【推荐1】I used to be bad at playing basketball. Gym class in middle school was the worst. I was always the last kid to be picked. The only reason why I was even picked at all was that I was good friends with the best player in the class.

In the eighth grade, I finally decided I was sick and tired of being a scrub. I dedicated that entire summer to getting better. I spent every day playing basketball, practicing for hours in the gym. I remember playing pick-up games with one group of kids until they all eventually got tired and left. Then a whole different group of kids would come in and I’d play with them too.

After months of this devoted routine, something amazing started to happen. People began passing me the ball. They trusted me to take the shot. They even started picking me first to be on their team! The last game of organized basketball I ever played was the culmination of all my hard work. Against a team far more talented than mine, I scored 27 points. We still lost, but I walked away from that game feeling like a total champion.

What I learned from those years of rejection and waiting to be picked was that life really isn’t any different. Most of us spend our lives waiting for opportunities to land in our laps. What’s worse, sometimes we feel entitled to them. And when things don’t go our way—when no one picks us—we find something or someone to blame.

I could have complained when no one wanted me on their team. I could have convinced myself that I deserved to be picked. But I didn’t. Instead, I took matters into my own hands and put in the work to become better.

Should we have our fate controlled by a few people who in most cases don’t even know us? I certainly don’t think so. We have a choice. We can choose to create something meaningful, to move forward with our ideas.

【推荐2】On a hot summer day in America a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. He dived into the cool water, not realizing that as he swam towards the middle of the lake, a crocodile was swimming toward him.

His mother in the house was looking out of the window and saw the two as they got closer and closer. In great fear, she ran toward the water, shouting to her son as loudly as she could. Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed and made a U-turn to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the crocodile reached him. From the shore, the mother grabbed her little boy by the arms just as the crocodile snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war (拔河) between the two. The crocodile was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was much too passionate to let go. A farmer happened to drive by, heard their screams, raced from his truck, took aim and shot the crocodile.

Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital, the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the attack of the animal. And, on his arms, were deep scratches where his mother's fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved.

The newspaper reporter, who interviewed the boy, asked if he would show him his scars(伤疤). The boy lifted his legs. And then, with obvious pride, he said to the reporter, “But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn’t let go.”

Never judge another person's scars, because you don't know how they were made.

【推荐3】“How do you explain the fact that even though you were both blind and deaf, you were able to accomplish so much?”Queen Victoria of England asked Helen Keller.

Ms Keller answered,“If it had not been for Anne Sullivan, the name of Helen Keller would have remained unknown.”

In fact,“Little Annie”, as she was called when she was young, was no stranger to hardship. She   was almost sightless herself（due to a childhood fever）and was, at one time, diagnosed as hopelessly“insane（精神错乱的）”and locked in the basement of a mental institution. On occasion, Little Annie would even violently attack anyone who came near.

An elderly nurse believed there was hope, and she made it her mission（使命）to show love to the child. She still continued to visit for she believed Little Annie could recover, if she was shown love.

Eventually, doctors noticed a change in the girl.Where they witnessed anger and coldness they noted gentleness and love. They moved her to the upstairs where she continued to improve. Then the day finally came   when this seemingly“hopeless”child was released.

Anne Sullivan grew into a young woman with a desire to help others as she, herself, was helped by the kind nurse. It was she who saw the great potential in Helen Keller. She loved her, disciplined（训练）her,played with her and worked with her until the weak candle became a beacon of light to the world. She worked wonders in Helen's life, but it was a loving nurse who first believed in Little Annie and lovingly transformed an uncommunicative child into a compassionate（充满同情心）teacher.

If it had not been for Anne Sullivan, the name of Helen Keller would have remained unknown. But if ithad not been for a kind and devoted nurse, the name of Anne Sullivan would have remained unknown. And so it goes. And how far forward will it lead?

【推荐2】We spend a third of our adult lives working and another big part preparing for our careers. Historically, work was rarely seen as a source of meaning and purpose. During the vast majority of our 300, 000-year human evolution(进化), work was in fact pretty simple. We worked to eat and avoid being eaten. Meaning and purpose came from somewhere else, like spirituality, art, religion, or science.

The idea that we are meant to find meaning at work or to find work meaningful-is a rather modern, if not postmodern, invention. Only one hundred years ago it would have been frequent to see a worker who returned from a typical workday at a factory complain to their folks that they didn’t earn much or they were worn out and rare to see that they complain they didn’t experience a sense of purpose.

Similarly, the idea that we ought to bring our “whole self” to work is a pretty novel and recent form of career advice. Its origins can be traced to William Kahn who invented the concept of employee engagement 30 years ago. His point was that employees differ in the degree to which they identify with their work role. Some see work as merely a job and clock in and out every day, without bringing their whole self to work. Work is just not a core aspect of their identity, and their concept of themselves is built on other social categories like mother, husband, American, Christian, captain of the local soccer team, etc.

Others, however, have very low psychological distance with their work role, seeing it as essentially intertwined(交融的) with who they are. They don’t just come to work, they are fully devoted to their careers and have a spiritual type of connection with their jobs. They are, it seems, almost possessed by work and are the type of workaholics(工作狂) most companies long for.