美文欣赏.docx

美文欣赏1 Mistakes and errors are the disciplined true which we advance in life. Mistakes are great teachers. Success comes to those who are willing to risk making mistakes in the pursuit of their goals and aspirations, and who are able to learn from those mistakes. And in order to learn from mistakes you must be willing to pay for them.Mistakes can be enormously valuable, but when you try to get others to pay for your mistakes, then you deprive yourself of the opportunity to learn from them. When something goes wrong, its usually very easy to find someone else to blame, but what does that really accomplish?Much of the value of mistakes comes from the fact that they demand a cost that must be paid. The person who learns the most from a mistake is the person who pays the price for that mistake.When you make a mistake, the last thing you want to do is run away from it. You need to accept it because you can learn a lot from it. The mistake has been made, so make the most of it. Pay the price, learn the lesson, and grow that much stronger.When you make a mistake, dont look back at it long. Remember the reason for it, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The present is still in your power. Take full advantage of your mistakes to achieve your goals and aspirations.参考译文过失和错误让我们辨别是非,帮助我们前进。错误是伟大的老师。成功总是眷顾那些敢于冒着犯错的危险去追求他们的目标和理想,并善于从错误中吸取教训的人。为了从过失中吸取教训,你必须愿意为之付出代价。错误可能具有巨大的价值,但是如果你想让别人来为你的错误付出代价,那你就丧失了从错误中学习的机会。当出了差错时,去责备他人总是很容易的。但是那又有什么用呢？错误的价值在很大程度上体现为人们必须为所犯的错误付出代价。从错误中学到最多的那个人就是为之付出代价的人。当你犯错时,你最不应该做的事情就是逃避错误。你需要接受这个事实,因为你可以从中吸取很多教训。既然已经犯了错误,就最大限度地利用它。付出代价、得到教训并成长得更加坚强。当你犯错时,不要总放在心上。记住犯错的原因,然后向前看。犯错是智慧的课程。过去无法改变。现在仍在你的手中。利用好你的错误,来实现你的目标和理想。美文欣赏2 The Year of WanderingBetween the preparation and the work, the apprenticeship and the actual dealing with a task or an art, there comes, in the experience of many young men, a period of uncertainty and wandering which is often misunderstood and counted as time wasted, when it is, in fact, a period rich in full and free development.It is as natural for ardent and courageous youth to wish to know what is in life, what it means, and what it holds for its children, as for a child to reach for and search the things that surround and attract it. Behind every real worker in the world is a real man, and a man has a right to know the conditions under which he must live, and the choices of knowledge, power, and activity which are offered him. In the education of many men and women, therefore, there comes the year of wandering; the experience of traveling from knowledge to knowledge and from occupation to occupation.The forces which go to the making of a powerful man can rarely be adjusted and blended without some disturbance of relations and conditions. This disturbance is sometimes injurious, because it affects the moral foundations upon which character rests; and for this reason the significance of the experience in its relation to development ought to be sympathetically studied. The birth of the imagination and of the passions, the perception of the richness of life, and the consciousness of the possession of the power to master and use that wealth, create a critical moment in the history of youth,a moment richer in possibilities of all kinds than comes at any later period.Agitation and ferment of soul are inevitable in that wonderful moment. There are times when agitation is as normal as is self-control at other and less critical times. The year of wandering is not a manifestation of aimlessness, but of aspiration, and that in its ferment and uncertainty youth is often guided to and finally prepared for its task.