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Footprint of Our Adnascent Years
镌刻成长的印记
Life is tough, whether we want it to be or not. What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal, so when the rains fall and the winds blow, we won’t be swept asunder.
不管我们愿不愿意，生活总是艰难的。我们需要做的是祈祷深植我们的信念之根，这样，当面对风吹雨打时，我们就不会被伤害。
We誶e Just Beginning
从零开始
Charles F. Kattering
“We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite...”
I do not know who wrote these words, but I have always liked them as a reminder that the future can be anything we want to make it. We can take the mysterious, hazy future and carve out of it anything that we can imagine, just as a sculptor carves a statue from a shapeless stone.
We are all in the position of the farmer. If we plant a good seed, we reap a good harvest. If our seed is poor and full of weeds, we reap a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all, we harvest nothing at all.
I want the future to be better than the past. I don’t want it contaminated by the mistakes and errors with which history is filled. We should all be concerned about the future because that is where we will spend the remainder of our lives.
The past is gone and static. Nothing we can do will change it. The future is before us and dynamic. Everything we do will affect it. Each day brings with it new frontiers, in our homes and in our businesses, if we will only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.
What I Have Lived for
我为什么而活
Bertrand Russell
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life： the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I can’t, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
Kobe Bryant誷 Growing Road
科比·布莱恩特的成长之路
Jr. Wall
Kobe Bryant first started turning heads on the basketball court when he was in middle school. His talents dominated the game so much that high schools from all over the Philadelphia area watched him grow up. The almost six—foot tall seventh grader definitely had the make—up and genes for the game, as his dad was former NBA forward, Joe Bryant. Kobe developed his basketball skills under the watchful eye of his father, helping his mission to become a professional basketball player. He worked daily on his game, watching video, playing in the playgrounds and listening to his father. When he entered high school at Lower Marion in Philadelphia, Kobe was a highly touted recruit. He proved that he had the skills and work ethic to be a star at the next level and the scouts noticed this. Kobe didn’t let anybody down either, as he played on the varsity basketball team his freshman year. He wouldn’t immediately be a superstar, though. Rather it was the countless hours of early morning workouts by himself in the gymnasium that escalated Kobe’s talents.
Kobe became a better player every year he played at Lower Marion and soon enough, he had developed into one of the premier talents at the high school level. He sold out the games everywhere he played during his junior and senior years and he didn’t disappoint anyone. He once packed the school gym so much that it caused a traffic jam on the main highway just outside the school.
He went on to finish his high school career as the all—time leading point scorer in Pennsylvania history with a total of 2,883 points. Kobe’s highly decorated high school career made him the 13th overall choice by the Charlotte Hornets in the 1996NBA draft.
The Road Not Taken
未选择的路
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day！
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence：
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Flying Youth
转眼青春的散场
Doris
“Youth” seems to be fading away in my life, only leaving me some unforgettable and cherished memories. Something that we used to think would last forever in our lives, had actually vanished in a second before we realized it. Those who we used to deeply love or miss, have now become the most acquainted strangers. Our once pure and beautiful dream, is gradually fading away with time passing by... This is youth, which is indeed an endless cycle from familiarity to strangeness, and from strangeness to familiarity, until the curtain of our youth is closing off little by little, along with our childish fantasies.
Human is such a strange animal that when we mostly did not cherish something until we lost it. We have gained a lot of things, but also lost a lot. What we want is merely getting the peace of mind. We care for children because they are the most pure—minded and kind—hearted among human beings. We are fond of staying with the old, because we can sense their inner peace from their serene faces. Maybe for them, the essence of life is to live it in the most comfortable way they deem. We may also love cats because their relaxation renders us a substantive sense of life.
There are many things in our lives that are easily gone or broken. Therefore, we will gradually learn to become apathetic and indifferent towards everything. Maybe oftentimes, we are inclined to believe in ourselves rather than trust and rely on others, because in our lives, nothing will stay with us eternally and all will be gone one day eventually. Sometimes it is not the world that abandons us, but we who abandon the world. It can be evidenced by the fact that we have learnt to deny something habitually and therefore lost a lot of things. More often than not, we would believe that it is life that hurts us rather than believe that it is our personality flaw that hurts ourselves.
We are in strenuous effort in changing our fate, bringing more happiness to people around us, realizing our dreams and reaching the love we are anticipating. However, we soon realize it is by no means easy to achieve any of them. It is a lifelong commitment and many things would alter with time and no one can guarantee eternity. Hence, silence becomes the best solution to all difficulties and hardships. Since we cannot make a for—sure promise, why do we still bother to boast too much about it? We still need to get down to our business with our own effort.
The flying youth has deposited too many things in our heart. Life should be treated with special care like an egg in your hands. We should treasure every moment of sincerity and gratefulness because the best things will be gone very easily. Try to forgive every lie simply because everyone has ever lied sometime. If you do not want to have tearing eyes, then just try to smile and hold a positive attitude towards your life every day！
The Boy Under the Tree
树下的男孩
David Coleman & Kevin Randall
In the summer recess between freshman and sophomore years in college, I was invited to be an instructor at a high school leadership camp hosted by a college in Michigan. I was already highly involved in most campus activities, and I jumped at the opportunity.
About an hour into the first day of camp, amid the frenzy of icebreakers and forced interactions, I first noticed the boy under the tree. He was small and skinny, and his obvious discomfort and shyness made him appear frail and fragile. Only fifty feet away, two hundred eager campers were bumping bodies, playing, joking and meeting each other, but the boy under the tree seemed to want to be anywhere other than where he was. The desperate loneliness he radiated almost stopped me from approaching him, but I remembered the instructions from the senior staff to stay alert for campers who might feel left out.
