5 We're Just Beginning

Charles F. Kettering

“We are reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite...”

I do not know who wrote those 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 business, if we only recognize them. We are just at the beginning of the progress in every field of human endeavor.

难词释义

hazy [ˈheɪzi] adj. 朦胧的；模糊的

reap [riːp] v. 收获

static [ˈstætɪk] adj. 静止的；不变的

一切才刚刚开始

查尔斯·F.凯特灵

“我们正在读一本书的第一章的第一句，而这本书的页数是无限的……”

我不知道这句话是谁写的，可我一直很喜欢这句话，它提醒我们未来是由我们自己创造的。我们可以把神秘、模糊不清的未来塑造成我们想象中的任何模样，犹如雕刻家将未成形的石头刻成雕像。

我们每个人都像是农夫。撒下良种将有丰收，播下劣种或生满野草便将毁去收成。没有耕耘则会一无所获。

我希望未来比过去更加美好，希望未来不会沾染过去的错误与过失。我们都应举目向前，因为我们的余生要用未来书写。

往昔已逝，静如止水；我们无法再去改变。而前方的未来正生机勃勃；我们所做的每一件事都将会影响到它。只要我们认识到这些，无论是在家庭中还是在工作上，每天我们的面前都会展现出新的天地。在人类致力开拓的每一片领域里，我们正站在进步的起跑线上。