【推荐1】When I was young, my mother didn’t have the money to send me to school, but she thought it was important for me to keep up with education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself. But because she had to go to work, the only time she could do it was at 4: 30 in the morning.

We need every one of you to develop your talents and your skills so that you can help us old folks solve our most difficult problems. If you quit on school — you’re not just quitting on yourself, but you’re quitting on your country. No one’s written your destiny for you, because you write your own destiny. You make your own future. That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education and do everything you can to meet them. Your goals can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending some time reading a book.

But whatever you decide to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it. I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star. No one’s born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You’re not a good athlete at the first time you do a new sport. You don’t hit every note at the first time you sing a song. You have to practice.

【推荐2】Baseball was always where my heart lay. However, my father did not care for baseball. Two sports he enjoyed were golfing and fishing, neither of which I considered a real sport. He didn’t talk much and he wasn’t good at expressing himself. Frankly, I wasn’t sure he cared about me. In a way, my father was like a familiar stranger I saw every day.

One day, watching the play on television made me want a glove of my own. To my surprise, my father said he wanted one, too. We bought two gloves, and that evening, he suggested we go out to the courtyard and throw the ball around. I’d already practiced catching and throwing at school, but I could tell this was the first time for my father, because every time he caught the ball, it landed directly in his palm. If you’ve ever caught a ball with a baseball glove, you know how much this hurts.

But my father caught ball after ball this way. Slap! Slap! He winced (龇牙咧嘴). After about five minutes, I told him I’d had enough. It wasn’t out of mercy, but for my own self-interest. Neighborhood kids were watching and would no doubt laugh at me later for having an old man who didn’t know how to properly catch a baseball. When my father took the glove off, his palm was red and swollen.

Dad, who passed away 11 years ago, never told me he loved me. But that sound of the baseball landing in his hand over and over again — it spoke its own tender language, though at the time, all I felt was shame.

Today I was at the shopping mall and I spent a lot of time reading the Father's Day cards. They all had a special message that in some way or another reflected how I feel about you. Yet as I selected and read, it occurred to me that not a single card said what I really want to say to you.

You'll soon be 84 years old, Dad, and you and I will have had 55 Father's Days together. I haven't always been with you on Father's Day but I've always been with you in my heart.

You know, Dad, there was a time when we were separated by the generation gap. You stood on one side of the Great Divide and I on the other.

The Father-Daughter Duel shifted into high gear ( 档位) when you taught me to drive the old Dodge and I decided I would drive the Chevy whether you liked it or not. The police officer who sent me home, after you reported the Chevy stolen, didn't have much tolerance for a stubborn 16 year old, while you were so tolerant about it, Dad, and I think that was probably what made it the worst night of my life.

Our relationship greatly improved when I married a man you liked, and things really turned around when we began making babies right and left. Somewhere along the line, the generation gap disappeared. I suppose I saw us and our relationship as aging together, rather like a fine wine.

But the strangest thing happened last week. I was at a stop sign and I watched as you turned the corner in your car. It didn't immediately occur to me that it was you because the man driving looked so elderly and fragile behind the wheel of that huge car. It was rather like a slap in the face delivered from out of nowhere. Perhaps I saw your age for the first time that day.

I guess what I'm trying to say, Dad, is what every son and daughter wants to say to their Dad today. Honoring a father on Father's Day is about respect and sharing and acceptance and tolerance and giving and taking. It's about loving someone more than words can say, and it's wishing that never had to end.

Love,

Jenny

【推荐1】Most people have a “fear” of getting old, especially when they get to those “milestone” birthdays. Not me! I was even more excited about turning 30 because this would be my golden birthday.

A few months after my 30th birthday when my little girl, Annie, turned two, I decided it was time for me to have my heart check-up. I have a family history of heart disease, so I knew this visit was important.

I made an appointment with the doctor, who had a very clear picture of my family history of heart disease. I got checked in, weighed, blood pressure checked, and all seemed just fine. However, since my mom had a hole in her heart, my doctor decided to do the same check on my heart. When it was done, my doctor sat me down and said, “You have a heart condition. Only 10% of your heart is functioning.” How could this be?

After the shock settled in, I told myself that I had to pick myself back up and move forward. I wasn’t the first woman to be diagnosed with heart disease, and sadly I wouldn’t be the last.

Just 10 years ago, my diagnosis would be almost immediately fatal. Yet, because of the advances in technology and medicine and the contribution of the American Heart Association, I now have a chance to pick out Annie’s wedding dress with her one day.

One day, I will be the recipient of a new heart because of the research done by the American Heart Association. I will be able to run, jump, swim ... The face of heart disease can be deceiving; don’t let this silent killer deceive you.

【推荐2】Michael Surrell was the last person who should have run into a burning building－his lungs didn’t function well and were worse recently. But that didn’t stop him.

He had just parked around the corner from his house when he smelled something smoky, and was worrying that his car didn’t work well. At the moment, an urgent call from Alice, his eldest girl, got that across. Shocked and anxious, he then went to the house next door immediately. “Eight-year-old Tiara Roberts is still on the second floor!” one of the women cried. Though the firemen have been called and were on the way, Surrell, then 60, who once experienced such a situation and knew its urgency, ran inside without hesitation. The thick smoke made him almost impossible to breathe. The conditions would have been dangerous for anyone, but for Surrell, they were more serious and life-threatening.

After a few minutes in the smoke-filled house, he came out. Taking a deep breath, he went in a second time. Because the house has a similar design to his, he made it to the second floor. His throat and lungs burned as if he had breathed in fire. The smoke hurt his eyes so that his vision was poorer. Then a soft but clear painful sound could be heard. He crawled (爬) toward the sound, feeling around for any sign of the girl. Finally, he touched a shoe, and then an ankle. She wasn’t breathing. He held her into his arms and stood. He felt the heat of the flames on his cheeks, fought through the burning wood and made their way outside. Surrell put Tiara down on the porch and one neighbor carried out first aid. She coughed and opened her eyes at last.

Tiara survived the fire safely. However, Surrell took extra medication that helped open his airway. “It’s a small price to pay,” he said, “I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

【推荐3】Prateek Sharma was born into a family of farmers. After 10 years of being a chief manager of Kotak Mahindra Bank, he did a good job and earned a good pay. But Prateek couldn’t continue the corporation life with ease, as his heart was always in farming. So he worked as a banker on weekdays and on weekends travelled 100 km to get to his 5-acre in Dhaba Khurd.

By the end of 2015, Prateek had set up a house on his farm to grow offseason vegetables. Prateek thought he’d quit his job once he was able to earn enough from farming, but this wasn’t an easy decision to make. This was because costs to grow these vegetables were very high, along with the fact that farmers weren’t a part of the value chain and thus couldn’t decide the price of their own vegetables.

Fortunately, Prateek met Vinay Yadav, another educated farmer. They then decided to start their own value chain and sell their vegetables and grains, while skipping the middlemen. The variety of vegetables they grew wasn’t enough, so they decided to form a group of farmers.

Once the plan was ready, the group was registered by the name of Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). However, the trial failed in the first year as most of the farmers were grain growers and had limited knowledge of growing vegetables. However, the largest reason was the switch to organic from chemical.

Luckily, once the soil was used to organic methods, the next round of crops were successful and the FPO had a good amount of produce. So at the end of 2017, Prateek finally quit his job and devoted all his time to farming. Now he’s successful and recently his team has started two farmer resource centers at Dhaba Khurd and Nathrula Canj.