【推荐1】When Spring cleaning season arrived this year, I decided that it was time to get rid of more than just a Winter’s worth of dust and dirt. It was the time to get rid of years worth of accumulated (累积) stuff as well. This stuff was lining my walls, filling my shelves, and crowding my closets. This stuff was filling my home and my mind and not bringing me one bit of happiness. I couldn’t even remember how I got some of it, but I knew I wanted it gone.

It turned out to be an even bigger job than I thought. Twenty-year-old bills and receipts were thrown in the trash. Piles of papers were no longer necessary or needed. Broken bowls, dented pans, and cracked knickknacks (小摆件) were finally thrown away. Unworn clothes were taken out of the closet and packed to be given away to the local charity. Old books were boxed up to be passed on for others to read and enjoy.

It took several days to get it all done, but in the end I was able to walk through a home that seemed a little less messed. My heart was a lot lighter too. It felt so good to be able to get rid of all the junk and to just focus on the essential stuff in life again.

What is the essential stuff? What is the stuff that brings meaning to our days? A loving heart is essential. A joyful spirit is essential. A soul full of goodness and god is essential. And a life full of sharing all of these things is absolutely essential. The essential stuff can’t be bought, sold, or stored. It can only be chosen, created, and given away. The essential stuff is the stuff we all really want. It is the stuff we all really need.

【推荐3】Precious family moments

When our three children were small, and I’d clean up after baths for the thousandth time, pick wet towels off the floor, squeeze water out of yellow rubber ducks and call the kids to come back and brush their teeth, I often thought of Someday.

Someday I’d do something important.

When I read bedtime stories, the same stories I’d read so many times that I knew them from memory, my brain froze from the repetition, and my mind wandered to Someday.

Someday life wouldn’t be so routine.

When I stared at a pound of frozen ground beef, considering my two standard options of spaghetti or sloppy joes, trying to remember when we last had what, I thought of Someday.

Someday I’d be creative.

Then one day I had an epiphany. I wasn’t one who was going to leave a mark on the world or build an empire. But I was going to leave a mark on this family, and I already had an empire. It was right under my nose, tucked in (盖好被子的) bed by 8 o'clock.

The Someday I often dreamed about was being shaped by all the todays and yesterdays. Someday was in the making now.

I was doing something important. Caring for children, creating family and trying to make a home that is a sanctuary (庇护所) from a rough world are some of the most important things a person can do.

Creativity? We didn’t always have ground beef. Sometimes we had chicken or fish. It wasn’t the food that mattered; it was being together around the table, the conversation, the laughing, the connecting.

As for routine, no routine stays the same. But even as the routine changes, basics are taught the fact that choices matter because choices become habits, and habits become a way of being, and that is how character takes root.

The things that matter most — knowing you’re loved and knowing how to love others, being generous, extending charity, working hard and recovering after failures and setbacks are learned little by little, one day at a time.

Someday is closer than you think.

【推荐1】As she ran her eyes over the flight-test calculation sheets the engineer had given her, Katherine Goble could see there was something wrong with them. The engineer had made an error with a square root (平方根). And it was going to be tricky to tell him so. It was her first day on this assignment, when she and another girl had been picked out of the computing pool at the Langley aeronautical laboratory, to help the all-male flight research unit.

But there were other, more significant snags (障碍) than simply being new—he was a man and she was a woman. In 1953 women did not question men. They stayed in their place, in this case usually the computing pool, tapping away on their desktop calculators or filling sheets with figures, she as neatly turned out as all the rest. Men were the grand designers, the engineers; the women were “computers in skirts”, who were handed a set of equations (方程式) and exhaustively, diligently checked them. Men were not interested in things as small as that.

Nonetheless, this engineer’s calculation was wrong. If she did not ask the question, an aircraft might not fly, or might fly and crash.

So, very carefully, she asked it. Was it possible that he could have made a mistake? He did not admit it but, by turning the colour of a cough drop, he ceded (屈服) the point. She asked more such questions, and they got her noticed. As the weeks passed, the men “forgot” to return her to the pool. Her incessant “why?” and “how?” made their work sharper. It also challenged them. Why were their calculations of aerodynamic forces so often out? Because they were maths graduates who had forgotten their geometry, whereas she had not; her high-school brilliance at maths had led to special classes on analytic geometry in which she, at 13, had been the only pupil.

