【推荐2】When I was 17, I read a magazine article about a museum called the McNay, once the home of a watercolorist named Marian McNay. She had requested the community to turn it into a museum upon her death. On a sunny Saturday, Sally and I drove over to the museum. She asked, "Do you have the address? ""No, but I'll recognize it, there was a picture in the magazine. "

"Oh, stop. There it is!”

The museum was free. We entered, excited. A group of people sitting in the hall stopped talking and stared at us.

"May I help you?" a man asked. "No, "I said. "We're fine.” Tour guides got on my nerves. What if they talked a long time about a painting you weren't that interested in? Sally had gone upstairs. The people in the hall seemed very nosy(爱窥探的), keeping their eyes on me with curiosity. What was their problem? I saw some nice sculptures in one room. Suddenly I sensed a man standing behind me. "Where do you think you are? " he asked. I turned sharply. "The McNay Art Museum!" He smiled, shaking his head. "Sorry, the McNay is on New Braunfels Street." "What’s this place?” I asked, still confused. "Well, it's our home." My heart jolted(震颤). I raced to the staircase and called out, "Sally! Come down immediately! "

"There's some really good stuff(艺术作品)up there." She stepped down, looking confused. I pushed her toward the front door, waving at the family, saying, "Sorry, please forgive us, you have a really nice place." Outside, when I told Sally what happened, she covered her mouth, laughing. She couldn't believe how long they let us look around without saying anything.

The real McNay was splendid, but we felt nervous the whole time we were there. Van Gogh, Picasso. This time, we stayed together, in case anything else unusual happened.

Thirty years later, a woman approached me in a public place. "Excuse me, did you ever enter a residence, long ago, thinking it was the McNay Museum? "

"Yes. But how do you know? We never told anyone. "

"That was my home. I was a teenager sitting in the hall. Before you came over, I never realized what a beautiful place I lived in. I never felt lucky before. You thought it was a museum. My feelings about my home changed after that. I've always wanted to thank you."

【推荐3】Taylor Pollard remembers when her younger sister, Kheris Rogers, was in first grade she once asked to stay in the bathroom longer---she hoped it would make her skin lighter. Kids were making fun of Rogers’ dark complexion. So Erika Pollard, the girls’ mom, moved Rogers to another school. Kids still made fun of her, but this time the kids bullying（霸凌）her were black.

Taylor Pollard wanted to help her sister feel good about herself. In 2017, she took a picture of Kheris. She posted it online. She wrote Kheris was “flexing in her complexion”. That is an expression their grandmother used often to encourage the girls to feel beautiful. Complexion means skin color. Flexing is a term for “showing off” or “showing pride”.

Then the sisters received many messages supporting Rogers and decided they wanted to direct that energy. Together, they came up with the idea of putting the message on a T-shirt Their business, Flexin’ In My Complexion, started shortly after that in April 2017. Erika gave the sisters about $100. Then their project got off the ground. They used some of the money to build a website. They also learned how to screen print T-shirts. The sisters set up shop in the garage behind their mom’s house in LA.

The sisters are co-CEOs. So far the sisters have sold more than 10,000 T-shirts. Flexin’ in My Complexion has done more than make money for the sisters. It has also helped Rogers become confident. When she was being bullied, Rogers says she would come home from school upset.

“I would always come home crying; I would just have tears coming down my face,” she says. “My confidence is probably 10 million times higher right now. You have no way of knowing but my confidence back then was probably as low as it could be.”

【推荐1】It was late on a Thursday evening in Austin, Texas, and I had just finished my shift downtown waiting tables. I hopped into my truck and headed away from the chaos to my own personal oasis, Dan’s Depot. It was on a four-lane road that went straight from the heart of Austin to West Texas. Once, Dan’s Depot had been outside of the city. But with Austin’s population growing and the city’s expansion, it was swallowed up by high-rise buildings and skyscrapers.

I’ve been familiar with Dan’s Depot since I played my first show there. Like most waiters in Austin, I’m actually a musician. The woman who welcomes customers is Dan’s wife Maude.

I slid my truck into the last free spot and headed to the door. “How’s it going, Maude?” I asked. “David, I just don’t know what we’re going to do,” she said. “Our contract with the landlord is up for renewal at the end of the month, and he has doubled the rent. Even if we charged twice as much for the snacks and shows, we could never make ends meet.”

My heart dropped. On some level, I’d been expecting to hear this news for as long as I’d been coming to Dan’s Depot. After all, Dan’s Depot was now sandwiched between a shop selling yoga pants to people who could afford personal trainers and a luxury furniture store where even a simple dining chair cost more than S1, 000. How could this little live music bar survive with those kinds of neighbors?

“What are you going to do with this place? Are you moving?” I asked. She shook her head slowly. “I just don’t know. Dan and I are not as young as we used to be.”

I patted her on the shoulder and made my way to the tables near the stage. Memories sprung up in my mind. Most of my musical ideas came to me while I was watching live shows here at Dan’s Depot. When the song ended, I got up and went back to Maude.

“What if I run the new Dan’s Depot?” I asked her. She stared at me, surprised.

“Hear me out,” I said. “I’ve got enough money to go in with you and Dan as a third partner. I know the Texas music scene in and out, and I can get the best new bands in here every week. We’ll move it way down South Congress Avenue, where it’s still close enough to be accessible from downtown but the rent is more affordable. And most importantly, this place means a lot to me.”

Maude was still staring at me silently. I began to grow uneasy. Had I offended her? I started apologizing. She cut me off with a huge embrace. “Honey, I think that’s a fantastic idea.”

【推荐2】A young woman carrying a three-year-old child got on a bus. The conductor hurried to give her a warm welcome and then kindly asked the other passengers to make more room for the woman and her child. On seeing this, people began to talk. “You know this conductor used to be very rude. Now suddenly he has changed his bad behavior(举止) , ” said a middle-aged man.

“Yes, he should be praised and we must write a letter to the company,” said a second passenger. “That's right,” another lady said, “I wish a newspaper reporter were here so that more people could learn from this conductor.”

Just then a gentleman who looked like a teacher turned to the conductor and said , “Excuse me, but can I know your name, please? Your excellent service must be praised...”

Before he could open his mouth, the three-year-old child sitting on the young woman's lap said, “I know his name. I call him Dad.”

【推荐3】Twenty years ago, when Angela and I were studying in college, our professor taught us a lesson we've never forgotten. On the last day of class before graduation, she walked up on stage to teach one final lesson, which she called "a life lesson on the power of mindset". As she raised a glass of water over her head, everyone expected her to repeat the saying "glass half empty or glass half full. Instead, with a smile on her face, our professor asked, “How heavy is this glass of water I'm holding？"

Students shouted out answers, from a couple of ounces to a couple of pounds. After a few moments of fielding answers and nodding her head, she replied, "From my point of view, the absolute weight of this glass is not important. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it's quite light.   If I hold it for an hour straight, my arm might feel painful.   If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely be losing the power of sense, and finally get paralyzed (麻痹的), forcing me to drop the glass to the floor. In each case, the absolute weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it feels to me．"

As most of us students nodded our heads in agreement, she continued. "Your anxiety, anger, disappointments, fear and other passive feelings are very much like this glass of water.   Think about them for a little while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to feel pain. Think about them all day long, and it will make you paralyzed, unable to do anything else until you drop them．"