Understanding Of Oneself

Dear Yi Jun,

In all one’s lifetime it is oneself that one spends the most time being with or dealing with. But it is precisely oneself that one has the least understanding of.

When you are going upwards in life you tend to overestimate yourself. It seems that everything you seek for is within your reach; luck and opportunities will come your way and you are overjoyed that they constitute part of your worth. When you are going downhill you tend to under-estimate yourself, mistaking difficulties and adversities for your own incompetence. It’s likely that you think it wises for yourself to know your place and stay aloof from worldly success. In doing so you are actually wearing a mask of cowardice, behind which the flow of sap in your life will be retarded.

To get a thorough understanding of oneself is to gain a correct view of oneself and be a sober realist-aware of both one’s strength and shortage. You may look forward hopefully to the future but be sure not to expect too much, for ideals can never be fully realized. You may be courageous to meet challenges but it should be clear to you where to direct your efforts. That’s to say so long as you have a perfect knowledge of yourself there won’t be difficulties you can’t overcome, nor obstacles you can’t surmount.

To get a thorough understanding of oneself needs self-appreciation. Whether you liken yourself to a towering tree or a blade of grass, whether you think you are a high mountain or a small stone, you represent a state of nature that has its own raison dears. If you earnestly admire yourself you’ll have a real sense of self-appreciation, which will give you confide cell. As soon as you gain full confidence in yourself you’ll be enabled to fight and overcome any adversity.

To get a thorough understanding of oneself also requires doing oneself a favor when it’s needed. In time of anger, do yourself a favor by giving vent to it in a quiet place so that you won’t be hurt by its flames; in time of sadness, do yourself a favor by sharing it with Vivien so as to change a gloomy mood into a cheerful one; in time of tiredness, do yourself a favor by getting a good sleep; in time of boring, do yourself a favor by playing badminton with your senior. Show yourself loving concern about your health and daily life. As you are aware, what a person physically has is but a human body that’s vulnerable when exposed to the elements. So if you fall ill, it’s up to you to take a good care of yourself. Unless you know perfectly well when and how to do yourself a favor, you won’t be confident and ready enough to resist the attack of illness.

To get a thorough understanding of oneself is to get a full control of one’s life. Then one will find one’s life full of color and flavor.

ATOZ for You

Avoid negative people, places, things and habits.

Believe in yourself.

Consider things from every angle.

Don’t give up and don’t give in.

Enrich your life today. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery.

Family and friends are hidden treasures. Seek them and enjoy their riches.

Give more than you planned to.

Hang on to your dreams.

Ignore those who try to discourage you.

Just do it.

Keep trying no matter how hard it seems. It will get easier.

Live well, love lots and laugh often.

Make it happen.

Never lie, cheat or steal. Always strike a fair deal.

Open your eyes and see things as they really are.

Practice makes perfect.

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Read, study and learn about everything important in your life.

Stop procrastinating.

Take control of your own destiny.

Understand yourself in order to better understand others.

Visualize it.

Want it more than anything.

Xcellerate (accelerate) your efforts.

You are unique. Nothing can replace YOU.

Zero in your target, and go for it!

ATOZ for You -- A

Avoid negative people, places, things and habits.

ATOZ for You -- B

Believe in yourself.

ATOZ for You -- C

Consider things from every angle.

ATOZ for You -- D

Don’t give up and don’t give in.

ATOZ for You -- E

Enrich your life today. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is mystery.

ATOZ for You -- F

Family and friends are hidden treasures. Seek them and enjoy their riches.

ATOZ for You -- G

Give more than you planned to.

ATOZ for You -- H

Hang on to your dreams.

ATOZ for You -- I

Ignore those who try to discourage you.

ATOZ for You -- J

Just do it.

ATOZ for You -- K

Keep trying no matter how hard it seems. It will get easier.

ATOZ for You -- L

Live well, love lots and laugh often.

ATOZ for You -- M

Make it happen.

ATOZ for You -- N

Never lie, cheat or steal. Always strike a fair deal.

ATOZ for You -- O

Open your eyes and see things as they really are.

ATOZ for You -- P

Practice makes perfect.

