Reader question:

Please explain “meet the moment” in this sentence: I’ll resign because I know I’m unable to meet the moment.

My comments:

Here, the speaker acknowledges failure to do his or her job.

They admit that they have been unable to meet the moment, which really means the expectations and the challenges of the moment, the big moment or occasion

Literally, to meet the moment is to be present and to be in control – and, hopefully, to be able to rise to the occasion.

Rise to the occasion?

That’s another useful phrase to learn. To rise to the occasion is to be able to rise above and handle the occasion, i.e. the big occasion, when something big, difficult and challenging happens. If you’re timid and fearful, if you’re unable do what’s necessary to come out of the situation on the winning end, you fail to rise to the occasion. On the other hand, if you are not afraid of the moment and if you have the ability to meet the challenge and pass the test of the moment with flying colors, so to speak, you’ll have risen to the occasion.

You’ll be the man (or woman), in other words.

In our example, the speaker fails to do that. They’re unable to make the special effort to successfully handle the big job handed to them.

They failed to rise to the occasion.

In other words, the moment or occasion proves too big for them. By that I mean the difficulties prove to be too overwhelming for them to overcome.

All right?

All right, let’s read a few media examples of “meeting the moment” for context:

1. One of my favorite phrases is “meeting the moment.”

Do you know what it is?

Have you ever had the experience of meeting the moment?

…

Being present and meeting the moment are not the same thing.

Being present is where you are when you are not living from your head. But then what?

There are no rules.

There is no one telling you what is important and what matters.

You are the custodian of the moment.

You are the steward of hearts, souls, and spirits.

There is no one to delegate to.

Being present puts you in cosmic space. It puts you in the place of potential.

Meeting the moment is what you decide to do with it.

One of the nice things about meeting the moment is that you realize that there is no one to clean up after you.

You are it.

When you are present and meeting the moment you do not have the same priorities that you might otherwise.

You are a custodian of the human spirit, of the well-being of all around you. Your agenda is not to maintain the status quo.

You have the opportunity to opt for healing choices because when you meet the moment you leave temporal considerations and have the ability to make different types of decisions.

- Meeting The Moment, by Maria Hill, SensitiveEvolution.com, March 28, 2022.

2. For over 30 years, “Reliable Sources” has covered the role the press plays in societies around the world. In the show’s final episode Sunday, host and CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter noted how journalists today are increasingly under attack – a worrying trend that poses a real threat to democracy.

And it’s a story every media organization needs to be focused on, veteran journalist and author Carl Bernstein said, noting that the “pendulum is swinging against democracy all over the world.”

That is happening in Western Europe and in former communist countries to the east, Bernstein said, but there’s also a clear decline of democratic ideals at the state and local levels around the globe.

“The number of countries in the past 10 years that have gone from democracy to authoritarianism is increasingly rapid,” Bernstein said. “We need to cover it, even if it’s not sexy.”

Jodie Ginsberg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists, noted how vital a free press is to democracy. Over the past 20 years, that role is coming under threat with increased political polarization and the spread of authoritarianism worldwide.

“They’re also increasing their verbal attacks on the press,” Ginsberg said of the anti-democratic forces taking root around the world. “They’re discrediting of the press, because in discrediting the press that enables them to avoid scrutiny.”

Authoritarians know they need to convince people that the press is the enemy to stay in power, The Atlantic Editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg said.

“The important thing is not to be fooled,” he cautioned.

To keep democracy thriving, Goldberg said journalists need to report the truth plainly and fearlessly, and do a better job explaining the role the industry plays to outsiders.

The framers of the US Constitution, “the leading avatars of democracy 200 years ago, talked about the indispensability of a free press,” Goldberg said. “And we need to educate people about the indispensability of what we do to make democracy work.”

But Stelter questioned if the media today is meeting the moment and shining a bright enough light on the current threats to democratic ideals.

- ‘Reliable Sources’: Why defending the press is essential to defending democracy, CNN.com, August 21, 2022.

3. He hailed it as dawn of the Liberal “meet the moment” era, an eye-rolling slogan of unclear meaning introduced by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau last week as his party’s challenge for the parliamentary year ahead.

While sitting in an overcrowded hospital waiting room Monday waiting for a preventative checkup, I watched the year’s first question period on overhead monitors. I wanted to see if this government was indeed refreshing itself to confront a daunting list of issues, clearly topped by our ailing health-care system.

But that moment passed as our health and Canada’s underperforming care failed to rate even a mention from the Official Opposition leader or his parliamentary parrots.

The patients in the module with me were left looking at their watches to see how late their oncologist appointments were running. Meanwhile the funding fix for another generation faced zero parliamentary pressure beyond an NDP attack on the private delivery of publicly funded care.

Beyond not meeting the health-care moment, Trudeau went on to use his first 2023 parliamentary appearance to serve up hefty helpings of cold rehash, a veritable Groundhog Day buffet of bland and babbled repetition.

The moment to meet spending restraint is clearly upon us, what with recessionary warnings from the Bank of Canada governor and spending alarms from a former governor as the deficit-driven national debt balloons to $1.1 trillion amid uncertain revenue. But Trudeau’s response was to pledge his vague willingness to spend whatever it takes to continue coddling Canadians.

...

Based on Trudeau’s first-day fail in the House of Commons, “meeting the moment” is destined to become the most laughable slogan since the elder Pierre Trudeau’s disastrous campaign rallying cry in 1972, which insisted “the land is strong” just as the economy tanked.

So far, Trudeau has meekly met his big moments with a duck, a dodge and selective deafness.

That’s the bottom line.

- Trudeau meets the moment – and ducks for cover, CTVNews.ca, February 1, 2023.

本文僅代表作者本人觀點，與本網(wǎng)立場無關。歡迎大家討論學術問題，尊重他人，禁止人身攻擊和發(fā)布一切違反國家現(xiàn)行法律法規(guī)的內(nèi)容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：張欣   編輯：丹妮）