【推荐1】It was Mother’s Day morning last year and I was doing my shopping at our local supermarket with my five-year-old son, Teayson. As we were leaving, we found that only minutes earlier an elderly woman had fallen over at the entrance and had hit her bead on the concrete. Her husband was with her, but there was blood everywhere and the woman was embarrassed and clearly in shock.

Walking towards the scene, Tenyson became very upset about what had happened to the couple. Ile said to me. “Mums it’s not much fun falling over in front of everyone.”

At the front of the supermarket a charity group had set up a stand selling cooked sausages and flowers to raise funds. Tenyson suggested that we should boy the lady a flower. “It will make her feel better,” he said. I was amazed that he’d come up such a sweet idea. So we went over to the flower seller and asked her if we could buy a flower for the lady to cheer her up. “Just take it,” she replied. “I can’t take your money for such a wonderful gesture.”

By now paramedics(救援人员) had arrived, and were attending the injured woman. As we walked up to her, my son became intimidated by all the blood and medical equipment. He said he was just too scared to go up to her.

Instead I gave the flower to the woman’s husband and told him. “My son was very upset for your wife and wanted to give her this flower to make her feel better.”

At that, the old man started crying and said, “Thank you so much, you have a wonderful son, Happy Mother’s Day to you.”

The man then bent down and gave his wife the flower, telling her who it was from. Though badly hurt and shaken, the old lady looked up at Tenyson with love in her eyes and gave him a little smile.

【推荐3】After 21 years of marriage, my wife woman out to take another woman out to dinner and a movie. The other woman was my mother,who has been a widow(寡妇)for 19 years.However,the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That Friday after work,when I arrived at her house,my mother was waiting in the door with her coat on.She had curled her hair and was   wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary.

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and comfortable. My mother took my arm as if she were !he First Lady. During the dinner, we had an agreeable conversation about nothing extraordinary but just caught up on recent events. We talked so much that we missed the movie.

As we arrived at her house later, she said: “I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.” I agreed. A few days later, my mother died of a serious heart attack. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t have a chance to do anything for her.

Sometime later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt (收据）from the same place mother and I had dined. An attached note said: **I paid this bill in advance. I wasn’t sure that I could be there; still, I paid for two plates—one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me. I love you. Son.”

At mat moment, I understood the importance of saying: UI love you” and of giving our loved ones the time they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than family. Give family members the attention they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till some “other’ time.

【推荐1】There was once a jar(广口瓶) of fresh, clean water. Every drop of water in the jar felt immensely proud of being so clean and pure. Day after day they would congratulate each other on how clean and beautiful they were. That was until one day when one of the drops got bored with his clean existence. He wanted to try what it was like being a dirty drop.

The other drops tried to talk to him out of it, but he stuck to his guns. Hardly realizing, when the drop came back all dirty, he turned all the other drops in the jar into dirty drops, too.

They tried to get clean again, but they couldn’t. They tried everything to shake off the dirtiness. Finally, much later, someone dipped the jar in a fountain, and only when a lot of clean water entered the jar did the drops regain their old transparency and purity. Now they all know that if they all want to be nice clean drops, then each and every one of them has to stay clean, even if they find it difficult. That drop that succeeded in being dirty has realized that correcting the mistake of one single drop needs a lot of work for everyone else.

The same happens to us and our friends. If we want to live in a jar of clean water, each of us will have to be a clean drop. How about you? What are you? A clean drop?

【推荐2】I love persimmons(柿子). The sweet, bright orange fruit indicates the coming of autumn in Iran, where grew up. Persimmons can’t grow just anywhere, but they do grow in California, where I now live. A few years ago, preparing to travel from San Francisco to Boston, I packed two persimmons, one of which I ate in the departure hall, waiting for boarding.

At this point, a lady came up, asking where the fruit was purchased. She looked a bit disappointed when hearing it couldn’t be gained at the airport and returned to her seat on the other end of the hall. “I can give the second persimmon away”, I thought to myself. When I offered her the fruit, she at first opposed but when I insisted, she was visibly glad and appreciatively accepted. I went back to my seat. happy to have made someone else happy, and that, as far as I was concerned, was the end of the story.

Sometime during the flight, the lady caught up with me to thank me again. She shared that she had grown up in Japan, where there was a persimmon tree in the yard of her childhood home. She now lived in Boston, where she hadn’t been able to find the fruit. The taste of this persimmon was precious to her, reconnecting her with memories of her relatives.

Only then did I understand the impact of this tiny act of generosity. I am so moved to this day that the taste of the persimmon I never ate gives me more joy than all the ones I have eaten.

My experience is not unique. Research has shown that acts of generosity for others make us happier than treating ourselves. A 2018 study by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton and colleagues found that despite participants’ predictions to the contrary, giving money to someone else increased their own happiness more than spending it on themselves.