As I walked toward him, I said, “I, my name is Kevin, and I’m one of the counselors. It’s nice to meet you. How are you?” In a shaky, sheepish voice he reluctantly answered, “Okay, I guess.” I calmly asked him if he wanted to join the activities and meet some new people. He quietly replied, “No, this is not really my thing.”
I could sense that he was in a new world, that this whole experience was foreign to him. But I somehow knew it wouldn’t be right to push him, either. He didn’t need a pep talk; he needed a friend. After several silent moments, my first interaction with the boy under the tree was over.
At lunch the next day, I found myself leading camp songs at the top of my lungs for two hundred of my new friends. The campers eagerly participated. My gaze wandered over the mass of noise and movement and was caught by the image of the boy from under the tree, sitting alone, staring out the window. I nearly forgot the words to the song I was supposed to be leading. At my first opportunity, I tried again, with the same questions as before, “How are you doing? Are you okay?” To which he again replied, “Yeah, I’m all right. I just don’t really get into this stuff.” As I left the cafeteria, I realized this was going to take more time and effort than I had thought—if it was even possible to get through to him at all.
That evening at our nightly staff meeting, I made my concerns about him known. I explained to my fellow staff members my impression of him and asked them to pay special attention and spend time with him when they could.
The days I spend at camp each year fly by faster than any others I have known. Thus, before I knew it, mid—week had dissolved into the final night of camp, and I was chaperoning the “last dance”. The students were doing all they could to savor every last moment with their new “best friends”—friends they would probably never see again.
As I watched the campers share their parting moments, I suddenly saw what would be one of the most vivid memories of my life. The boy from under the tree, who had stared blankly out the kitchen window, was now a shirtless dancing wonder. He owned the dance floor as he and two girls proceeded to cut a rug. I watched as he shared meaningful, intimate time with people at whom he couldn’t even look just days earlier. I couldn’t believe it was the same person.
In October of my sophomore year, a late—night phone call pulled me away from my chemistry book. A soft—spoken, unfamiliar voice asked politely, “Is Kevin there?”
“You’re talking to him, who’s this?”
“This is Tom Johnson’s mom. Do you remember Tommy from leadership camp?”
The boy under the tree. How could I not remember?
“Yes, I do.” I said. “He’s a very nice young man. How is he?”
An abnormally long pause followed, then Mrs. Johnson said, “My Tommy was walking home from school this week when he was hit by a car and killed.” Shocked, I offered my condolences.
“I just wanted to call you,” she said, “because Tommy mentioned you so many times. I wanted you to know that he went back to school this fall with confidence. He made new friends. His grades went up. And he even went out on a few dates. I just wanted to thank you for making a difference for Tom. The last few months were the best few months of his life.”
In that instant, I realized how easy it is to give a bit of yourself every day. You may never know how much each gesture may mean to someone else. I tell this story as often as I can, and when I do, I urge others to look out for their own “boy under the tree”.
Growing in the Middle Ground
在探索中成长
Anne Phipps
I believe that my beliefs are changing. Nothing is positive. Perhaps I am in a stage of metamorphosis which will one day have me emerging complete, sure of everything. Perhaps I shall spend my life searching.
Until this winter, I believed in outward things, in beauty as I found it in nature and art. Beauty passed, swift and sure, from the outside to the inside, bringing intense emotion. I felt a formless faith when I rode through summer woods, when I heard the counterpoint of breaking waves, when I held a flower in my hand. There was the same inspiration from art—here and there, in flashes—in seeing for the first time the delicacy of a white jade vase, or the rich beauty of a rug, in hearing a passage of music played almost perfectly, in watching Markova dance Giselle, most of all in reading. Other people’s consciousness, their sensitivity to emotion, color, sound, their feeling for form, instructed me. The necessity for beauty I found to be the highest good, the human soul’s greatest gift. It was not, I felt, all.
This winter I came to college. The questions put to me changed. Lists of facts and “who dragged whom how many times around the walls of what?” lost importance. Instead I was asked eternal questions： What is Beauty? What is Truth? What is God? I talked about faith with other students. I read St. Augustine and Tolstoy. I wondered if I hadn’t been worshiping around the edges. Nature and art were the edges, an inner faith was the center. I discovered, really discovered, that I had a soul. Just sitting in the sun one day, I realized the shattering meaning of St. Augustine’s statement that the sun and the moon, all the wonders of nature, are not God’s “first works”, but second to the spiritual works.
I had, up till then, perceived spiritual beauty, only through the outward; it had come into me. Now, I am groping towards an inner spiritual consciousness that will be able to go out from me. I am lost in the middle ground; I am learning.
Brush Past the Death
与死神擦肩而过
Steve Jobs
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like： “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself： “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?” And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7：30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn’t even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor’s code for preparing yourself to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you’d have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.
I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I’m fine now.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept：
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
The Fork in the Road
面对人生的十字路口
Florence Scovel Shinn
Every day there is a necessity of choice （a fork in the road）. “Shall I do this, or shall I do that? Shall I go, or shall I stay?” Many people do not know what to do. They rush about letting other people make decisions for them, then regret having taken their advice.
There are others who carefully reason things out. They weigh and measure the situation like dealing in groceries, and are surprised when they fail to obtain their goal.
There are still other people who follow the magic path of intuition and find themselves in their Promised Land in the twinkling of an eye.
Intuition is a spiritual faculty high above the reasoning mind, but on the path is all that you desire or require. So choose ye this day to follow the magic path of intuition.
In most people it is a faculty which has remained dormant. So we say, “Awake though that sleeps. Wake up to your leads and hunches！”
Now it is necessary for you to make a decision, you face a fork in the road. Ask for a definite unmistakable lead, and you will receive it.