3 . Ida Nelson was relaxing herself in her sister’s sauna (桑拿室) when she heard the sound of a small airplane circling the nearby airport.

It was 11: 30 at night in a remote village with a population of 70, and, as she told the newspaper reporter, “Any time a plane flies over that late, you know something is wrong.” Nelson and her sister leaped out of the sauna, ran to the window, and saw the problem — the airports runway lights were out. Nelson threw on some clothes, jumped into her jeep, and floored it to the airport, where she found a local pilot trying to turn on the lights manually.

“Normally, if you push the button 10 or 15 times, the lights will just light up,” Nelson told the reporter. Not this time. Meanwhile, she and the pilot learned of the plane’s urgent mission — it was a helicopter, there to transport a seriously ill local girl to the nearest hospital, 280 miles away in another city.

Nelson had a plan. Driving her jeep to the end of the runway, she shone her headlights on the road for the plane to follow. Great idea, but it wasn’t enough. More light was needed, so a neighbor called nearly every home in the village — 32 of them.

Within 20 minutes, 20 vehicles arrived at the airport, many of the drivers still in pajamas. Following directions from the helicopter pilot, the cars lined up on one side of the runway. The helicopter made its final approach and, guided by the headlights, landed safely. The young patient was loaded onto the aircraft, and the plane immediately took off again. Her illness was never publicly known, but she has since been recovered.

Without them, the girl might not have made it. However, for Nelson, it was only a small deed.

4 . For me, nothing is more satisfying than discovering hidden precious stones in secondhand shops. After all, one person’s garbage may be another person’s treasure. I can spend hours sorting through boxes of old photography.

Two years ago, I came across a collection of loose, dusty photos. I looked to see if there were any names on the backs. I thought that if these were mine or my family’s, I’d want someone to return them to me. So I made it my goal to do so for others.

Since then, I’ve visited secondhand shops weekly, and have collected more than 50,000 of these items. I organize them in big boxes all over my house in New York.

I’ve also set up a social media account to help reunite items with their owners or other family members. The first item I posted was a video tape of a family holiday and I digitized (数字化) it. It was a video of two parents and a son of university age on a trip in the 1990s — the son was wearing a T-shirt with the words “Wesleyan swimming” on it.

My fans on social media contacted the sports departments in universities across the US and asked swimming coaches from the 1990s if they recognized the student. At last, the family was found. They couldn’t believe it and was overjoyed to be reunited with the tape. Then, the family revisited some of the memories together.

People are often quite affecting when seeing the items again — most of these items are lost after a house move or a family death, because they thought they would never see these items again. I have some rules, including not sharing sensitive photographs and removing posts if the family does not want their memories online. I want to encourage people to protect their own family history so that they don’t get lost.

5 . Staff at the Thai Dynasty restaurant in Singapore never thought they’d receive such a huge tip during the COVID-19 pandemic (流行病), when economic condition seemed hard, let alone one as big as $600. But believe it or not, they did.

What was more surprising, however, was the person who left that massive tip for them. It wasn’t from a customer who was feeling extra generous that day. No, it was Jesse, a food delivery rider who came by to pick up an online order.

Being a familiar face among the staff due to frequent orders from the restaurant, the delivery rider wanted to show his best appreciation for their hard work in ensuring orders are prepared on time every time he comes by to pick something up. Along with the tip, he also left a heartfelt written note.

“Hello! I am writing to you all because I am very happy with your food and friendly customer service,” the note starts. “I want to say that your food is really delicious. You know, every day when I’m working, I see you all working so hard, which makes me feel proud of you all. Working is not easy, and I understand that because I am also working. Therefore, I want to thank you all for the good food and I want to help you all. Here inside is $600, for all of you. Share it among yourselves. Thank you once again!”

Speaking to Shin Min Daily, Thai Dynasty director Jason Pay said he never expected such a thing from a delivery rider, despite Jesse being a familiar face. “Employees are allowed to keep the tips for their good service, but they chose to return it, which I’m touched by,” Pay said.

Yes, they managed to return the super generous tip when Jesse swung by a few hours later to pick up another order. But seeing the hard work that the delivery rider highlighted in his staff, Pay decided to reward them the next day with pizza and other dishes for lunch.

6 . Albert Einstein, the genius behind the theory of relativity, which provided a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space and time, has recently been making headlines again. However, this time it is not for a new scientific breakthrough, but because of two handwritten notes the scientist gave a bellboy 99 years ago.

The story goes something like this. In 1922, Einstein was invited to Tokyo to deliver lectures. As the scientist was making his way from Europe to Japan, he received a telegram informing him that he had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Though pleased at the news, he decided to continue with his Japanese trip instead of heading to Stockholm to accept the honor.

