3 . Richard is a very a successful businessman. It is common for him to work hard with a non-stop. He wasn’t aware that he might wear himself out or die an early death until he overslept one morning, which was a sort of alarm. And then what happened? He had a week’s leave during which time he read novels, listened to music and walked with his wife on a beach, which has enabled Richard to return to work again.

In our modern life, we have lost the rhythm between action and rest. Amazingly, within this world there is a universal but silly saying: “I am so busy.”

We say this to one another as if our tireless efforts were a talent by nature and an ability to successfully deal with stress. The busier we are, the more important we seem to ourselves and, we imagine, to others. To be unavailable to our friends and family, and to be unable to find time to relax — this has become the model of a successful life.

Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the guide telling us where to go, the food providing us with strength, the quiet giving us wisdom.

How have we allowed this to happen? I believe it is this: we have forgotten the Sabbath, the day of the week — for followers of some religions — for rest and praying. It is a day when we are not supposed to work, a time when we devote ourselves to enjoying and celebrating what is beautiful. It is a good time to bless our children and loved ones, give thanks, share meals, walk and sleep. It is a time for us to take a rest, to put our work aside, trusting that there are larger forces at work taking care of the world.

Rest is s spiritual and biological need; however, in our strong ambition to be successful and care for our many responsibilities, we may feel terribly guilty when we take time to rest. The Sabbath gives us permission to stop work. In fact, “Remember the Sabbath” is more than simply permission to rest; it is a rule to obey and a principle to follow.

Walter was always sitting in the same chair when I came to visit. He would look up and smile when he saw me and pat the chair next to him for me to sit down. He loved to tell me about his lost golden years when he was an excellent baseball player. I was a good listener. After a couple of hours of talking, I would shake his hands and say goodbye to him. I hoped that I brought a little sunshine into Walter's life.

I met Walter when I was a high school student participating in a volunteer program with elderly people in a nursing home. It was the first of many such activities, ranging from playing with disabled children to sitting with cancer patients in a hospital. These activities seemed to satisfy my desire to be useful and to feel a meaningful connection to the lives of others.

My parents inculcated me with a belief that there was no greater human value than kindness, and encouraged me to make helping others and contributing to society important goals in life. Volunteer work provided a way of attempting to realize the truth of these messages.

I learned that volunteerism is not a one-way act of helping someone less fortunate. Involvement in the life of another person has enriched my life as well. Seeing how people deal with the challenges of their lives has taught me valuable lessons in courage and dignity. Many of the people whom I have met as a volunteer are an unforgettable part of my life. Perhaps I received far more than I ever gave.

This is why volunteerism works — each of us has so much need for human connection and so much to give to others.

5 . A good modern newspaper is an extraordinary piece of reading. It's great first for what it contains：the range of news from local crime to international politics, from sports to business，from fashion to science, and the range of comment and special feature(特写) as well，from editorial page to feature articles and interviews to criticism of books, art theatre and music.

A newspaper is even greater for the way one reads it：never completely, never straight through，but always by jumping from here to there, in and out, glancing at one piece，reading another article all the way through, reading just a few paragraphs of the text.

A good modern newspaper offers a variety(多样性) to attract many different readers, but far more than the reader is interested in. What brings this variety together in one place is its topicality(时事性), its immediate relation to what is happening in your world and your locality now. But immediacy and the speed of production that goes with it also mean that much of what appears in a newspaper has no more than transient(短暂的) value.

For all these reasons, no two people really read the same paper：what each person does is to put together, out of the pages of that day's paper, his own selection and order, his own newspaper. For all these reasons, reading newspapers efficiently, which means getting what you want from them without missing things you need and without wasting time，demands skill and self-awareness as you change and apply the techniques of reading.