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1、晨读英语美文精选晨读英语美文精选Not Being Grateful Without MissingAll of us have read thrilling stories in which the herohad only a limited and specified time to live. Sometimes itwas as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-fourhours, but always we were interested in discovering justhow the doomed man chose
2、 to spend his last days or his lasthours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice,not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities isstrictly delimited.Such stories sep us thinking, wondering what we shoulddo under similar circumstance. What associations should wecrowd into those last ho
3、urs as mortal beings? Whathappiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regret?Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent ruleto live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such anattitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. Weshould live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, an
4、d akeenness of appreciation which are often lost when timestretches before us in the constant panorama of more daysand months and years to e. There are those, of course, whowould adopt the epicurean motto of Eat, drink, and bemerry, most people would be chastened by the certainty ofimpending death.M
5、ost of us take life for granted. We know that one daywe must die, but usually we picture that day as far as inthe future, when we are in buoyant health, death is all butunimaginable. We seldom think of it. The days stretch outin an endless vista. So we go about our petty task, hardlyaware of our lis
6、tless attitude towards life.The same lethargy, I am afraid, characterizes the useof our faculties and sense. Only the deaf appreciatehearing, only the blind realize the manifold blessings thatlie in sight. Particularly does this observation apply toshoes who have lost sight and hearing in adult life
7、. Butthose who have never suffered impairment of sight orhearing seldom make the fullest use of these blessedfaculties. Their eyes and ears take in all sights and soundhazily, without concentration, and with little appreciation.It is the same old story of not being grateful withoutmissing.失去后才懂得珍惜我们
8、都读过一些令人兴奋冲动的故事，故事的主人公只能再活一段很有限的时光。有时长达一年，有时却短至24 小时。但是在探究这个将要离世的人选择怎样度过他最后岁月的问题上，我们都充满兴趣。当然，我说的是有选择权利的自由人而不是死刑犯。死刑犯的活动范围是受严格限制的。这样的故事使我们思索，如果我们自己处在相似的情况下，应该做什么？临死之时，什么样的事情、体验、关系该被放入最后的时光中呢？回忆往昔，什么使我们快乐开心？什么又使我们悔恨抱憾呢？有时，我常这样想，每天活得要像明天即将死去一样，这或许是一个非常好的规那么。这样的态度可以鲜明地强调生命的价值。我们应该活得优雅沉着，朝气蓬勃，观察锐敏，而这些将会日复
9、一日，月复一月，年复一年慢慢丧失。当然，也有一些人一生只是“吃、喝、享受”，然而，大多数人们在得知死亡确实存在时都会有所收敛。我们大多数人认为生活是理所当然的。我们知道总有一天要面对死亡，但总认为那一天还在遥远的将来。当我们身强体健时，死亡好似是不可想象的，我们很少考虑它。日子多得好似没有尽头。因此，我们一味忙于琐事，却没意识到这种对待生活的态度太盲目。我担忧同样的冷漠也存在于我们对自己所有官能和意识的使用上。只有聋子感谢欣赏听力，只有瞎子体会得到看见事物的乐趣。这种研究特别适合那些在成年时丧失了视力与听力的人。而那些从未体会过丧失视力和听力之苦的人们，很少能充分使用这些美好的官能。他们心不在
10、下焉，也不太感兴趣，用眼睛和耳杂模糊地看着和听着周围的一切。正如人们不知道珍惜自己拥有的直到失去了才明白它的价值一样，人们只有在病的时候，才意识到安康的好处。CompetitionIt is a plain fact that we are in a world wherepetition is going on in all areas and at all levels.This isexciting.Yet, on the other hand, petition breeze apragmatic attitude.People choose to learn things that
11、areuseful,and do things that are profitable.Todays collegeeducation is also affected by this general sense ofutilitarianism. Many college students choose business norputing programming as their majors convinced that thisprofessions are where the big money is. It is not unusualto see the college stud
12、ents taking a part time jobs as awarming up for the real battle.I often see my friendstaking GRE tests, working on English or puter certificatesand taking the driving licence to get a licence. Well, Ihave nothing against being practical. As the petition inthe job market gets more and more intense, s
13、tudents do havereasons to be practical. However, we should never forgetthat college education is much more than skill training.Just imagine, if your utilitarianism is prevails on campus,living no space for the cultivation of students minds,ornurturing of their soul. We will see university is trainin
14、gout well trained spiritless working machines.Ifutilitarianism prevails society, we will see people bond bymind-forged medicals lost in the money-making ventures;wewill see humality lossing their grace and dignity, and thatwould be disastrous.Id like to think society as a courageand people persumed
15、for profit or fame as a horese thatpulls the courage.Yet without the driver picking directionthe courage would go straight and may even end out in aprecarious situation .A certificate may give you someadvantage, but broad horizons, positive attitudes andpersonal integrities ,these are assets you can