When in Tokyo, he penned two notes in German. One of them, written on a piece of plain paper, said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Why did Einstein write the notes? Some believe they were to express Einstein’s delight at the reception he received from the people of Japan who crowded to attend the laureate’s (获奖者) lectures. Others think they were specially written for the bellboy who came to deliver a message, either because the scientist did not have loose change to tip him, or because the messenger refused to accept tips. Regardless of the reason, Einstein purportedly told the bellboy, “Maybe if you are lucky, those notes will become much more valuable than just a regular tip.” He was right!

Earlier this year, the bellboy’s nephew decided to part with the notes and handed them to auction houses. One note brought the owner an astonishing $ 1.56 million. The second note, which opened at $ 1,000 and was expected to fetch a maximum of $ 6,000, was sold for $ 240,000!

7 . Society looks down on people who collect the wastes of others, but what they don’t realize is that they could get more money in one day than what they get in one week working at their daily job from selling other people’s unwanted goods.

I am no “make-money-quick guru” but I have made a couple thousand dollars from selling what others throw out to the garbage. As the saying goes: “One man’s trash (垃圾), another man’s treasure.”

You don’t have to start a business. You could simply sell second-hand things people give away and profit from it. In my high school days, I had my first experience selling an old pre-loved Logitech to a buyer on Gumtree.com.au for $50. I remember how exciting it was for me to make money from something I no longer needed. I technically made a $50 profit in less than an hour.

How to make $1000 with $0 in a day?

Go on platforms such as Facebook market or Gumtree and find things people are giving away for free in your local area, then sell it. I found an abundance of household items like cupboards, shelves, mirror cabinet, and chairs that sell very well. Don’t worry what people think of you, remember that you could get a few hundred for those.

Reinvest your money and buy something with a higher value that someone might be happy to get rid of, and sell that for a profit of $600, etc. Your action is not just about making money, but also seeing it as using the earth’s resources efficiently and not wasting them in the trash.

If there is one thing I learned from this practice, it is that: there is always someone out there who considers one man’s trash as treasure, no matter what the item is.

8 . When 45-year-old Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic(胰腺) cancer, he chose to focus on living rather than dying. As a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, Pausch was asked to deliver a “last lecture”. This well-known campus tradition allowed professors to share worldly wisdom with students as if they were dying and had one last lecture to give.

The only difference in Pausch’s case is that Pausch really was dying, but it only motivated him more. He delivered his last lecture, “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on Sept. 18, 2007.

Pausch began by sharing several of his boyhood dreams, some of which he had achieved and the others he hadn’t. He described the importance of having dreams and how anyone can still learn a lot by reaching for those dreams, even if they don’t always succeed. He shared the values(价值观) learned through experience, which he hoped to pass on to others hard work, laughter and gratitude, honesty, character.

Pausch’s last lecture received a great deal of praise and attention. It became a crazy YouTube hit, and in October 2007, he presented an abridged (删节的) version on “The Oprah Winfrey Show”. He turned the lecture into a book by the same name, which quickly became a best-seller. Readers were deeply moved by the book’s representation of Pausch’s lifelong philosophy and the way it revealed the biggest source of his motivation—his three young children.

Pausch passed away on July 25, 2008, but his voice lives on in the recorded lecture and his book. He continues to motivate us all by encouraging us to never give up our childhood dreams—a source of inspiration that can never run dry.

10 . In a certain village lived a farmer and his only son. The son was a thief who always went about stealing from people’s homes. He continued this bad lifestyle till the day his cup got filled. He stole heavy sum of money from the richest man in their village, but that day he didn’t escape successfully as he used to. The rich man contacted the police immediately when he found out that his money was missing and the police started investigating, and finally they found out that the boy stole the money so they sent him to prison.

After some months, it was time for farming and the farmer was already old and weak and can’t dig the ground anymore, so the old farmer wrote this letter to his son in prison. “Son, this year I will not plant cassava and yam because I can’t dig the field, I know if you were here you would have helped me”. The son was really touched by his father’s letter so he thought a plan, and replied his father “Dad, don’t even think of digging the field because that’s where I buried the money I stole”.

On reading this letter, the policeman went early in the morning and dug the whole field in search of the money but nothing was found. The next day the son wrote his father again “Dad, you can now plant your cassava and yam. This is the best I can do from here. ”

Dad replied “My son, you are too powerful indeed, even in prison you still command policemen to work for me. I was so surprised to see the policeman and his team holding hoes and shovels, digging my farm. Next time I will write to you when I want to harvest.