概要写作五
It’s the start of a new year, a time to reflect on the past and start anew.
On Jan 1, people in Western countries traditionally make new year’s resolutions. A new year’s resolution is a promise to yourself to get something done – to finish a long-delayed (长时间推迟的) task, start a positive habit or repair a damaged relationship, for example.
The new year offers the chance to reinvent oneself, and resolutions make that process more concrete (具体的). They say: “I will change, and this is how I will do it.”
So at the beginning of January, gym (健身房) owners can expect their profits to go way up, seemingly out of nowhere, as people crowd around exercise machines trying to keep their weight loss resolutions. Meanwhile, bookstores and libraries see self-help books fly off the shelves after having sat there, untouched, for many months. McDonald’s and KFC – along with many different alcohol, cigarette and video game companies – might lose some money, causing their CEOs to panic.
But the sad truth is that humans are usually weak. Several months later, these trends will have already begun to reverse (逆转) themselves. People’s waistlines (腰围) will go back to where they were; their weekly calls with their mothers will stay at once a month; they’ll start smokin g again. Richard Wiseman, a famous UK psychologist, did a survey in 2008 and found that 52 percent of people who made new year’s resolutions were confident they would stick with them, but only 12 percent really did.
Then why bother?
Well, new year’s resolutions are, as UK author Samuel Johnson wrote, “a triumph (胜利) of hope over experience.” They’re a way to show what we wish for ourselves. They’re a way to make a note of what we’re not satisfied with ourselves. And, perhaps most importantly, they’re a method of erasing the errors of the past year.
As The Huffington Post put it, “new year’s resolutions are all about hopefulness.” More than anything, the new year reminds us that change is constant. If nothing stays the same, then maybe this year’s changes will be good ones – the kind that last.
Summary writing 概要写作 Please write a summary of the article in about 60 words.
参考范文：
The start of a new year is a time to reflect on the past and start anew. It offers the chance to reinvent ourselves, with New Year’s resolutions making reinventing process more concrete. Sadly, resolutions cannot always be realized because humans are weak. But let’s remember resolutions are a triumph of hope over experience; they are all about hopefulness.。