【推荐1】Are you truly happy? Do you ever know what it means to be happy and what it takes to achieve happiness?     1     The following are a few tips that I follow to create happiness in my life. Make a plan for achieving goals that you believe will make you happy. Your moods will very likely increase（增加） if you are going after something you value.

Surround yourself with happy people. It is easy to begin to think negatively（消极的）. When you are surrounded by people who think that way.     2    When something goes wrong, try to figure out a solution instead of being absorbed in self pity.

Truly happy people don’t allow setbacks 挫折 to affect their mood because they know that with a little thought they can turn the things back to their favor.

    3     These few minutes will give you the opportunity to focus on the positive things in your life and will lead you to continuous happiness.

    4       Whether you treat yourself to lunch, take a long, relaxing bath or simply spend a few   extra minutes on your appearance, you will be   putting   yourself in a better mood.

Finding the humor in situations can also lead to happiness. Find a way to make light of a situation that would otherwise make you happy.

Keeping healthy is another way to achieve happiness.     5    

【推荐2】If you choose only to complain and escape from a misfortune, it will always follow you wherever you go. But if you decide to be strong, the hardship will turn out to be fortune on which new hopes will arise.

In an accident, a boy lost both his arms and his father who was the main source of support for the family. Since then, he has had to depend on the arms of his younger brother. For the sake of taking care of him, his younger brother became his shadow, never leaving him alone for years. Except for writing with his toes, he was completely unable to do anything in his life.

As the two brothers grew up together, they had their share of problems and they would often quarrel. Then one day, his younger brother wanted to leave, living his own life, as many normal people do. So he was heartbroken and didn't know what to do.

A similar misfortune befell a girl, too. One night, her mother who suffered from chronic mental illness disappeared. Her father went out to look for her mother, leaving her alone at home. She tried to prepare meals for her parents, only to overturn the kerosene light on the stove, resulting in a fire which took her hands away.

Though her elder sister who was studying in another city showed her willingness to take care of her, she was determined to be completely independent. At school, she always studied hard. Most of all she learned to be self-reliant.

One day, the boy and the girl were both invited to appear on a television interview program. The boy told the TV host about his uncertain future at being left on his own, whereas the girl was full of enthusiasm for her life. They were both asked to write something on a piece of paper with their toes. The boy wrote: My younger brother's arms are my arms; while the girl wrote: Broken wings, flying heart.

【推荐3】Here's the story of my growth over the past year. If anyone is inspired (激励) by this, that's wonderful.

I'd been stuck as this under-confident, fat and just frightened girl for years and years and years. Since I was a little girl, I'd been stuck like this, and I had lived a life where I'd be afraid of everything. But then it all started changing. Something clicked, and in over a period of 6 months I finally managed to stick to one of my diets, bringing me from overweight straight down to underweight. This proved ( 证明) that I could change myself.

One single time, I heard about a public speaking thing going on at my university, and for the first time, I managed to keep up the courage to go there. For the first time I was able to share my story, and able to do it in front of so many people possibly judging (评判) me, and suddenly all the fears about speaking publicly started vanishing. I never felt more confident.

This taught me I could get rid （去除） of my fears. It was from that point on that my road to change went from a rocky mess to a full-on empty highway.

Using the fact that I could change, and that I could get rid of my fears, I started working on them one by one. My fear of talking to strangers ,my fear of asking simple questions, my fear of hanging out with people, my fear of being myself... All of them were gone. And I still continue to progress to this day. I've never stopped.

【推荐3】My grandson Jason was no where to be seen — normal behavior for a ten-year-old. I sat down on a chair and noticed the ladder (梯子) lying on the ground under the big tree beside the driveway. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out Jason was up in that tree and had accidentally kicked the ladder away. He wasn’t about to come down, and he wouldn’t let me know he was trapped. I could put up the ladder and rescue him, but then I recalled an event in my youth that I now, more than 50 years later, suddenly understood.