ATOZ for You -- Q

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

Auchan Hypermarket Locker Thief -- Moscow

Dear Yi Jun,

We lost contact with you for a few week after your hostel internet line was suspend by RSMU administrator, so we try to make a call to you to know your recently news but you always give us a great surprise, the news your tell even more exciting that TV8 or MTV7 I watch everyday. You tell us that your lover Sony camera, winter coat, spectacle, lab coat, university report card, student card, library card and bus monthly card was missing when you keep in the Auchan Hypermarket’s locker at Moscow. Mom was so surprise and lost control with her emotion quotient to know that. I try to cool down her and make sure you can solve your problem by report to police for easy to apply all the important document with RSMU. I hope you can settle everything by yourself. Do you remember the story I was tell you before.

Once President Roosevelt’s house was broken into and lots of things were stolen. Hearing this, one of Roosevelt’s friends wrote to him and advised him not to take it to his heart so much. President Roosevelt wrote back immediately, saying, “Dear friend, thank you for your letter to comfort me. I’m all right now. I think I should thank God. This is because of the following three reasons: firstly, the thief only stole things from me but did not hurt me at all; secondly, the thief has stolen some of my things instead of all my things; thirdly, most luckily for me, it was the man rather than me who became a thief ...”

It was quite unlucky for anyone to be stolen from. However, President Roosevelt had such three reasons to be so grateful. This story tells us how we can learn to be grateful in our life.

Being grateful is an important philosophy of life and a great wisdom. It is impossible for anyone to be lucky and successful all the time so long as he lives in the world. We should learn how to face failure or misfortune bravely and generously and to try to deal with it. If so, should we complain about our life and become frustrated and disappointed ever since then or should we be grateful for our life, raise again ourselves after a fall? William Thackeray, a famous British writer, said, “Life is a mirror. When you smile in front of it, it will also smile and so will it when you cry to it.” If you are grateful to life, it will bring you shining sunlight. If you always complain about everything, you may own nothing in the end. When we are successful, we can surely have many reasons for being grateful, but we have only one excuse to show ungratefulness if we fail.

I think we should even be grateful to life whenever we are unsuccessful or unlucky. Only by doing this can we find our weakness and shortcomings when we fail. We can also get relief and warmth when we are unlucky. This can help us find our courage to overcome the difficulties we may face, and receive great impetus to move on. We should treat our frustration and misfortune in our life in the other way just as President Roosevelt did. We should be grateful all the time and keep having a healthy attitude to our life forever keep having perfect characters and enterprising spirit. Being grateful is not only a kind of comfort, not an escape from life and nor thinking of winning in spirit like Ah Q. Being grateful is a way to sing for our life which comes just from our love and hope.

When we put a small piece of alum into muddy water, we can see the alum can soon make the water clear. If each of us has an attitude of being grateful, we’ll be able to get rid of impulse, upset, dissatisfaction and misfortune. Being grateful can bring us a better and more beautiful life.

ATOZ for You -- R

Read, study and learn about everything important in your life.

ATOZ For You -- S

Stop procrastinating.

ATOZ for You -- T

Take control of your own destiny.

ATOZ for You -- U

Understand yourself in order to better understand others.

ATOZ for You -- V

Visualize it.

W for You -- W

Want it more than anything.

X for You -- X

Xcellerate (accelerate) your efforts.
(Be prepare before you attend your examination. Study not gambling, no gain without pain.)

Y for You -- Y

You are unique. Nothing can replace YOU.
(In all time before now and in all time to come, there has never been and will never be anyone just like you. You are unique in the entire history and future of the universe. Wow! Stop and think about that. You’re better than one in a million, or a billion or a gazillion …)

ATOZ for You -- Z

Zero in your target, and go for it!

Are You Selfish?

Dear Yi Jun,

Hurt feelings between people can be very upsetting. How should you respond when you are being “put down” or insulted by someone else?

Suppose somebody say, “ChrisLee, you have golden hair.” Would that make you feel bad?

You’ll probably reply, “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know I don’t have golden hair.”

So what they say to you needn’t affect how you feel. What you believe about yourself is more important.

Add, what if they say, “ChrisLee, you are selfish?” That statement can only hurt you if you have doubts about whether you really are selfish. If you are clear that you are a warm, generous person, then you won’t be hurt because you know what they said isn’t true.

Anytime you feel upset about what someone says about you, or something you do, it’s because at some level you doubt yourself in that area.

If someone says, in effect, “You have golden hair” and you know you don’t, there’s no problem.”