Why was she not allowed to get her name on a flight-trajectory report when she had done most of the work? Because women didn’t. That was no answer, so she got her name on the report, the first woman to be so credited. Why was she not allowed into the engineers’ lectures on orbital mechanics and rocket propulsion? Because “the girls don’t go”. Why? Did she not read Aviation Week, like them? She soon became the first woman there.

As NASA’s focus turned from supersonic flight to flights in space, she was therefore deeply involved, though still behind the scenes. She ensured that Alan Shepards mercury capsule splashed down where it could be found quickly in 1961, and that John Glenn in 1962 could return safely from his first orbits of the earth. Indeed, until she had checked the figures by hand against those of the newfangled electronic computer, he refused to go.

Later she calculated the timings for the first moon landing (with the astronauts’ return), and worked on the space shuttle. But in the galaxy of space-programme heroes, despite her 33 years in the flight research unit, for a long time she featured nowhere.

It did not trouble her. First, she also had other things to do: Raise her three daughters, cook, sew their clothes, care for her sick first husband. Second, she knew in her own mind how good she was—as good as anybody. She could hardly be unaware of it, when she had graduated from high school at 14 and college at 18, expert at all the maths anyone knew how to teach her.

But when their story emerged in the 21st century, most notably in a book and a film called “hidden figure”, she had a NASA building named after her and a shower of honorary doctorates.

Do your best, she always said Love what you do. Be constantly curious. And learn that it is not dumb to ask a question; it is dumb not to ask it. Not least, because it might lead to the small but significant victory of making a self-proclaimed (自称的) superior realise he can make a mistake.

【推荐2】Terry Evanshen was one of Canadian football’s greatest receivers. He played every down (进攻) as if it was his last. Though he had made great achievements, Terry’s memories of his playing days have been completely lost.

It was in the summer of 1988 after he retired from playing that his career in sales was taking off. One day in July, Terry, on his way home from work, had a terrible car accident. He was knocked unconscious, and within minutes he was rushed to the nearby hospital.

Three weeks later, he woke up. However, it became obvious that Terry’s injuries were far more serious than whatever damage had been done to his body. A lifetime of memories had been completely wiped clean. He had been all but reduced to the level of a baby; everything from his ability to talk and walk to his understanding of what it meant to be a husband and a father was all gone.

At age 44, Terry Evanshen would be starting all over again. Luckily he had the support of his family, helped by small victories and a renewed bond between him and his three daughters like when they taught him how to play football again.

In 1992, his recovery really began to pick up steam. It has taken years to rebuild his shattered (破碎的) life, but today, more than 20 years since his playing days, Terry is a popular public speaker. He tells his story of perseverance (坚持不懈) and courage. “Never forget, we’re all in this game of life together. We will get to the finishing line, one day at a time, one moment at a time, but celebrate the journey. Seize today, because yesterday is gone and is never coming back.” As the subject of the most watched Canadian movie of 2005, The Man Who Lost Himself, Evanshen says his family has been his most important treasure. He refuses to be a victim, saying he is a survivor.

A PhD student in Michigan defended her paper while wearing a skirt made of rejection letters she received while studying. 29-year-old Caitlin Kirby printed out 17 of her rejection letters — from scholarships, academic journals, and conferences — then folded each one into a fan. She connected them in rows, and by the end she designed the item into a skirt and wore it.

She said that the idea behind her unique clothing item came out of a desire to normalize rejection and take pride in overcoming it. “The whole process of revisiting those old letters and making that skirt sort of reminded me that you have to apply to a lot of things to succeed,” she said. “A natural part of the process is to get rejected along the way.”

Caitlin's adviser, Julie Libarkin, a professor of earth and environmental science at Michigan State University, also encourages the acceptance of failure in her students. Libarkin believes it's important for students to get into habit of applying for things, and to get used to the feeling of rejection, so she encourages them to chase after any opportunity that comes their way. If a student doesn't get the grant or the spot in the academic journal, that's okay. They'll still have learned something in the process.

As for Caitlin? Her rejections over the years have led to great things: Since her doctorate, she's won a scholarship to do further research on urban agriculture in Germany.

Currently, she's a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. As for what the future holds? “I'm prepared to receive a few more rejection letters along the way,” she joked heartily, “Maybe I'll make a longer skirt.”