On a sunny summer weekend, little Sam, accompanied by his parents, left the noisy city for the peaceful countryside. They drove through green meadows and clear streams. In the afternoon, their journey brought them to a charming lake where they encountered a weathered man who introduced himself as Ben, Ben sat calmly by the water with his fishing rod(鱼竿) leaning on a nearby rock.

Sam’s eyes had been fixed on the bobber(浮漂) floating on the water’s surface since their arrival. His fascination with nature had always driven him to ask questions and seek out new adventures.“Uncle Ben, are you fishing? Have you caught a fish?” he asked, his curiosity bubbling over.

A warm smile spread Ben’s face as he regarded the young boy’s eager expression. “ Indeed, I am, young man, “he replied, “but as for catching a fish, well, that’s a story yet to be told.”

Observing their son express his curiosity and effortlessly strike up a conversation with Ben, Sam’s parents exchanged warm, knowing smiles. They realized that this chance encounter with Ben could lead to some valuable lessons.

“Can you teach me how to fish?” asked Sam, his voice filled with enthusiasm. “Well, young man,” Ben replied, “fishing is more than just catching fish. It’s about patience and embracing the wait. If you’re willing to learn, I’d be happy to teach you.”

With that, Ben reached for another fishing rod and invited Sam to join him. He demonstrated how to cast the line into the lake, hold the fishing rod steady, and patiently await a curious fish to take the bait. He then showed Sam how to respond when the bobber moved. Charmed by the graceful art of fishing, Sam couldn’t wait to give it a try. As he sat down beside Uncle Ben, he appeared as calm and relaxed as the skilled fisherman. Sam’s parents watched with keen interest.

Time went by, but Sam’s bobber stayed still.

Just then, Sam’s bobber suddenly dipped below the surface.

In a quiet suburb of Northern California, a diligent (勤奋的) high school student named Sarah had always been devoted to her academics. However, she found herself with some free time on her hands as the school year came to an end. It was then that she was struck with an idea—why not use this spare time to give back to her community?

With a newfound sense of purpose, Sarah set out to look for ways she could make a difference. She noticed that the local park was in need of some repairs and restoration, but the city lacked the budget to tackle the necessary redecoration. Regardless of some challenges, Sarah decided to take matters into her own hands. She gathered her classmates and engaged with the local businesses to provide donations, materials, and equipment needed for the restoration project. With a clear goal in mind and a team of eager volunteers, they rolled up their sleeves and began the heavy task of cleaning up the park. Everyone worked tirelessly, day after day, in the California sun.

Meanwhile Sarah had another idea in her mind. Seeing so many families in the area had been affected by the economic downturn, Sarah knew she had to do more to help. She partnered with local businesses and launched a food drive to support struggling families. Her efforts brought back hope to many families who had been struggling to make ends meet.

As Sarah and her team faced numerous obstacles (障碍) throughout the restoration project, Sarah made sure to maintain a positive attitude and gathered her classmates to keep going at the same time. One day, while painting the park’s broken fence, one of the volunteers called out, “Sarah, why are we even doing this? It’s never going to look good again.” It was a moment of upset feelings. Sarah approached the volunteer. She placed her hands on the volunteer’s shoulder and said, “I don’t expect this to be easy, but we can’t give up. We have an opportunity to help our community and make it a better place. That’s what makes it worth the effort. Don’t you think so?”

Her words had a powerful effect on the team.

There were challenges along the way, but she never lost her determination.

7 . The goal of this book is to make the case for digital minimalism, including a detailed exploration of what it asks and why it works, and then to teach you how to adopt this philosophy if you decide it’s right for you.

To do so, I divided the book into two parts. In part one, I describe the philosophical foundations of digital minimalism, starting with an examination of the forces that are making so many people’s digital lives increasingly intolerable, before moving on to a detailed discussion of the digital minimalism philosophy.