If there’s some truth in what the person says, view it as feedback or information you can use for self-improvement.

What I've Learned

I have learned that the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.

I have learned that being kind is more important than being right.

I have learned that no matter how serious your life requires you to be, everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.

I have learned that that money doesn’t buy class. (Wear smart to build up our image)

I have learned that it’s those small daily happenings that make life so spectacular.

I have learned that under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wants to be appreciated and loved.

I have learned that sometimes all a person needs is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.

I have learned that the Lord didn’t do it all in one day. What makes me think I can?

I have learned that when you plan to get even with someone, you are only letting that person continue to hurt you. (Kind to everyone)

I have learned that the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.

I have learned that life is tough, but I’m tougher. (The way to grow as a man)

I have learned that love, not time, heals all wounds.

I have learned that everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.

I have learned that I can always pray for someone when I don’t have the strength to help him in some other way.

I have learned that no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.

I have learned that opportunities are never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.

I have learned that when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere. (Don’t worry, always be happy)

I have learned that one should keep his words both soft and tender, because tomorrow he may have to eat them.

I have learned that a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks. (To make us look smarter)

I have learned that I can’t choose how I feel, but I can choose what I do about it.

I have learned that everyone wants to stand on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.

I have learned that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances: when it is requested and when it is a life – threatening situation.

I have learned that the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done. (Don’t delay our work, study or examintion)

You're Unique In Your Life

Dear Yi Jun,

Consider … YOU. In all time before now and in all time to come, there has never been and will never be anyone just like you. You are unique in the entire history and future of the universe. Wow! Stop and think about that. You’re better than one in a million, or a billion or a gazillion …

You are the only one like you in a sea of infinity!

You‘re amazing! You’re awesome! And by the way, TAG, you’re it. As amazing and awesome as you already are, you can be even more so. Beautiful young people are the whimsy of nature, but beautiful old people are true works of art. But you don’t become “beautiful” just by virtue of the aging process.

Real beauty comes from learning, growing and loving in the ways of life. That is the art of life. You can learn slowly and sometimes painfully, by just waiting for life to happen to you. Or you can choose to accelerate your growth and intentionally devour life and all it offers. You are the artist that paints your future with the brush of today.

Paint a masterpiece.

God gives every bird its food, but he doesn’t throw it into its nest. Wherever you want to go, whatever you want to do, it’s truly up to you. However, what your decision, I will give my fully support. Take care yourself.

Let Your Heart To Guide You

Dear Yi Jun,

There comes a time when you must stand alone at Mosscow. You must feel confident enough within yourself to follow your own dreams. You must be willing to make sacrifices.

You must be capable of changing and rearranging your priorities, so that your final goal can be achieved.

Sometimes, familiarity and comfort need to be challenged. There are times when you must take a few extra chances and create your own realities.

Be strong enough to at least try to make your life better.

Be confident enough to settle your Latin and Anatomy examination. That is worth to spend 1.5 hours to take the dorpusk with Professor Shermakov.

Appreciate yourself by allowing yourself the opportunities to grow, develop and find your true sense of purpose in this life.

Don’t stand in someone else’s shadow when it’s your sunlight that should lead the way.

Work hard at what you like to do and try to overcome all obstacles.

Laugh at your mistakes and praise yourself for learning from them.

Pick some flowers and appreciate the beauty of nature.

Say hello to strangers and enjoy the people you know.

Don’t be afraid to show your emotions, laughing and crying make you feel better.

Love your friends and family with your entire being they are the most important part of your life.

Feel the calmness on a quiet sunny day.

Find a rainbow and live your world of dreams, always remember life is better than it seems.

Hope you and your friend always live happily at RSMU.

Face Your Problem

Dear Yi Jun,

What is the secret ingredient of tough people that enables them to succeed? Why do they survive the tough times when others are overcome by them? Why do they win when other lose? Why do they pass the examination when others fail?

The answer is very simple. It’s all in how they perceive their problems. Yes, every living person has problems. A problem – free life is an illusion – a mirage in the desert. Accept that fact.

Every mountain has a peak. Every valley has its low point. Life has its ups and downs, its peaks and its valleys. No one is up all the time, nor are they down all the time. Problems do end. They are all resolved in time.

