Feeling of Youth
No young man believes he shall ever die. It was a saying of my brother's, and a fine one. There is a feeling of Eternity in youth, which makes us amend for everything. To be young is to be as one of the Immortal Gods. One half of time indeed is flown-the other half remains in store for us with all its countless treasures; for there is no line drawn, and we see no limit to our hopes and wishes. We make the coming age our own-
The vast, the unbounded prospect lies before us.
Death. old age. are words without a meaning. that pass by us like the idea air which we regard not. Others may have undergone, or may still be liable to them-we "bear a charmed life“, which laughs to scorn all such sickly fancies. As in setting out on delightful journey, we strain our eager gaze forward-
Bidding the lovely scenes at distance hail!
And see no end to the landscape, new objects presenting themselves as we advance; so, in the commencement of life, we set no bounds to our inclinations. nor to the unrestricted opportunities of gratifying them. we have as yet found no obstacle, no disposition to flag; and it seems that we can go on so forever. We look round in a new world, full of life, and motion, and ceaseless progress; and feel in ourselves all the vigor and spirit to keep pace with it, and do not foresee from any present symptoms how we shall be left behind in the natural course of things, decline into old age, and drop into the grave. It is the simplicity, and as it were abstractedness of our feelings in youth, that （so to speak） identifies us with nature, and （our experience being slight and our passions strong） deludes us into a belief of being immortal like it. Our short-lives connection with existence we fondly flatter ourselves, is an indissoluble and lasting union-a honeymoon that knows neither coldness, jar, nor separation. As infants smile and sleep, we are rocked in the cradle of our wayward fancies, and lulled into security by the roar of the universe around us0we quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the more-objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the strong of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.
我的職業.註定著要讓我看多人世間生生死死的離別....這於"死亡"這個話題一直都很沉重.也不敢啟齒.
"我們每個人,年輕的時候都不相信自己會死"。這是我老師說過的話，可算是一句妙言。我想,也許青春有一種永生之感---它能彌補一切吧。人的青春時代好像是一尊永生的神靈。誠然年輕時，生命的一半雖已消逝，但蘊藏著不盡財富的另一半還在繼續，所以我們對它也抱著無窮的希望和幻想.....
"死亡，老年...."這些只不過是空話，毫無意義；對於年輕時的我們聽了，也只當耳邊風，全不放在心上。我們總會這樣想著:這些事，別人也許經歷過，或者可能要承受，但是我們自己，我們會在神靈的護佑下長生不老的...對於諸如此類關於死亡脆弱的念頭，統統付之輕蔑的一笑,像是剛剛走上愉快的旅程，極目遠眺......因為我們年輕,所以我們可以毫不畏懼地放聲大笑....
年輕時，我們總覺得眼前的風光美景應接不暇，而且，前程會更有美不勝收的新鮮景緻。在這生活的開端，我們總是放任自己的志趣馳騁，放手給自己一切滿足的機會。因為年輕,所以我們還沒有碰上過什麼障礙，也沒有感覺到什麼疲憊，我們總看到四周一片新天地——生機盎然，日新月異,因此覺得還可以一直這樣向前走去，直到永遠.....我們年輕,所以我們覺得自己活力充盈，精神飽滿，可與宇宙並駕齊驅。而且，也無任何跡象可以證明，在大自然的發展過程中，年輕的我們也會落伍，衰老，進入墳墓。由於我們年輕時天真單純，可以說是茫然無知，因而總將自己跟大自然劃上等號；也由於年輕,經驗少而感情盛，誤以為自己也能和大自然一樣永世長存。我們一廂情願，痴心妄想，竟把自己在世上的暫時棲身，當作千古不變、萬事長存，好像永遠都沒有冷淡、黑暗爭執、離別....像嬰兒帶著微笑一樣入睡，我們躺在用自己編織成的搖籃裡，讓大千世界的萬籟之聲催哄著年輕的自己安然入夢；因為年輕,我們總是急切切，興沖沖地暢飲生命之杯，怎麼也不會被飲幹，反而好像永遠是滿滿欲溢的；萬千世界紛至沓來，各種慾望隨之而生，使我們根本騰不出工夫去想到死亡.......
Competition
It is a plain fact that we are in a world where competition is going on in all areas and at all is , on the other hand, competition breeze a pragmatic le choose to learn things that are useful,and do things that are ys' college education is also affected by this general sense of utilitarianism. Many college students choose business nor computing programming as their majors convinced that this professions are where the big money is. It is not unusual to see the college students taking a part time jobs as a warming up for the real battle.I often see my friends taking GRE tests, working on English or computer certificates and taking the driving licence to get a licence. Well, I have nothing against being practical. As the competition in the job market gets more and more intense, students do have reasons to be practical. However, we should never forget that college education is much more than skill training. Just imagine, if your utilitarianism is prevails on campus, living no space for the cultivation of students' minds,or nurturing of their soul. We will see university is training out well trained spiritless working utilitarianism prevails society, we will see people bond by mind-forged medicals lost in the money-making ventures;we will see humality lossing their grace and dignity, and that would be disastrous.I'd like to think society as a courage and people persumed for profit or fame as a horese that pulls the without the driver picking direction the courage would go straight and may even end out in a precarious situation .A certificate may give you some advantage, but broad horizons, positive attitudes and personal integrities ,these are assets you cannot acquire through any quick fixed today's world, whether highest level of competition is not of skills or expertise , but vision and strategy. Your intellectual quality largely determinds how far you can go in your career.