【推荐3】I got married just after I graduated from college and found a job to support our family at the nearby Massachusettes Institute of Technology (MIT). It was in the laboratory of Prof. Edward Lorenz that I learned what a computer was and how to develop software.

One day my husband saw a newspaper advertisement. The MIT Instrumentation Laboratory was looking for people to develop software to “send man to the moon”. Deeply attracted both by the idea and the fact that it had never been done before, I became the first programmer to join and the first woman the lab hired.

At the beginning, nobody thought software was such a big deal. But then they began to realize how much they were relying on it. Our software needed to be very reliable and able to detect an error and recover from it at any time during the mission.

My daughter, Lauren, liked to intimate me—playing astronaut. One day, she was with me when I was doing a simulation (模拟) of a mission to the moon. She started hitting keys and all of a sudden, she selected a program which was supposed to be run before launch. The computer had so little space that it wiped the navigation data taking her to the moon. I thought: my God—this could happen by accident in a real mission. I suggested a program change to prevent a prelaunch program being selected during flight. But the higher-ups at MIT and NASA said the astronauts were too well trained to make such a mistake.

On the very next mission, Apollo 8, one of the astronauts on board accidentally did exactly what Lauren had done. The Lauren bug! It created destruction and required the mission to be rearranged. After that, they let me put the program change in. It was the program change that had a crucial influence on the success of the mission of Apollo 11.

During the early days of Apollo, software was not taken as seriously as other engineering disciplines (学科). It was out of desperation I came up with the term “software engineering”. Then one day in a meeting, one of the most respected hardware experts explained to everyone that he agreed with me that the process of building software should also be considered an engineering discipline, just like with hardware. It was a memorable moment.

【推荐1】My 12-year-old son and I ride bikes to and from his school every day. I accompany him on the 20-minute ride through Manhattan, drop him off and return at the end of day to pick him up. We always ride together；sometimes he leads；sometimes I do.And as we ride, we communicate the ways to minimize the dangers:Don't go too fast, and watch out for doors suddenly swinging out from parked cars and jaywalking pedestrians, etc. Some friends worry about the risk of riding in traffic, but is there a better way to let my son know how to deal with traffic dangers?

But recently he requested me to start hanging back a half block or so. This way he could enjoy the feeling of riding on his own, with the security of knowing that I was nearby in case he needed me.This is healthy, of course, as my son needs space to develop independence in preparation for his inevitable departure from home. However, that means soon he will want to ride to school on his own, and I will no longer have this wonderful routine."Let your children go if you want to keep them."I understand this and am trying to let my son go in age-appropriate phases, but I still suffer.It's one of the most troubling experiences of parenthood—recognizing that your presence is becoming less welcome.

My dilemma as a husband mirrors the concern I feel as a parent. My wife has just left on a six-month mission to cover the situation in Libya.In the days leading up to her departure, we spoke openly about the possibility, however unlikely, that she might be killed. But while I influence her decisions, I do not control them. Finally, it was her decision. I know that letting go is the wisest path in this case too.As we travel through life's phases, we must let go of so much.And I don 't think it gets easier with practice.But maybe just accepting that eventually we will have to let go is the secret to living a full life.

【推荐2】My violin is like a soulmate that whispers words of wisdom to me. Together, we've gone through both tears and happiness.

About 12 years ago, I made acquaintance with it following an order from my mom. Many hours of boredom were spent practicing it. And to make things worse, the disappointment in my teacher's eyes as I played the wrong notes was like an invisible hammer, striking on my heart. One day, I finally decided: I hate it!

By chance, things changed when I was seven. I was at home lying on the sofa, wondering how those famous violinists dealt with this terrible dilemma(进退两难). I searched online for the E-minor Concerto, a well-known violin work by German composer Felix Mendelssohn, and listened to it.

A beautiful and mysterious sound came from the violin as the bow moved across it. It was like the music slid over the flowers, rose up, and started to fill the air. The violin's voice woke up the sun, made the trees green, and freshened the air. As the music changed, the sky turned back to gray. A gloomy shade covered the grass as all the sunshine disappeared. I could hear children crying and men shouting. It was like an invisible claw(爪子)had grabbed my heart tightly, making it unable to beat.

That glorious day set off my passion and interest in violin — I grabbed mine and never let it go. Before the memories faded, I stared at my instrument. Without hesitating, I picked it up, rosined the bow, and began to play. Peace filled my heart.

My violin has been by my side for 12 years. When I feel happy, an energetic tune makes it even better; when I'm deep in sorrow, a peaceful tune washes it away； when I'm walking on air, feeling especially pleased with my achievements, solemn tunes calm me down. Gradually, it has become a part of my life.

My violin, shall I compare you to a summer's day?