You may not be able to control the times, but you can compose your responses. You may not have chosen your tough time, but you can choose how you will react to it. For instance, what is the positive reaction to settle your Latin examination? In this situation would it be the positive reaction to cop out and run away? Blame to others because didn’t help you? No! Such negative reactions only produce other problems. The positive solution to a problem may require courage to face your lecturer and settled all your academic debts by our own before you settle your visa issues.

When you control your reaction to the seemingly uncontrollable problem of life, then in fact you do control the problem’s effect on you. Your reaction to the problem is the last word! That’s the bottom line. What will you let this problem do to you? It can make you tender or tough. It can make you better or bitter. It all depends on you.

In the final analysis, the tough people who survive the tough times do so because they’ve chosen to react positively to their predicament. Tough times never last, but tough people do. Tough people stick it out. History teaches us that every problem has a lifespan. No problem is permanent. Please take care yourself.

The Benefits Of Work

Remember, my son, you have to work. Whether you handle a pick or a pen, a wheel-barrow or a set of books, digging ditches or editing a paper, ringing an auction bell or writing funny things, you must work. If you look around you will see the men who are the most able to live the rest of their days without work are the men who work the hardest. Don’t be afraid with overwork. It is beyond your power to do that on the sunny side of thirty. They die sometimes, but it is because they quit work at six in the evening, and do not go home until two in the morning. It’s the interval that kills, my son. The work gives you an appetite for your meals; it lends solidity to your slumbers; it gives you a perfect and grateful appreciation of a holidays.

There are young men who do not work, but the world is not proud of them. It does not know their names; even it simply speaks of them as “old so – and – so’s boy”. Nobody likes them; the great, busy world doesn’t know that they are there. So find out what you want to be and do, and take off your coat and make a dust in the world. The busier you are, the less harm you will be apt to get into, the sweeter will be your sleep, the brighter and happier your holidays, and the better satisfied will the world be with you.

年迈的父母

亲爱的姨姨：

面对自己的年迈父母，谁不想好好侍候他们度过晚年？但有时需要很大的耐心。亲友探访和关心不过是一两个小时的事，但侍候在侧，却是天天日以继夜的工作。所以我敬佩小姨天天在旁侍候婆婆。这差事不轻松。其实，很多老人都不想麻烦別人。如果自己可以做的事，他们并不想假手于人。老人最怕的就是被当成没有用的人或不被尊重啊！所以，当婆婆因无法完成某些事，我们千万不要対她露出不耐烦的表情。这是一记很重的心理伤害！希望大家都肯用多一点耐心对待家里的老人。
当我们年幼时，父母亲牵着我们的手慢慢走。如今，已经茁壯的自己，该是静下心来，静静地伴他们的时刻。和老人家相处时，记得放慢自己的步调，陪伴老人慢慢走。因为，我们面对的，莫非是未耒的自己。如果可以选择，老人都不愿意麻烦我们。祝幸福快乐。

Feather In The Wind

A certain good woman one day said something that hurt her best friend of many years. She regretted immediately and would have done anything to have taken the words back. What she said hurt the friend so much that this good woman was herself hurt for the pain she caused. In an effort to undo what she had done, she went to an older, wiser woman in the village, explained her situation and asked for advice.

Listening to her, the older woman sensed the younger woman’s distress and knew she must help her. She also knew she could never alleviate her pain, but she could teach. She knew the outcome would depend solely on the character of the younger woman. She said, “Tonight, take your best feather pillows and put a single feather on the doorstep of each house in town before the sun rises.”

The young woman hurried home to prepare for her chore, even though the feather pillows were very dear to her. All night long, she labored alone in the cold. Finally the sky was getting light and she placed the last feather on the steps of the last house. Just as the sun rose, she returned to the older woman.

“Now,” said the wise woman, “Go back and refill your pillows with the feather you have put on the steps. Then everything will be as it was before.”

“You know that’s impossible! The wind blew away each feather as fast as I placed them on the doorsteps!” The young woman was surprised.

“That’s true,” said the older woman, “Never forget. Each of your words is like a feather in the wind. Once spoken, no amount of effort, regardless how heartfelt or sincere, can never return them to your mouth. Choose your words well and guard them most of all in the presence of those you love.”

