【推荐1】When I started my own business, I thought I had it all figured out. When I made the decision to change my lifestyle and get fit, I thought I was on the right track. And when I purchased a second business, I knew I was doing the right thing. Slowing down never occurred to me.

But something was wrong. My Apple watch buzzed repeatedly in the night, warning me that my heart rate was over one hundred. My body ached, my head pounded, and no matter how much I exercised, I was losing strength.

When I visited the doctor, the first thing she asked was “How’s your stress level?” I shrugged. “Nothing new or out of the ordinary.” But something was happening in my body. A multitude of tests and blood work revealed I had Graves’ disease, with symptoms that include accelerated heart rate, high blood pressure, physical anxiety, tiredness, and muscle weakness.

For the next week, I re-read online articles indicating that stress management played a part in controlling Graves’ disease. And I made a list of everything I was juggling(兼顾). My calendar was filled with online marketing, photo shoots, website design, and copywriting. I barely had time to blink, let alone relax.

It was hard to decide which were the most important and do them first. I examined the juggling act and tried to decide what to let go of. I bid farewell to clients, explaining I was cutting back and lightening my workload. When asked to speak at events or take on new projects, I said “No.” And I found someone to help me plan that big event.

Until then, I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the simple joys—little things that helped me relax and recharge, like long hikes, taking my dog to the park, visiting my favorite bookstore, and sitting on the back porch to watch the sunrise. I know my limits and when it’s time to stop juggling. I’ve learned to be kind to myself. I start each day with meditation(冥想) and end with gratitude.

【推荐2】From the time he was a young boy, Jim Haskins always had a book in his hand. While other kids were outside playing ball, Jim was usually reading. He could be found in one of his favorite places: curled up underneath the kitchen table or up in the tree that grew in his front yard.

Jim was born in Demopolis, Alabama, during the time of segregation (隔离). Because Jim was Black, he was not allowed to check out a single book at the public library. Libraries were for whites only. The laws of segregation separated Jim from all the books he longed to read. But Jim was determined. He convinced a teacher at school to lend him books of her own. He even managed to get some public library books through a white woman whom his mom worked for doing laundry.

When Jim was a teenager, Black Americans’ struggle for equal rights was becoming the civil rights movement. Many brave people were taking risks by refusing to follow unfair segregation laws. Jim went to Montgomery, Alabama, and joined a civil rights group. The group was headed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Jim believed in King’s nonviolent approach to change. Once, during a peaceful march, Jim was arrested. Because of that, his college expelled him.

He did graduate from another college. Afterward, he went on to teach school in Harlem, a part of New York City. As a teacher, he had trouble finding books that interested his Black students. So he decided to write his own books about successful Black Americans. Through his writing, he met and interviewed many of the people he admired, including Rosa Parks.

Today, libraries have more than one hundred books written by Jim Haskins, the boy who loved to read, and today, children of all races can walk through the doors of any public library and find interesting books that inform, entertain, and inspire them.

【推荐3】It was a bright spring afternoon along the Maryland coast, and Jonathan Bauer, 51, a technology executive at a hospital, and his 13-year-old daughter, Ava, were taking full advantage of it. They were driving with the windows down as they headed home on the 1.4-mile, two-lane Route 90 bridge, which spans the shallow waters of Assawoman Bay. Suddenly, the calm was disturbed by a high-pitched noise.

Not far ahead of them, a black pickup was slipping from one lane to the other. To the Bauers’ horror, it hit a BMW sedan and came to rest swinging over the rail of the bridge.

Bauer stopped his car and ran to the BMW. “Are you OK?” he asked the driver. She nodded, too shocked to speak. And then the driver’s door of the pickup was thrown open and a man climbed out. He pointed down, saying something in Spanish. In the water was a car seat. Next to it, a girl, about two years old, was floating on her back, kicking and splashing and screaming.

Bauer waited for the pickup driver to do something, but he didn’t. Maybe he was in shock. Bauer jumped into the shallow water quickly, swam to the drowning girl in a few quick strokes and lifted her out of the water: mouth half open, eyes nearly closed, not breathing. Standing, he laid her against his shoulder and hit her back with the flat of his hand. Come on… come on…

And then a retching (干呕的) sound as ocean water came streaming from her mouth. But still no breath. Another hit on the back and another retch, followed by an intake of fresh air, and then the beautiful sense of little fingers grasping him around the neck. Her eyes were opened now, focused on him. A moment later a family on a rowboat pulled up and dragged Bauer and the little girl aboard. The girl suffered a broken shoulder but was otherwise uninjured.

Ava Bauer was so inspired by her father’s actions that four months later she became a volunteer firefighter so that she too could save lives. “That girl is going to live a whole life because of him,” she says. “It’s incredible.”