Raymond Cutting was a white haired gentleman, who entered my life when I was Jason’s age. My parents said I was free to wander around the village except for the abandoned quarry (采石场) at the foot of a local mountain, but it was an interesting place: full of milky green water and rusty machinery hiding in the bushes. One afternoon I went there with some older boys, who later abandoned me when the sun was low. I tried for an hour to find my way, climbing over fallen trees but got caught in the bushes. Panicked, I cried.

Stopping to catch my breath, I heard someone whistle (吹口哨). “Hello,” said Cutting. “Out for a walk?” I nodded, “I’ve just been out exploring the old quarry, but I’ve got to get home now.” “If you’d wait a minute, I’ll walk back to town with you after I finish this willow whistle.”

So we walked back down the path together, and the willow whistle was mine, sounding loud and clear. It suddenly dawned on me what an unusual act of kindness that was — Mr. Cutting had heard me crying, but he didn’t play the role of a rescuer. Instead, he whistled so that I could find him.

I got up from the chair and drove my truck right under the big tree, where Jason was. I picked up the ladder and carried it around to the back of the house. When I returned, Jason was sitting in my chair.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Exploring,” Jason said. “I am a Cub Scout, you know.”

“Yes,” I smiled and said, “I know.”

【推荐1】I was born in Fiji and I know firsthand what it is like having an extremely poor background. My only “luck” was having an opportunity to go to school, and I loved it so much. Even when I was sick, I never missed a day. I often compared with my friends who lived near the school to see who could be the first to arrive. It so happened that I lived the furthest, but I always won.

I’ll never forget the days when I waited by the school gate for my mother to bring me the $5 school administration fee I needed for each school term. I watched the road for the bus and with each bus that went by without my mother getting off, my heart would sink because I didn’t want to be sent home.

Since then, I’ve never stopped believing how far $5 can go in a poor girl’s life. My parents couldn’t afford to send all my siblings (兄弟姐妹) to school. I was the youngest, so that $5 fee needed to stay in school came last to me. That $5 represented my dreams, my happiness and my future. We could never afford milk, but my mother always managed to feed us a diet that was basic and filling while saving every penny she could.

Having that $5 each term to stay in school changed my life. I’ve worked in Australia, Europe and Africa, and now I live in New York. Education has enabled me to travel around the world. But above all, education has allowed me not to be just a bystander or an observer; it has given me the opportunity, confidence and platform to be part of decision-making and a voice for social change.

【推荐2】I’d like to share my unforgettable experience with you. Believe it or not, it was a real happening.

We were on tour a few summers ago, driving through Chicago, when right outside of the city, we got pulled over. A middle-aged policeman came up to the car and was really being troublesome at first. He said, “You were speeding. Where are you going in such a hurry?” Our guitarist, Tim, told him that we were on our way to Wisconsin to play a show. His way towards us totally changed. He asked, “Oh, so you boys are in a band?” We told him that we were. He then asked all the usual band questions about the type of music we played, and how long we had been at it. Suddenly, he stopped and said, “Tim, you want to get out of this ticket, don’t you?” Tim said, “Yes.” So the officer asked him to step out of the car. The rest of us, inside the car, didn’t know what to think as we watched the policeman talk to Tim. Next thing we knew, the policeman was putting Tim in the back of the police car he had parked in front of us. With that, he threw the car into reverse (倒车), stopping a few feet behind our car. Now we suddenly felt frightened. We didn’t know if we were all going to prison, or if the policeman was going to sell Tim on the black market or something. All of a sudden, the policeman’s voice came over his loudspeaker. He said, “Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time ever, we have Tim here singing on Route 90.” The policeman had told Tim that the only way he was getting out of the ticket was if he sang part of one of our songs over the loudspeaker in the police car. Seconds later, Tim started screaming into the receiver. The policeman enjoyed the performance, and sent us on our way without a ticket.