记父亲节

父亲的心声最难捉摸，
父亲的委屈最难被看到，
父亲的温柔容易被忽略，
疼爱妈妈之余，勿忘了爸爸的好！

父亲是一位性格如山的男人，他刚毅，坚强，沉稳，执著，从不屈服外力和困难，在我的记忆中，父亲仅仅流了一次泪。父亲的泪是因其一兒子被母亲的疏忽而溺敝。当晚邻居集聚在我家，那时的我仅五岁，自然不懂得生离死别的滋味。隔天早上，父亲坐在地上背靠牆无言以対，伤心的流泪。男人因为有眼泪可以沉淀情感，滋补心灵，所以更显丰满厚实。我为有我这样的父亲而自豪，因为他教会了我该如何做一个男人，他的眼泪滋润了我的一生！同时也教会我看透人生，没有一件东西可以永远与我们为伴，再亲爱的人，再多的财物，也终有离别聚散的时候，所以又有什么东西捨不得的呢?

We Are Happiest In Our Life

A man and his girlfriend were married. It was a large celebration. All of their friends and family came to see the lovely ceremony and to partake of the festivities and celebrations. All had wonderful time.

The bride was gorgeous in her white wedding gown and the groom was very dashing in his black tuxedo. Everyone could tell that the love they had for each other was true.

A few months later, the wife came to the husband with a proposal, “I read in a magazine, a while ago, about how we can strengthen our marriage,” she offered, “Each of us will write a list of the things that we find a bit annoying with the other person. Then, we can talk about how we can fix them together and make our lives happier together.”

The husband agreed. So each of them went to a separate room in the house and thought of the things that annoyed them about the other. They thought abut this question for the rest of the day and wrote down what they came up with.

The next morning, at the breakfast table, they decided that they would go over their lists.

“I’ll start.” offered the wife. She took out her list. It had many items on it. Enough to fill 3 pages, in fact. As she started reading the list of the little annoyances, she noticed that tears were starting to appear in her husband’s eyes.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Nothing,” the husband replied, “keep reading your list.”

The wife continued to read until she had read all three pages to her husband. She neatly placed her list on the table and folded her hands over the top of it.

“Now, you read your list and then we’ll talk about the things on both of our lists.” She said happily.

Quietly the husband stated, “I don’t have anything on my list. I think that you are perfect the way that you are. I don’t want you to change anything for me. You are lovely and wonderful and I wouldn’t want to try and change anything about you.”

The wife, touched by his honesty and the depth of his love for her and his acceptance of her, turned her head and wept.

In life, there is enough time when we are disappointed, depressed and annoyed. We don’t really have to go looking for them. We have a wonderful world that is full of beauty, light and promise. Why waste time in this world looking for the bad, disappointing or annoying when we can look around us and see the wondrous things before us?

对婆婆要用心，细心

亲爱的婆婆：

虽然我不能常回去探望婆婆，但通过书信也算是对婆婆的一种关怀。
婆婆是一位通情达理的丈母娘。记得三姨随夫婿回乡职教去。婆婆虽然不舍，但也没什么怨言。还说人家也有父母，莫因为了留住自己的女儿而让他人失去了一个儿子。婆婆虽然教育不多，但有圣人般的智慧。正如证严法师所说：【女儿出嫁了，是多了一个儿子，并非少了一个女儿。】婆婆深懂的放下，唯三姨自己放不下。
【放下】并不是不爱婆婆，而是对婆婆要用心，细心，不要操心，烦心。祝安康。

Life Is An Attitudes

Dear Yi Jun,

We walk through life making choices. Some of them are good and some of them not so good, but hopefully we learn something from all of them. Life is an attitude, our attitude always affects us. We can’t choose what happens to us, but we can choose our attitudes toward each situation.

If we walk through life on the path we have chosen feeling as though we have to do this or we have to do that, eventually we might fell overwhelmed. We must change our attitude and looking at the opportunities presented to us each day. If we at those opportunities or challenges with a “get to” instead of a “have to” se might enjoy the journey just a little bit more.

If you make a conscious effort over the next couple of days to exchange the words “have to” with “get to” in your conversations with friends, coworkers and family, but most of all in your thoughts, and something amazing will happen. You will notice that all the things you “get to” do and started appreciating the opportunities and challenges on your path.

Just imagine:
You get to go to university to fulfill your dream.
You get to go to oversea when so many people can’t.
You get to do the laundry, thankful for a washing machine and dryer.
You get spend time with a friend, who needs you help.
You get to read a book; you still have your sight.
You get to remember the things that make you happy.

