When my grandfather died,my 83-year-old grandmother, once full of life, slowly began to fade. Although she was visited often by our loving family members, it was often hard to arouse her interest.

One chilly December afternoon, my sister Meagan, eight, and I were settling in for a long visit with my grandmother, when she noticed that Meagan was carrying her favorite doll.

”I, too, had a special doll when I was a little girl,“ she told wide-eyed Meagan,”I got it one Christmas when I was about your age.The very first gift I opened that Christmas was the most beautiful doll. She had an exquisite,hand-painted porcelain face, and her long brown hair was pulled back with a big pink bow.”Grandma’s eyes filled with excitement and her voice shook with emotion as she recalled that Christmas gift.“I played with my doll all morning long. She was such a beautiful doll... And then it happened. My mother called us to the dining room for Christmas dinner and I laid my doll down, ever so gently, on the hall table. But as I went to join the family at the table,I heard a loud crash.”

“I hardly had to turn round — I knew it was my precious doll. When I ran in from the dining room, there lay my beautiful doll on the floor, her face smashed into a dozen pieces. I can still see mother trying to put my poor doll together again. But it couldn’t be done. She was gone forever.”     A few days later, Grandma’s younger sister was also gone because of pneumonia. Now the tears in her eyes spilled over-tears, I knew, not only for a lost doll and a lost sister, but for the lost time.

During our rest stay, Meagan thought a good idea and exclaimed,“Let’s get our grandma a new doll for Christmas, one exactly like the doll that got broken. She would not cry when she thought about it.”My heart filled with pride as I listened to my compassionate sister. But where would we find a doll to mach our grandmother’s fond memories?

Where there’s a will, there is a way. We got in touch with a local doll maker.

Finally, our creation was finished.

It was early morning, yet already it had been a very bad day. One thing after another, the downward spiral (螺旋) continued when a large bottle of orange juice slid from my hands and fell to the floor. Glass and sticky juice splashed to the farthest corners of the kitchen. Shocked, I looked at the mess. Then I dropped heartbrokenly down to the floor, my eyes filling with tears. The tears seemed to show that “today is just not my day.”

Bad day or not, things had to be done. Filled with anxiety and negative mental baggage, I got in my car to drive into town. In the few minutes it took to travel to the bank I made a decision. I would be careful not to pass my bad day off to anyone else. I would be friendly and polite. And I would NOT be angry when that careless driver pulled quickly and rudely in front of me causing me to brake suddenly.

Standing in line at the bank, I was silently talking to myself. Actually, I was scolding myself. All of the events that had accumulated and contributed to my bad day were, in reality, so very minor and trivial. I was over-reacting. I was filled with self-pity. I tried to imagine the innumerable, individual lives that had been affected by terrorist attacks, by war, by hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters.

For the second time that day my eyes filled with tears as I realized how disconnected I felt from all those individuals who are trying to cope with truly miserable experiences in their lives.

They all seemed so distant and unknowable, and this justified and strengthened my belief that I was being self-centered and selfish. I was sure that all my efforts to be a caring and loving person were in vain.

A voice broke through my mental distractions. Somehow I had mechanically finished my bank transaction (交易) and the teller was trying to get my attention. “Young lady,” she was saying, gently, “Young lady!”

I looked up and into the eyes of the bank teller, a silver-haired grandmother with a gentle beauty.

In the moment of her touching my hands, my self-doubt disappeared.

A couple worked hard to provide for their family well, but their wealth came at the expense of their time. They hired a woman called May to help raise their three children. Their first son, Matt, was now 18, and they had two other children who were 8 and 5 years old. When they had Matt, they weren’t financially wealthy. However, by the time Matt turned 9, it slowly improved.

When Matt was 11, they decided to send him to a private school since they could afford it. Changing the school environment brought about a sudden personality change for Matt, and his parents believed it was because putting him in a class of wealthy teenagers made him feel superior (有优越感的).

Through the years, the concerned parents tried to change this side of Matt. When he was16, the parents made him take a part-time job to start taking financial responsibility seriously. At first, the parents thought it worked. However, after some time, the boy’s parents realized he hadn’t changed.

One day, the couple planned to go on vacation. Instead of leaving May at home, they decided to take her with them and bought her a first-class ticket. While they were planning the vacation, Matt overheard them talking. He felt his parents’ paying for May’s first-class seat was unnecessary because their family had already paid for her.

The mom was shocked. She said it was mean for him to say that, especially after everything May did for them. She added how grateful she was for May’s help, as she gave up time for her own child to raise hers—Matt included. Still, Matt continued to argue his point. The mom grew tired of his selfishness and said he’d be the one in an economy seat and had to pay for an upgrade to first class if he wanted one. The boy nodded, thinking it was a joke.

On the day of the trip, Matt realized his mom was telling the truth.

Still feeling ashamed after the trip, the young man knew he had to change.