Part one concludes by introducing my suggested method for adopting this philosophy: the digital declutter. This process requires you to step away from optional online activities for thirty days. At the end of the thirty days, you will then add back a small number of carefully chosen online activities that you believe will provide massive benefits to the things you value.

In the final chapter of part one, I’ll guide you through carrying out your own digital declutter. In doing so, I’ll draw on an experiment I ran in 2018 in which over 1,600 people agreed to perform a digital declutter. You’ll hear these participants’ stories and learn what strategies worked well for them, and what traps they encountered that you should avoid.

The second part of this book takes a closer look at some ideas that will help you cultivate (培养) a sustainable digital minimalism lifestyle. In these chapters, I examine issues such as the importance of solitude (独处) and the necessity of cultivating high-quality leisure to replace the time most now spent on mindless device use. Each chapter concludes with a collection of practices, which are designed to help you act on the big ideas of the chapter. You can view these practices as a toolbox meant to aid your efforts to build a minimalist lifestyle that works for your particular circumstances.

9 . Besides “wow” and “great”, what else would you say when flying over the Earth in space? Samantha Cristoforetti, the first Italian female astronaut in space, posted several lines of a famous ancient Chinese composition on Twitter to share her joy.

She first wrote in Chinese, and then attached an accurate translation of the lines in both Italian and English to help more people understand. “Looking up, I see the immensity of the cosmos; bowing my head, I look at the multitude of the world. The gaze flies, the heart expands, the joy of the senses can reach its peak, and indeed, this is true happiness,” it says. Two days before she landed on Earth, the beauty of space and Chinese literature resonated on her Twitter account. Before long, her posts went viral on Twitter with thousands of retweets, likes and replies.

The text she quoted is from the Preface to Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion,a Chinese calligraphy masterpiece by Wang Xizhi (303-361) of the Eastern Jin Dynasty (317-420). She also attached three photos taken in space of China’s Bohai Bay and the day-night view of Beijing. “The poem and views are both magnificent as well as healing. If everyone could enjoy the same sight, a lot of pain in the world would be ‘dissipated’,” one user comments.

As the first Italian female astronaut in space, Cristoforetti carried out her first space mission on Nov 23, 2014. In 2022, she started the second mission in April and returned to Earth on Friday night after a 127-day stay in orbit.

Cristoforetti has also been active in Sino-European cooperation in the field of manned spaceflight. She was a working group member with Chinese counterparts to define and implement cooperation in the field of astronaut operations. When not traveling for work, she is an eager reader and has a great passion for languages. Speaking clear Chinese, Cristoforetti once told the media that the teams from China and Europe were working very well together in the field of astronaut training.

I have a 6-year-old boy, Sam. He is autistic(患自闭症的). Thus, dining out can be terrible. Though he loves to eat out, he dislikes the loud noise in a restaurant. He has a method to solve it: overpower(压倒) all noise with a much louder noise of his own.

This begins what I think of as fighting tables: neighboring parties raise their voice followed by Sam raising his until the loudest point of the noise is reached, making us quite unpopular with other dinners.

Faced with a possible long-time dining alone, I decided to teach my son table manners with his favourite chocolate cake at a new modern cake shop early one Tuesday night.

To my joy, we arrived at an empty cake shop. Everything went well until women entered. Neatly dressed in a simple way, they were two tables away from us. I felt a sense of bad luck coming.

The women began to chat, paying little attention to us. Sam happily took this as his start to talk loudly and overpower them. I asked Sam for a quiet voice, but unluckily Sam had left that voice at home. I looked at the neighboring table, knowing we wouldn’t go noticed much longer. I planned to ask Sam to eat quickly and leave. Sam, who usually has food unhurriedly, refused to accept the sudden idea of fast dining, and he kept talking endlessly.

“SHUSH!” I said, a little angry. Sam laughed loudly as his reply. “Be quiet!” I could see that the two women were now watching us.

Finally, the older of the two women came over.

It turned out to be a perfect night.