轻时的梦幻扔到我们脑海的忘却地带，这是生活的悲惨事实。

通常，在一个人职业选择中所发生的情形是，他要沿着阻力最小的路走，而不是去追求他们认为可能达不到的目标。或许一个人很早就恋爱了，或者懒于上学了，因而就到一家工厂工作了，同时憧憬着有朝一日“发了迹”过上较好的生活。许多年过去了他才认识到，因为要养家糊口、偿还抵押贷款、购买新款汽车和衣服，所以实现童年梦想的机会一个接一个擦身而过。有些人确实是幸运的，这些人不管发生什么事情都锲而不舍地追求他们的愿望并且不辞辛劳以使童年的梦想变成现实，而不是为了支付账单去奔波工作。