【推荐2】My dad passed away yesterday and I am processing everything. It's hard to try and find positivity in my pain, but my Dad taught me so much when he was healthy, and when he wasn't, I wanted to share some of the lessons.

Be on the phone less. This one seems strange but in his final moments I was all in, no checking my phone because it really didn't matter.    1    This was a moment I needed to remember and I would have regretted it if I was distracted in this part of his journey.

    2    Sometimes we need people to lean on My mom and dad needed a lot of help. I needed a lot of help. We were surrounded by people willing to help us and instead of shutting them out like we've done in the past, we let them in and it was exactly what we needed.

Not everyone will understand your experience.    3    Just knowing people are here for us means a lot, but I also know that no one will fully understand my experience and that's okay as we are all different.

There's nothing more important than being with the ones you love. I was able to hold my Dad when he took his last breath. My mom and I made sure that my dad knew he was loved through this journey.    5    Everything else is secondary.

【推荐3】I was watching a kid doing tricks on his skateboard. He was doing pretty well until he tried to skate down a set of steps and lost his balance. The skateboard went one way and he went the other. But, lying on the concrete, he still managed to keep his sense of humor. He looked at me, smiled and said, “Epic fail!”

The term “epic fail” isn’t proper grammatical English (we should use the noun form “failure”), but it is commonly used and perfectly acceptable. People use it to describe small embarrassments as well as serious mistakes. The kid on the skateboard suffered a small embarrassment. An example of a serious epic fail would be Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential election. The only difference between the two was how they responded to their epic fails. The kid laughed at his embarrassment and got back on his skateboard. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, could not accept her epic fail but, instead, wrote a bitter book about it in which she blamed everyone but herself for the loss.

All of us can expect to have epic fails in our life. We might fail an exam or not win a prize in some competition. Later in life, we may not get the job we want or be as successful as we hoped we would be. But if we manage to keep our sense of humor and a positive attitude, we can overcome our epic fails. One embarrassing mistake or even a serious disappointment does not mean the end of the world.

Here’s a historical example of what I mean. Alfred the Great (849-899) was an English king in ancient Britain. At the time, his kingdom was being invaded by Vikings and Alfred suffered an epic fail when his army was defeated in a big battle. He managed to escape from the battlefield and found safety many miles away in the hut of a poor peasant woman. The woman didn’t know who he was and when she had to leave the hut to do some chores, she told Alfred to watch some wheat cakes that were cooking on the fire. Alfred, still thinking about his big epic fail, forgot about the cakes and they were burned. When the woman returned, she scolded Alfred, but he didn’t get angry. Her criticism, instead, seemed to help him put his situation into perspective.

Soon after, Alfred left the hut, gathered his scattered army and defeated the Vikings. Epic fails, big and small, can always be overcome with the right attitude.

【推荐1】The meaning of the word “volunteer” may be a little different in different countries, but it usually means “one who offers his or her services”. There are many different ways in which people can volunteer, such as taking care of sick people, working in homes for homeless children, and picking up garbage from beaches and parks. Volunteers may work within their own countries or in other countries. They are often people with a strong wish to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. Volunteers don’t expect any kind of pay.

At the root of volunteering is the idea that one person may have the ability to offer services that can help other people. Tracy, a good friend of mine, however, recently came back from India with a new idea of what being a volunteer means. She worked for two and a half weeks in one of Mother Teresa’s homes in Calcutta. The following is her story.

“I first heard about Mother Teresa in my high school, we watched a video about her work in India and all over the world. I was so moved by her spirit to help others and her endless love for every human being that after I graduated from high school, I too wanted to try her kind of work. So with two friends I flew to Calcutta for a few weeks.”

“I was asked to work in a home for sick people. I helped wash clothes and sheets, and pass out lunch. I also fed the people who were too weak to feed themselves and tried to cheer them up. I felt it was better to share with them than to think that I have helped them. To be honest, I don’t think I was helping very much. It was then that I realized that I had not really come to help, but to learn about and experience another culture that helped improve my own understanding of life and the world.”

【推荐2】In a cafe in south London, two construction workers are talking cheerfully. They sometimes break into loud laughter. They are discussing something, and their conversation looks fun and interesting. But I don’t speak their language. Out of curiosity, I interrupt them.

With friendly smiles, they both change easily to English, explaining that they are South Africans and were speaking Xhosa. In Johannesburg, where they are from, most people speak at least five languages, says one of them, Theo Morris. “My mother’s language is Sotho. My father’s is Zulu. I learned Xhosa and Ndebele from my friends and neighbors, and English and Afrikaans from school. I can speak well all of the languages mentioned above. I went to Germany before I came here, so I also speak a little German,” he adds.

“Is it easy to learn so many languages?” “Yes, it’s normal,” he laughs. He’s right. Around the world, more than half of the people speak at least two languages. Many countries have more than one official language — South Africa has 11. People, young or old, are increasingly expected to speak, read and write in at least one of a handful of “super” languages, such as English, Chinese, Hindi, Spanish and Arabic.

Multilingualism (多语言) has many social psychological and lifestyle advantages. Moreover, many health benefits from speaking more than one language have been found, including faster stroke (中风) recovery.

Could it be that the human brain evolves (进化；演变) to be multilingual — that those who speak only one language are not realizing their full potential (潜能)? And in a world that is losing languages faster than ever — one every two weeks, half our languages will disappear hopelessly by the end of the century. What would happen if the rich diversity (多样性) of languages disappeared and most of us ended up speaking only one? That’s a serious problem we are facing.

【推荐3】God has a way of allowing us to be in the right place at the right time.

I was walking down a dark street late one evening when I heard screams coming from behind a clump of bushes (灌木). Alarmed, I slowed down to listen and soon realized that what I was hearing was the unmistakable sounds of a struggle: mad fighting and tearing of clothes.

Only yards from where I stood, a girl was being attacked. Should I get involved? I was worried about my own safety, and regretted having suddenly decided to take a new route home that night. What if I became another victim? Shouldn’t I just run to the nearest phone and call the police?

The girl’s cries were growing weaker. I knew I had to act at once. How could I walk away from this? I finally made up my mind. I could not turn my back on the fate of this unknown girl, even if it meant risking my own life.

I am not a brave man, nor am I physically strong. I didn’t know where I got the courage and strength, but once I had decided to help the girl, I became strangely different. I ran behind the bushes and pulled the attacker off the girl. Struggling, we fell to the ground, where we wrestled for a few minutes until the attacker jumped up and escaped.

Out of breath, I stood up and approached the girl, who was behind a tree, sobbing. Not wanting to frighten her further, I at first spoke to her from a distance. “It’s okay,” I said softly. “The man has run away. You’re safe now.” There was a long pause and then I heard the words, spoken in wonder, in amazement. “Dad, is that you?” And then, from behind the tree, out stepped my youngest daughter, Katherine.