I give you a challenge. With every thought and conversation for the next day or two, change the words “I have to” with the words “I get to” and see if it make a difference in your day.

A Lesson For Our Life

One day a father took his young son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose to show him how poor people can be. They spent a day and a night in the farm of a very poor family. When they got back from their trip the father asked his son, “How was the trip?”

“Very good, Dad!”

“Did you see how poor people can be?” the father asked.

“Yeah!”

“And what did you learn?”

The son answered, “I saw that we have a dog at home, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of the garden; they have a creek that has no end. We have imported lamps in the garden; they have the stars. Our patio reaches to the front yard; they have a whole horizon.”

When the little boy was finishing, his father was speechless.

His son added, “Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor we are!”

Isn’t it ture that it all depends on the way you look a things? If you have love, friends, family, healath, good humor and a positive attitude towards life, you’ve got everything!

潮洲乡音

亲爱的婆婆：

门前两种梨，算来算去三百个;
人说阿兄会选妻，选得一个妻长短脚。

这是我小时候常听到婆婆哄孩子入睡的歌谣。这种旋律优美的声音，会让我们倍感亲切。一听见，心里会涌起温柔与亲和之感，我们称之为“潮洲乡音”。
潮洲乡音是新山人都熟悉的语言，也是伴随我们成长的各种声调。乡音，是我思念婆婆的记号，在浮华的变迁社会里，那是最温馨的回忆。
来到今天，以往熟悉的潮洲乡音也逐渐退隐至时代的角落，婆婆郎郎上口的歌谣随着婆婆的记忆渐渐地消失了。但是我还是感恩婆婆陪着我们走到今天这个进步的社会。感谢婆婆，祝身体健康。

I Wish You Enough

Dear Yi Jun,

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright.
I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun more.
I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirits up.
I wish you enough pain so that the smallest joys in life appear much bigger.
I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.
I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.
I wish you enough hellos to get your friends at Moscow.

给婆婆一个拥抱

亲爱的姨姨：

中国人常常小时候抱得很多，大了又抱得太少。可不是吗？当婆婆年事已高了，我们是不是很少拥抱她老人家了。亲子之间彼此都认为拥抱是肉麻的表现，却忘了这是心灵沟通的最好方法，它能唤起我们儿时的记忆，它能缩短彼此的距离。
婆婆老了，记忆力逐渐哀退，缺少了安全感，就像小娃娃一样；希望我们能给她一个拥抱的机会。
当我们拥抱自己娃娃的时候，何尝不希望将来娃娃长大，还能抱抱自己？因此每一次向婆婆告别时，我都会珍惜拥抱曾经把我抱大的风烛残年的婆婆。感恩婆婆一路来的关照。祝：大家身体健康。

The Ways For Staying Calm

I watched the old man’s fumbling fingers as he slowly counted out the coins, one by one. I was all but dancing with impatience in the checkout line and sighed with exasperation. Hearing me, he smiled apologetically – a tiny smile of humiliation at being feeble and holding up the world’s business.

Then I became contrite. Putting myself in his shoes, I realized that someday they might pinch my feet. I too, could become dependent on the kindness of strangers. I patted his frayed sleeves “Take your time,” I said, “there’s no hurry”.

It occurred to me how often I have acted impatiently – honking my horn the instant the light changed, speaking sharply to someone slow to understand. Did it matter? It did. When you’re impatient, you’re apt to be rude. And such behavior is counter – productive, making people angry or stubborn or uncooperative.

I decided to try becoming more patient and to develop various approaches for calming myself in stressful situations. I can’t claim that these techniques transformed me into a model of patience, but they have helped me eliminate some impatience from my life and control most of it.

Allow for a margin of error – A friend had passed the interviews for an important new job; all that remained was for the president of the company to meet his wife.

At six, my friend and his wife were in the tunnel on their way into New York for a seven O’clock appointment. At seven, they were still in the tunnel, stuck behind an overturned tractor-trailer. When they finally reached the president’s hotel, he had gone, leaving no message. He would not accept an explanation the next day. “You should have planned for delays,” he said.