16、not acquirethrough any quick fixed way.In todays world, whetherhighest level of petition is not of skills or expertise ,but vision and strategy. Your intellectual quality largelydeterminds how far you can go in your career.Chinese Undergraduates in the USEach year, elite American universities and li
17、beral artscolleges, such as Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Amherst andWellesley, offer a number of scholarships to Chinese highschool graduates to study in their undergraduate programs.Four years ago, I received such a scholarship from Yale.What are these Chinese undergrads like? Most e frommiddle-class f
18、amilies in the big urban centers of China.The geographical distribution is highly skewed, withShanghai and Beijing heavily over-represented. Outside themain pool, a number of Yale students e from Changsha andNingbo,swhereseach year American Yale graduates are sent toteach English.The overwhelming ma
19、jority of Chinese undergraduates inthe US major in science, engineering or economics. Manywere academic superstars in their high schools - goldmedallists in international academic Olympiads or prizewinners in national academic contests. Once on US campuses,many of them decide to make research a life
20、long mitment.Life outside the classroom constitutes an importantpart of college life. At American universities the averagestudent spends less than thirteen hours a week in class.Many Chinese students use their spare time to pick up someextra pocket money. At Yale, one of the most mon campusjobs is w
21、ashing dishes in the dining halls. Virtually allChinese undergraduates at Yale work part-time in the dininghalls at some point in their college years. As they grow inage and sophistication, they upgrade to better-paying andless stressful positions. The more popular and interestingjobs include workin
22、g as a puter assistant, math homeworkgrader, investment office assistant and lab or researchassistant. The latter three often lead to stimulatingsummer jobs.Student activities are another prominent feature ofAmerican college life. Each week there are countlessstudent-organized events of all sorts -
23、athletic, artistic,cultural, political or social (i.e. just for fun). Newstudent organizations are constantly being created, andChinese undergrads contribute to this ferment. Sport loomsmuch larger on US campuses than in China. At Yale,intramural sports from soer to water polo take place allyear lon
24、g; hence athletic talent is a real social asset.One of the Chinese students at Yale several years ago was aversatile sportsman. His athletic talents and enthusiasticparticipation in sporting events, bined with his other finequalities, made him a popular figure in his residentialcollege.I Want to Kno
25、wIt doesnt interest me what you do for a living. Iwant to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream ofmeeting your hearts longing.It doesnt interest me how old you are. I want to knowif you will risk looking like a fool for love, for yourdreams, for the adventure of being alive.It doesnt inte
26、rest me what plas are squaring yourmoon. I want to know if you have touched the center of yourown sorrow, if you have been opened by lifes betrayals orhave bee shriveled and closed from fear of further pain!It doesnt interest me if the story youre telling meis true. I want to know if you can disappo
27、int another to betrue to yourself; if you can bear the ausation of betrayaland not betray your own soul. if you can be faithful andtherefore be trustworthy.It doesnt interest me to know where you live or howmuch money you have. I want to know if you can get up aftera night of grief and despair, wear
28、y and bruised to the bone,and do what needs to be done for the children.It doesnt interest me where or what or with whom youhave studied. I want to know what sustains you from theinside when all else falls away. I want to know if you canbe alone with yourself, and if you truly like the pany youkeep
29、in the empty moments.It doesnt interest me who you are, how you came to behere. I want to know if you will stand in the center of thefire with me and not shrink back.I want to know if you can sit with pain, without movingto hide itI want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,if you can da