参考译文 徘徊的岁月 从准备到投身工作，从学徒到某一项技能或艺术的真正的实践过程之间，很多你年轻人都要经历一段充满疑惑徘徊的时期。这段时期经常遭到误解，被认为是浪费时间，事实上这段时间正是年轻人得到充分自由发展的时期。要一样。这个世界上，每个工作者的背后都是个实实在在的个人，每个人都有权了解他得在什么样的条件下生存，他能接触到什么样的知识，他的权利范围有多大以及他能从事什么活动。因此，很多人都要面临这段犹豫徘徊的时期，从这个知识领域转到那个知识领域，从一个岗位跳到另一个岗位。将一个人塑造成强者各种力量，没有经过与他人和环境之间的摩擦，是很难整合在一起的。这种摩擦会影响人的道德信念，即个性形成的基础，所以有时候他可能造成某种伤害。鉴于此，这段经历对后期发展所造成的影响重要性应该得到高度的重视。想象力和激情的萌芽，对富足生活的感悟，以及对拥有掌握和利用这笔财富的能力的觉醒，都使这段时期成为整个青年时期最重要的一刻。这一时期拥有的种种机遇是此后任何时候都无法提供的。在这一青春烂漫的季节，精神上的焦虑骚动不可避免。生命中某些不太关键的时候，自我控制是正常表现，但有时焦虑也是正常的。徘徊时期不是胸无大志的表现，而恰恰是雄心壮志的表现。年轻人正是在这一时期的骚动不安中明确人生的方向并为人生使命的实现做好了最后的准备。美文欣赏3To a large degree, the measure of our peace of mind is determined by how much we are able to live on the present moment. Irrespective of what happened yesterday or last year, and what may or may not happen tomorrow, the present moment is where you are - always!Without question, many of us have mastered the neurotic art of spending much of our lives worrying about variety of things - all at once. We allow past problems and future concerns to dominate your present moments, so much so that we end up anxious, frustrated, depressed, and hopeless. On the flip side, we also postpone our gratification, our stated priorities, and our happiness, often convincing ourselves that someday will be much better than today. Unfortunately, the same mental dynamics that tell us to look toward the future will only repeat themselves so that someday never actually arrives. John Lennone once said, Life is what is happening while we are busy making other plans. When we are busy making other plans, our children are busy growing up, the people we love are moving away and dying, our bodies are getting out of shape, and our dreams are slipping away. In short, we miss out on life.Many people lives as if life is a dress rehearsal for some later date. It isnt. In fact, no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow. Now is the only time we have, and the only time that we have any control over. When our attention is in the present moment, we push fear from our minds. Fear is the concern over events that might happen in the future - we wont have enough money, our children will get into trouble, we will get old and die, whatever.To combat fear, the best strategy is to learn to bring your attention back to the present. Mark Twain said, I have been through some terrible things in life, some of which actually happened. I dont think I can say it any better. Practice keeping your attention on the here and now. Your effort will pay great dividends.参考译文我们内心是否平和在很大程度上是由我们是否能生活在现实之中所决定的不管昨天或去年发生了什么，不管明天可能发生或不发生什么，现实才是你时时刻刻所在之处。毫无疑问，我们很多人掌握了一种神经兮兮的艺术，即把生活中的大部分时间花在为种种事情担心忧虑上而且常常是同时忧虑许多事情我们听凭过去的麻烦和未来的担心控制我们此时此刻的生活，以至我们整日焦虑不安，委靡不振，甚至沮丧绝望而另一方面我们又推迟我们的满足感，推迟我们应优先考虑的事情，推迟我们的幸福感，常常说服自己“有朝一日”会比今天更好不幸的是，如此告戒我们朝前看的大脑动力只能重复来重复去，以至“有朝一日”不会真的来临约翰列侬曾经说过：“生活就是当我们忙于制定别的计划时发生的事”当我们忙于指定种种别的计划时，我们的孩子在忙于长大，我们挚爱的人离去了甚至快去世了，我们的体型变样了，而我们的梦想也在消然溜走了一句话，我们错过了生活。许多人的生活好象是某个未来日子的彩排，并非如此。事实上，没人能保证他或她肯定还活着。现在是我们所拥有的唯一时间，现在也是我们能控制的唯一的时间。当我们将注意力放在此时此刻时，我们就将恐惧置于脑后。恐惧就是我们担忧某些事情会在未来发生我们不讳有足够的钱，我们的孩子会惹上麻烦，我们会变老，会死去，诸如此类。若要克服恐惧心理，最佳策略是学会将你的注意力拉回此时此刻。马克吐温说过：“我经历过生活中一些可怕的事情，有些的确发生过。”我想我说不出比这更具内涵的话。经常将注意力集中于此情此景，此时此刻，你的努力终会有丰厚的报偿。