Impatient people don’t like to waste time, so they cut things too closely. They budge the exact number of minutes that a journey or task should take, not allowing for the possibility of delay or the unexpected. It is better to provide a margin for error. The more important your appointment is, the more time should be allotted. When a appointment absolutely can’t be missed, it pays to allow ridiculous amounts of time.

Put thing in perspective – Not setting a coveted job is calamitous, but the consequences of being held up are seldom that serious. They are not worth getting impatient.

I’ve learned to ask myself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” If the answer is that I’ll miss the opening credits of a movie or the start of a ball game, I calm down. Will I even remember next week that I was ten minutes late today? Putting matters in perspective should ease your impatience.

Think ahead – One evening as an acquaintance was leaving for a weekend trip, her car wouldn’t start – and three friends were waiting to be picked up on a street corner. She had no way of getting word to them; they were cold and miserable and worried when she arrived an hour late. Since hearing her predicament, I’ve always arranged to meet people where they or I can be reached incase of delay. It enables me to be far more patient when things go wrong.

Be prepared – Waiting in airports is one of the most trying features of modern life. I was watching torrential rains streak the windows at Kinabalu International Airport one evening when a man came up, took a word game from his pocket and asked if I wanted to play. We played with pleasure for the four hours our plane was delayed. Near us, a man worked on his laptop computer. One woman went through a stack of catalogues methodically, turning down the corners of the pages, filling out order blanks. The most impatient people – the ones who prowled the waiting area and complained loudly – were those who had nothing to do but put coins in the vending machines.

I now assume I’ll encounter a delay, so always carry a book. A friend do SUDUKO.

Live for the moment – A man I knew was always racing impatiently into the future. If we met for a drink after work, the first thing he talked about was where we’d go for dinner; at dinner, he rushed through dessert to get to a movie; at the movie, he was on his feet before the last frame faded. And in the car on the way home, he was making plans for the next day, next week and next year.

Never did he live in the here and now. Consequently, he couldn’t enjoy life.

I’ve come to appreciate that life has its own timetable. It takes nine of ten months to make a baby, 21 years to make an adult. It takes a long time to become a good violinist or downhill skier. It also takes time to become a success and even more time to become a success as a person.

Perhaps the last thing for controlling impatience is to examine your own contribution to it. Are you unwilling to grant children time to learn or slow people time to accomplish a task? If impatience is only occasional, your annoyance will pass. But if you’re almost always irritable and abrupt, you may well feel that you’re just too important to ever be kept waiting for anyone or anything.

You’re not, of course; none of us are. If we can accept that the world is ours to enjoy but not made for our convenience, we’ll be better able to move through it equably, more patient with the ordinary vicissitudes of life and a good companion to out fellow human beings – and to ourselves.

珍惜小福

亲爱的姨姨：

生命是珍贵的，活着真好。光是和旬的春日，就能温暖你的心；凉风习习的夏夜，就能令你舒爽；生活中加点友情，就能令你快乐；工作之外把握悠闲，就有更多生趣。生命的美好，在于努力和欣赏现成的一切。
会觉得人生过得勉强，无法应付压力，是由于不懂得珍惜小福。人生很少有转运的大福，但却有许多小福。婆婆常教导我们说“小福由勤，大福在天”，至今我常感激婆婆的教诲，接纳自己，用自己手中的资粮去发展，去生活，去品味生命中取之不尽，用之不懈的小福，这才叫幸福。
祝：快乐幸福。

Support

“There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.” ---- Wharton

You support someone when you willingly step forward to help him through a challenging time. Yet the great irony is that when you support others, you are also, in fact, supporting yourself. When you withhold support from others, it is usually an indicator that you are also withholding support from yourself.

We are most often called upon to support others in friendship. One of my acquaintances, Donna, told me a story recently that clearly illustrates the magic of support and its potential as an emotional mirror.

Several years ago, Donna had been feeling very depressed. She had just broken up with her boyfriend of two years, and she was having a very difficult time accepting the loss. She had been laid up with a knee injury for several days, and the time alone at home certainly was not helping. Her misery was only compounded by her frustration at herself for not being able to pull it together and stop crying all the time.

Early one morning, Donna received a phone call with some terrible news: her best friend’s brother had been killed in a car accident. Donna had known this friend, Mary, and her brother nearly her entire life, and the news was devastating. However, Donna quickly pulled herself together, got in the car, and drove to her friend’s house to be there with her.