30、nce with wildness and let the ecstasy fill youto the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning usto be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitationsof being human.I want to know if you can see beauty , if you cansource your life from gods presence. I want to know ifyou can live with f
31、ailure, yours and mine, and still standon the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the fullmoon, “Yes!”Beautythere were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that havenothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to,whose words were so easy to take to heart.I have thought about her often ove
32、r the years and howshe struggled in a society that places an incrediblepremium on looks, class, wealth and all the other fineriesof life. She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot bemade to look attractive. I know that her condition hurt herdeeply.Would her life have been different had she been
33、pretty?Chances are it would have. And yet there were a sensitivityand a beauty to her that had nothing to do with looks. Shewas one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to taketo heart. Her words came from a wounded but loving heart,very much like all hearts, but she had more of a need to bea
34、ware of it, to live with it and learn from it. Shepossessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her only fear inlife was the loss of a friend.It is said that the true nature of being is veiled. Thelabor of words, the expression of art, the seeminglyceaseless buzz that is human thought all have in mon then
35、eed to get at what really is so. The hope to draw close toand possess the truth of being can be a feverish one. Insome cases it can even be fatal, if pleasure is ones truthand its attainment more important than life itself. Inother lives, though, the search for what is truthful giveslife.The truth o
36、f her life was a desire to see beyond thesurface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She foundbeauty and grace and they befriended her, and showed herwhat is real.Work and PleasureTo be really happy and really safe, one ought to haveat least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.It i
37、s no use starting late in life to say: “I will take aninterest in this or that.” Such an attempt only aggravatesthe strain of mental effort. A man may acquire greatknowledge of topics unconnected with his daily work, andyet hardly get any benefit or relief. It is no use doingwhat you like; you have
38、got to like what you do. Broadlyspeaking, human beings may be divided into three classes:those who are toiled to death, those who are worried todeath, and those who are bored to death. It is no useoffering the manual labourer, tired out with a hard weekssweat and effort, the chance of playing a game
39、 of footballor baseball on Saturday afternoon. It is no use invitingthe politician or the professional or business man, who hasbeen working or worrying about serious things for six days,to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.It may also be said that rational, industrious usefulhuman b
40、eings are divided into two classes: first, thosewhose work is work and whose pleasure is pleasure; andsecondly, those whose work and pleasure are one. Of thesethe former are the majority. They have their pensations.The long hours in the office or the factory bring with themas their reward, not only
41、the means of sustenance, but akeen appetite for pleasure even in its simplest and mostmodest forms. But Fortunes favoured children belong tothe second class. Their life is a natural harmony. For themthe working hours are never long enough. Each day is aholiday, and ordinary holidays when they e are
42、grudged asenforced interruptions in an absorbing vocation. Yet toboth classes the need of an alternative outlook, of achange of atmosphere, of a diversion of effort, isessential. Indeed, it may well be that those whose work istheir pleasure are those who most need the means ofbanishing it at interva
43、ls from their minds.工作和娱乐要想获得真正的快乐与安宁，一个人应该有至少两三种爱好，而且必须是真正的爱好。到晚年才说“我对什么什么有兴趣”是没用的，这只会徒然增添精神负担。一个人可以在自己工作之外的领域获得渊博的知识，不过他可能几乎得不到什么好处或是消遣。做你喜欢的事是没用的，你必须喜欢你所做的事。总的来说，人可以分为三种：劳累而死的、忧虑而死的、和烦恼而死的。对于那些体力劳动者来说，经历了一周精疲力竭的体力劳作，周六下午让他们去踢足球或者打棒球是没有意义的。而对那些政治家、专业人士或者商人来说，他们已经为严肃的事情操劳或烦恼六天了，周末再让他们为琐事劳神也是没有意义的。也
44、可以说，那些理性的、勤勉的、有价值的人们可分为两类，一类，他们的工作就是工作，娱乐就是娱乐；而另一类，他们的工作即娱乐。大多数人属于前者，他们得到了相应的补偿。长时间在办公室或工厂里的工作，回报给他们的不仅是维持了生计，还有一种强烈的对娱乐的需求，哪怕是最简单的、最朴实的娱乐。不过，命运的宠儿那么属于后者。他们的生活很自然和谐。对他们来说，工作时间永远不嫌长。每天都是假日，而当正常的假日来临时，他们总是埋怨自己所全身心投入的休假被强行中断了。不过，有些事情对两类人是同样至关重要的，那就是转换一下视角、改变一下气氛、将精力转移到别的事情上。确实，对那些工作即是娱乐的人来说，最需要隔一段时间就用某种方式把工作从脑子里面赶出去。