Chinese Undergraduates in the US
Each year, elite American universities and liberal arts colleges, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Amherst and Wellesley, offer a number of scholarships to Chinese high school graduates to study in their undergraduate programs. Four years ago, I received such a scholarship from Yale.
What are these Chinese undergrads like? Most come from middle-class families in the big urban centers of China. The geographical distribution is highly skewed, with Shanghai and Beijing heavily over-represented. Outside the main pool, a number of Yale students come from Changsha and Ningbo,swhereseach year American Yale graduates are sent to teach English.
The overwhelming majority of Chinese undergraduates in the US major in science, engineering or economics. Many were academic superstars in their high schools - gold medallists in international academic Olympiads or prize winners in national academic contests. Once on US campuses, many of them decide to make research a lifelong commitment.
Life outside the classroom constitutes an important part of college life. At American universities the average student spends less than thirteen hours a week in class. Many Chinese students use their spare time to pick up some extra pocket money. At Yale, one of the most common campus jobs is washing dishes in the dining halls. Virtually all Chinese undergraduates at Yale work part-time in the dining halls at some point in their college years. As they grow in age and sophistication, they upgrade to better-paying and less stressful positions. The more popular and interesting jobs include working as a computer assistant, math homework grader, investment office assistant and lab or research assistant. The latter three often lead to stimulating summer jobs.
Student activities are another prominent feature of American college life. Each week there are countless student-organized events of all sorts - athletic, artistic, cultural, political or social (i.e. just for fun). New student organizations are constantly being created, and Chinese undergrads contribute to this ferment. Sport looms much larger on US campuses than in China. At Yale, intramural sports from soccer to water polo take place all year long; hence athletic talent is a real social asset. One of the Chinese students at Yale several years ago was a versatile sportsman. His athletic talents and enthusiastic participation in sporting events, combined with his other fine qualities, made him a popular figure in his residential college.
I Want to Know
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself; if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, without moving to hide it
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own, if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
I want to know if you can see beauty , if you can source your life from god’s presence. I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes!”
Beauty
there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that have nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart.
I have thought about her often over the years and how she struggled in a society that places an incredible premium on looks, class, wealth and all the other fineries of life. She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot be made to look attractive. I know that her condition hurt her deeply.
Would her life have been different had she been pretty? Chances are it would have. And yet there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that had nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart. Her words came from a wounded but loving heart, very much like all hearts, but she had more of a need to be aware of it, to live with it and learn from it. She possessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her only fear in life was the loss of a friend.
It is said that the true nature of being is veiled. The labor of words, the expression of art, the seemingly ceaseless buzz that is human thought all have in common the need to get at what really is so. The hope to draw close to and possess the truth of being can be a feverish one. In some cases it can even be fatal, if pleasure is one's truth and its attainment more important than life itself. In other lives, though, the search for what is truthful gives life.
The truth of her life was a desire to see beyond the surface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She found beauty and grace and they befriended her, and showed her what is real.
Work and Pleasure
To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. It is no use starting late in life to say: “I will take an interest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravates the strain of mental effort. A man may acquire great knowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, and yet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doing what you like; you have got to like what you do. Broadly speaking, human beings may be divided into three classes: those who are toiled to death, those who are worried to death, and those who are bored to death. It is no use offering the manual labourer, tired out with a hard week’s sweat and effort, the chance of playing a game of football or baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
It may also be said that rational, industrious useful human beings are divided into two classes: first, those whose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; and secondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of these the former are the majority. They have their compensations. The long hours in the office or the factory bring with them as their reward, not only the means of sustenance, but a keen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and most modest forms. But Fortune’s favoured children belong to the second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For them the working hours are never long enough. Each day is a holiday, and ordinary holidays when they come are grudged as enforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet to both classes the need of an alternative outlook, of a change of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, is essential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work is their pleasure are those who most need the means of banishing it at intervals from their minds.
工作和娛樂
要想獲得真正的快樂與安寧，一個人應該有至少兩三種愛好，而且必須是真正的愛好。到晚年才說“我對什麼什麼有興趣”是沒用的，這隻會徒然增添精神負擔。一個人可以在自己工作之外的領域獲得淵博的知識，不過他可能幾乎得不到什麼好處或是消遣。做你喜歡的事是沒用的，你必須喜歡你所做的事。總的來說，人可以分為三種：勞累而死的、憂慮而死的、和煩惱而死的。對於那些體力勞動者來說，經歷了一週精疲力竭的體力勞作，週六下午讓他們去踢足球或者打棒球是沒有意義的。而對那些政治家、專業人士或者商人來說，他們已經為嚴肅的事情操勞或煩惱六天了，週末再讓他們為瑣事勞神也是沒有意義的。
也可以說，那些理性的、勤勉的、有價值的'人們可分為兩類，一類，他們的工作就是工作，娛樂就是娛樂；而另一類，他們的工作即娛樂。大多數人屬於前者，他們得到了相應的補償。長時間在辦公室或工廠裡的工作，回報給他們的不僅是維持了生計，還有一種強烈的對娛樂的需求，哪怕是最簡單的、最樸實的娛樂。不過，命運的寵兒則屬於後者。他們的生活很自然和諧。對他們來說，工作時間永遠不嫌長。每天都是假日，而當正常的假日來臨時，他們總是埋怨自己所全身心投入的休假被強行中斷了。不過，有些事情對兩類人是同樣至關重要的，那就是轉換一下視角、改變一下氛圍、將精力轉移到別的事情上。確實，對那些工作即是娛樂的人來說，最需要隔一段時間就用某種方式把工作從腦子裡面趕出去。