Over the course of the next few days, amidst the haze of the funeral and hundreds of visitors, Donna was 100 percent present for Mary. She held her close while she cried endless tears, sat by her side as the waves of fried washed over her friend, and slept on the floor next to Mary’s bed to make sure she did not wake up alone in the middle of the night. During that time she hardly felt any pain in her knee at all and none of the depression she had been experiencing.

Several weeks later, when life began to return to normal, Donna realized that the level of support she had given Mary far exceeded any support she had offered herself during her dark time. She was able to use the support she had given her friend as a mirror for the support she had been withholding from herself. She realized that her own tears required as much attention and nurturing from her as anyone else’s, and that if she could give it to another, she must be able to also give it to herself ….

So, when you find yourself unable to support someone else, look within and see if perhaps there is something within yourself that you are not supporting. Conversely, when you give complete support to others, it will mirror those places within you that require the same level of attention.

两代衔绵靠温馨的爱

亲爱的姨姨：

人到中年，父母开始衰老。老化是生命自然现象，力不从心和老之将至的无奈，使他们有些孤单不安，体力不及往常，所以我们须加以体恤婆婆老人家的身心特质，提供养护和鼓励，给他安全感和尊严。如果不及时做这件尽孝的事，总会令人追悔。
通常我们在自己年老时，才会有感叹没好好珍惜好时光，两代衔绵要靠温馨的爱，才能接续起来。如果不及时把握，那个心灵上的断层，将是一个生命的难关。
父母天生要当儿女们的守护神，所以无时无刻不担忧着我们。他们所做的事，尽管不是每件都正确，都令我们开心，但他们的爱不干枯，为了子女从不畏惧。这是我们该了解的。
我们对父母的感恩，正是别人也感恩我们的起点，这就是生命美好而绵延不断的真谛。祝：安康。

The Road To Happiness

It is a common place among moralists that you can't get happiness by pursuing it. This is only true if you pursue it unwisely. Gamblers at Monte Carlo are pursuing money and most of them lose it instead, but there are other ways of pursuing money, which often succeed. So it is with happiness. If you pursue it by means of drink, you are forgetting the hang-over. Epicurus pursued it by living only in congenial society and eating only dry bread, supplemented by a little cheese on feast days. His method proved successful in his case, but he was a valetudinarian and most people would need something more vigorous. For most people, the pursuit of happiness, unless supplemented in various ways, is too abstract and theoretical to be adequate as a personal rule of life. But I think that whatever personal rule of life you may choose it should not, except in rare and heroic cases, be incompatible with happiness.

There are a great many people who have all the material conditions of happiness, i.e. health and a sufficient income and who nevertheless are profoundly unhappy. In such cases it would seem as if the fault must lie with a wrong theory as to how to live. In one sense, we may say that any theory as to how to live is wrong. We imagine ourselves more different from thee animals than we are. Animals live on impulse and are happy as long as external conditions are favorable. If you have a cat it will enjoy life if it has food and warmth and opportunities for an occasional night on the tiles. Your needs are more complex than those of your cat, but they still have their basis in instinct. In civilized societies, especially in English – speaking societies, this is too apt to be forgotten. People propose to themselves some one paramount objective and restrain all impulses that do not minister to it. A businessman may be so anxious to grow rich that to this end he sacrifices health and private affections. When at last he has become rich, no pleasure remains to him except harrying other people by exhortations to imitate his noble example. Many rich ladies, although nature has not endowed them with any spontaneous pleasure in literature or art, decide to be thought cultured and spend boring hours learning the right thing to say about fashionable new books that are written to give delight, not to afford opportunities for dusty snobbism.

If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy, you will see that they all have certain thins in common. The most important of these things is an activity which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence. Women who take an instinctive pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekends to voluntary and unremunerated toil in their gardens and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty.

The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion. Perhaps those who have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recovery, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill. But when things are normal a man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that really matter. If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work and finds pleasure in the alternation of day and night, spring and autumn, he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be. If on the other hand, he finds his wife fateful, his children’s noise unendurable and the office a nightmare; if in daytime he longs for night and at night sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen – a different diet or more exercise or what not.

Man is an animal and his happiness depends on his physiology more than he likes to think. This is a bumble conclusion, but I cannot make myself disbelieve it. Unhappy businessmen, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six kilometer every day than by any conceivable change off philosophy.