keep plugging away 坚持不懈

virtuous

which is known by the numbers to be one of the -est xxx in xxx

what makes sense at the individual level can still be very problematic when scale up to the societal level. our intuition that effort is good for its own sake regardless of what it produces, has created a work environment with perverse incentives.

workaholism

the plan backfired

the plan went awry because of the distance between what they wanted, which was fewer cobras, and what they asked for

sooner or later

as hard as that … 尽管…

to begin with, in addition to, furthermore, and lastly

impetus, extraordinary, mediocre

but there are also downsides of it …

cut out for 与…相配合

I had a little lapse of concentration 走了一下神.

It’s a coin that flips both ways.

address the elephant in the room.

with a minimum of fuss, muss and friction