美文欣赏4 Failure Is a Good ThingLast week, my granddaughter started kindergarten, and, as is conventional, I wished her success. I was lying. What I actually wish for her is failure. I believe in the power of failure.Success is boring. Success is proving that you can do something that you already know you can do, or doing something correctly the first time, which can often be a problematical victory. First-time success is usually a fluke. First-time failure, by contrast, is expected; it is the natural order of things.Failure is how we learn. I have been told of an African phrase describing a good cook as she who has broken many pots. If youve spent enough time in the kitchen to have broken a lot of pots, probably you know a fair amount about cooking. I once had a late dinner with a group of chefs, and they spent time comparing knife wounds and burn scars. They knew how much credibility their failures gave them.I earn my living by writing a daily newspaper column. Each week I am aware that one column is going to be the worst column of the week. I dont set out to write it; I try my best every day. Still, every week, one column is inferior to the others, sometimes spectacularly so.I have learned to cherish that column. A successful column usually means that I am treading on familiar ground, going with the tricks that work, preaching to the choir or dressing up popular sentiments in fancy words. Often in my inferior columns, I am trying to pull off something Ive never done before, something Im not even sure can be done.My younger daughter is a trapeze artist. She spent three years putting together an act. She did it successfully for years with the Cirque du Soleil. There was no reason for her to change the actbut she did anyway. She said she was no longer learning anything new and she was bored; and if she was bored, there was no point in subjecting her body to all that stress. So she changed the act. She risked failure and profound public embarrassment in order to feed her soul. And if she can do that 15 feet in the air, we all should be able to do it.My granddaughter is a perfectionist, probably too much of one. She will feel her failures, and I will want to comfort her. But I will also, I hope, remind her of what she learned, and how she can do whatever it is better next time. I probably wont tell her that failure is a good thing, because thats not a lesson you can learn when youre five. I hope I can tell her, though, that its not the end of the world. Indeed, with luck, it is the beginning.参考译文 失败是件好事上周，孙女开办了一个幼儿园。按常理，我预祝她成功。实际上我撒了慌，我真正对她的希望是失败，因为我相信失败的力量。成功是令人厌烦的。成功只是证明你能够做你已经知道自己会做的事情，或是第一次就能正确地做某件事情，而这通常是一次有问题的成功。第一次的成功通常都是侥幸的成功，相反的，第一次的失败恰恰是值得期待的。这是事物的自然法则。失败是学习的过程。我听说过一个在非洲用来形容大厨的词语， “那个炒坏了很多锅的”。如果你花了足够时间在厨房，炒坏了无数锅，那你也就掌握了大量烹饪方面的知识。有次我和厨师们共进晚餐，他们一直在比较刀伤和烫伤疤痕的多少，因为他们知道曾经的失败带来了无上的信誉。我以为日报专栏写作谋生。每周我都会意识到会有其中一个成为本周最差专栏。我并不刻意去这样写，而是每天都尽我最大的努力，但每周都还是会有一个专栏比其他的差，有时候差距还挺大。我现在学会了去珍惜那个较差的专栏。一个成功的专栏通常也就意味着我循规蹈矩，采用一些有效的写作技巧，向唱诗班布道或者用绚丽的语言修饰表达大众的观点。而在那些较差的专栏，我时常会去尝试一些之前没做过的事情，一些甚至都不确定能否完成的事情。我小女儿是一名吊杠演员。她用三年的时间编排了一段表演，跟Cirque du Soleil（太阳马戏团）一起多年来都非常成功。应该说没有理由换掉这段表演但是她最终还是换了。她说，她没有再学到新东西，腻烦了。既然她已经腻烦了，继续让她的躯体承受那些压力也就不再有任何意义。因此她更换了那段表演。为了满足自己的灵魂，她甘愿承受失败的风险，甘愿承受不被观众接受的尴尬处境。但如果她在15英尺的高空中能完成尝试的话，那我们每个人也都会有能力去尝试新事物。孙女是个完美主义者，可能还会有些极端。她会遇到挫折失败，我会想着去安慰她，但也会提醒，并且希望她从中所学到的东西和她下次可以如何更好去完成一件事情。我可能不会直接跟她说失败是件好事，因为它不是一个年轻人容易吸取的教训。然而，我希望我可以告诉她，这不是世界末日，实际上非常幸运，这才是开端。美文欣赏 5 What is your direction indicator of ascendedOne windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing. As the strong winds gusted against the kites, a string kept them in check.Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow, facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They soared beautifully even as they fought the restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last,” it seemed to say. “Free to fly with the wind.”Yet freedom from restraint simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze. It fluttered ungracefully to the ground and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. “Fre