YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Phase: Take off guard
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
You never know when you’re going to be taken off guard. That’s why you were caught off guard in the first place.
When it happens, you are surprised by something you weren’t prepared for or expecting. Of course, we should always try to be ready for anything at all times.
But humans, being humans, tend to allow ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of security and become complacent.
I know that when I’m driving, the split second I take my eyes off the road, or when I begin to feel overconfident, a kei truck will suddenly shoot out in front of me and immediately slow down or someone else will do something strange and catch me off guard.
That’s the way it always happens.
Luckily, I’ve never had an accident in 31 years of driving in five countries.
There’s a first time for everything, though, and that’s why I know I should always be on my guard.
Knowing and doing are two different things.
Like or follow ArtisanEnglish.jp on social media.
Take the coronavirus pandemic as another example.
We got through SARS, MERS, and the Ebola virus easily enough, so we let down our guard and became complacent.
As a result, humanity was not only ill-prepared for this pandemic but refused to acknowledge it as a genuine threat until it was almost too late.
We never know when something is going to take us off guard.
It can happen anytime on any day, and it will happen when we are least expecting it.
It’s why we should always prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and pray that it doesn’t have serious consequences when we are caught off guard.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 71.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.