【推荐1】There isn’t any doubt that positive thinking is valuable after you find out you have cancer. But will positive thoughts help the cancer go away?

There have been a number of studies on this subject, but none of the studies say that positive thinking is a factor (因素) in helping cancer go away, or that negative feelings can make cancer worse.

So, is there a reason to have a positive attitude? Of course there is.

While I understand the danger of my illness, I choose not to focus on statistics (数据统计). I always imagine myself as being among the small group of patients who survive. Why do I do that? So I can sleep well; so I can plan a trip for two days from now; so I have a reason to begin writing another book with the expectation that I’ll finish it; so my husband and I can enjoy lunch out; so I can reach out to someone else who’s having a difficult time and offer them encouragement.

A positive attitude can also help family members feel better so they can contribute to a more loving family environment. Most cancer patients, as well as their family members, know all too well how dangerous cancer can be. It’s difficult to carry on when patients receive bad news. But a positive attitude helps me want to do things that I know are beneficial (有益的) to my health, and helps me through the thinning hair, tiredness and low blood counts which are the side effects of my treatment.

So, I prefer to stay happy and positive. I do my best not to think too much about all the hospital visits, and I try not to panic (惊慌) if I feel any pain. Instead, I seek joy as much as I can, and because I am seeking joy, I find joy. Being positive might not save you from cancer, but I can almost guarantee (保证) you that if you are positive, you will find meaning in your life, as well as happiness in every day that you live.

【推荐2】John H. Johnson was born in a black family in Arkansas City in 1918. His father died in an accident when John was six. He was reaching high school age, but his hometown offered no high school for blacks.

Fortunately he had a strong-willed, caring mother. John remembers that his mother told him many times, “Son, you can be anything you really want to be if you just believe.” She told him not to be dependent on others, including his mother. “You have to earn success,” said she. “All the people who work hard don’t succeed, but the only people who do succeed are those who work hard.”

These words came from a woman less than a third grade education. She also knew that believing and hard work don’t mean everything. So she worked hard as a cook for two years to save enough to take her son — then 15 — to Chicago.

Chicago in 1933 was not the promised land that black southerners were looking for, John’s mother and stepfather could not find work. But there John could go to school, and there he learned the power of words — as editor of the newspaper and yearbook of Du Stable High School. His wish was to publish a magazine for blacks.

While others discouraged him, John’s mother offered him more words to live by: “Nothing beats a failure but a try.” She also let him pawn (典当) her furniture to get the $500 he needed to start the Negro magazine.

It is natural the difficulties and failures followed John closely until he became very successful. He always keeps his mother’s words in mind. “Son, failure is not in your vocabulary.”

Now John H. Johnson is one of the 400 richest people in America — worth $150 million.

【推荐3】How free haircuts make kids feel good about going back to school

During the last weeks of August, kids of all ages have trouble with transitions, from summer holiday to school. Both children and parents typically have anxiety about going back to school at the end of summer.

Jermaine Smith of Cleveland decided to do his part to ease some of that worry this year. He and four other barbers at his Premier Barber Studio cut the hair of about 40 kids and teens for free last Saturday.

“On the first day of school, you want to look your best, "Smith says. “When you get your hair cut, you look good; you feel good. ” Smith has been repaying the community in other ways long before this weekend. He cuts hair by day, but in the evenings, after taking his daughter home from school, he goes to his second job as a police officer. “All the kids know they can come to me for anything,Smith says. “ A lot of parents bring their kids to me for haircuts because I'm a police officer. They trust our work in the barber shop. ”

Since he started cutting hair almost 20 years ago, he's found ways to give a free cut to the kids who he thinks might need it. “I always tell young men that they always stay perfectly groomed（打扮），” Smith says. “When you have a haircut, people have a tendency（倾向）to treat you with respect. ”

Maybe a service that would only cost $ 15 regularly seems like just a drop in the bucket, but the child and teen psychologist Barbara Greenberg sees this as more than just a one-time free service. He says, “One of the ways to make going back to school easier is fun and introduces some novelty, so the whole idea of getting a haircut that's free makes kids feel special and important. Self-care makes all of us at any age feel better. ”

The Human CameraThere is not anybody else quite like Stephen Wiltshire. Born in 1974, Stephen was always different.    1    In fact, he talked to nobody, showed no interest in school subjects and wasn’t able to sit still. Stephen was later told that he had autism(自闭症). He didn’t learn fully to talk until he was nine years old and he didn’t manage to pass his exams.    2    Art became his way to communicate.

He started by drawing funny pictures of his teachers, but soon began to draw buildings. His eye for detail was perfect. He could see a building just once and remember everything about it.    3    Hours later, in front of TV cameras, he managed to draw this building, with the time on the station clock saying 11:20, the exact time when he was there. The television programme made him famous overnight in the UK.

    4    He has become a well-known artist, published four books of his drawings, taken helicopter(直升机) rides above the world’s great cities and drawn amazing pictures of them, and opened his own art gallery, where he now works, in London.

His drawings are correct and true in every detail—he always manages to draw everything in the right place.    5    In 2006, he was given an MBE(Member of the Order British Empire) by the Queen of England for services to art.