【推荐1】I grew up with a four-year gap between myself and my younger brother. It was a distance (距离) in age to keep us close as we got older, but also an age gap to make sure we lived our own lives in completely different ways. Having a younger brother while I was a girl was a lot of work, for there was a lot of fighting.

However, as we’ve got older, we’ve become closer, and I’ve learned several things in life from my younger brother that I didn’t realize I needed before.

My younger brother is one of the most talented and creative souls (灵魂) I’ve known. He’s continually feeding his creativity with new art forms and new instruments. He always seeks to understand and learn more about the world around him. He’s helped remind me through his actions and words that giving up on creativity is something a person should never do.

My younger brother has also been through hard times, but he’s able to focus on learning from the hard times, unlike me, who tends to hold on to every little thing from my life. It’s always been difficult for me to let things go and move on, but my younger brother has been an inspiration (灵感来源) for me to try harder at letting go.

My younger brother has always been a more introverted type, and if you speak to him, you’re lucky to get over three words out of him at a time. Because of this, he’s certainly learned the whole “actions speak louder than words” thing. But, I’ve realized from my brother that I needn’t speak to fill the silence. Sometimes, it’s necessary to spend some of your time in silence and reflect in it.

【推荐2】When I reached inside the floorboard, my hand touched what felt like a book. I pulled it out. It was an old and small book: Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. I wondered whom the quotations (引语) were supposed to be familiar to. What I did know, thanks to Ms. Rattray, my seventh-grade teacher, was the correct way to use quotation marks. I decided to see what was inside this little book.

On the top corners of each page was a word or phrase, I opened it to “comfort and despair” and then “doubt” and “light”. I’d never thought about “light” any other way except as a lamp or daylight. It turned out that Mr Bartlett didn’t feel all these emotions himself. He had gathered up quotations from thousands of other people.

I was relieved to discover that those people were not afraid to express what they thought, including the fears and that they had so many thoughts about things that troubled me. Before this, I was lonely and I didn’t know whom talk to about the world and my role in it.

In ninth grade, I worked as an assistant at our local library. I often hid in the comer, where no one would see me, and I would read. It was at this library that I realized how some of those emotions I’d felt while reading Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations came to life in the characters I had started discovering in novels.

I have bought a few of the newer editions, but the original one is the one that helped me explore my inner self and see more than young mind and heart were able to understand.

【推荐1】Walking down a path through some woods in Georgia, I saw a small pool of water ahead on the path. I angled my direction to go around it on the part of the path that wasn’t covered by water or mud. As I reached the pool, I was suddenly attacked!

Yet I did nothing for the attack. It was so unpredictable and from somewhere totally unexpected. I was surprised as well as unhurt though I had been struck four or five times. I backed up a foot and my attacker stopped attacking me. Had I been hurt I wouldn’t have found it amusing. And I was laughing. After all, I was being attacked by a butterfly!

Having stopped laughing, I took a step forward. My attacker rushed me again. He charged towards me at full speed, attempting to hurt me but in vain. For a second time, I took a step backwards while my attacker paused. I wasn’t sure what to do. After all, it’s just not every day that one is attacked by a butterfly. I stepped back to look the situation over. My attacker moved back to land on the ground. That’s when I discovered why my attacker was charging me only moments earlier. He had a mate and she was dying.

Sitting close beside her, he opened and closed his wings as if to fan her. I could only admire the love and courage of that butterfly in his concern for his mate. He had taken it up on himself to attack me for his mate’s sake, even though she was clearly dying and I was so large. He did so just to give her those extra few precious moments of life. Should I have been careless enough to step on her? His courage in attacking something thousands of times larger and heavier than himself just for his mate’s safety seemed admirable. I couldn’t do anything other than reward him by walking on the more difficult side of the pool. He had truly earned those moments to be with her, undisturbed.

Since then, I’ve used that butterfly’s courage as an inspiration and to remind myself that good things are worth fighting for.

【推荐2】It was one of the hottest days of the dry season. We had not seen rain in almost a month. The crops were dying. Cows had stopped giving milk. The streams were long gone back into the earth. If we didn’t see some rain soon we would lose everything.

I was in the kitchen making lunch for my husband and his brothers when I saw my six­-year­old son, Billy, walking toward the woods. He was obviously walking with a great effort, trying to be as still as possible. Minutes after he disappeared into the woods, he came running out again, toward the house.

Moments later, however, he was once again walking in that slow purposeful long step toward the woods. This activity went on for over an hour: walking cautiously to the woods, then running back to the house. Finally, my curiosity got the best of me. I rushed out of the house and followed him on his journey.

He was cupping both hands in front of him as he walked, being very careful not to spill the water he held in them. Branches hit his little face but he did not try to avoid them. He had a much greater purpose. As I leaned in to spy on him, I saw the most amazing site.

Several large deer appeared threatening in front of him. But Billy walked right up to them. I almost screamed for him to get away. And I saw a baby deer lying on the ground, obviously suffering from heavy loss of water and heat exhaustion, and lift its head with great effort to accept the water cupped in my beautiful boy’s hands.

I stood on the edge of the woods watching the most beautiful heart I have ever known working so hard to save a life. As the tears that rolled down my face began to hit the ground, they were suddenly joined by other drops. . . and more drops. . . and more. I looked up at the sky. It was as if God, himself, was weeping with pride.

【推荐3】Ms. McIntyre, 38, worked as a publisher. She suffered brain cancer (癌) and her health got worse despite some medical treatment. But she realized that in a way, she was luckier than some other people. She had insurance (保险) to help pay for her medical care. But Ms. McIntyre and her husband, Mr. Gregory, knew that many people with cancer face tough decisions because of the costs of medical care and wind up owing far more than they can pay.

Though her health was failing, Ms. McIntyre decided to help pay off the medical debts of as many people as she possibly could. The couple began donating money to a group called RIP Medical Debt, which is committed to working to pay off the unpaid medical debts of others. The group can pay off medical bills for about 100 times less money than they cost. In other words, for every 100 donated, the group can pay off 10,000 in unpaid medical bills.

Unfortunately, Ms. McIntyre passed away before long. Mr. Gregory posted a message for Ms. McIntyre on her social media accounts. “If you’re reading this, I have passed away,” the post began. Then the post explained, “To celebrate my life, I’ve arranged to buy up others’ medical debts and then destroy the debts.”

The couple had set up a page on a website to raise money for this purpose. They had hoped to raise about $20,000. Nevertheless, Ms. McIntyre’s last post attracted a lot of attention. The donations on her web page quickly passed the total goal. In less than a week, the site had raised 10 times more than expected and the donations are still coming in. By November 22, 2023, Ms. McIntyre’s web page had raised over $627,000, or enough money to pay off about $60 million in medical debts.

Mr. Gregory planned a special event in December to celebrate Ms. McIntyre’s life and to announce how many millions of dollars of medical debts her efforts had paid for.