英语阅读：FiveMinutestoFear
Our families camped together once a month, so when the Fourth of July fell on our scheduled weekend, we never gave it a thought not to proceed with our plans. The drive to Rehoboth Beach took six hours, counting four bathroom stops for three children and two women and two men who swore they would lay off the water.
The campsite was five miles from the pristine shoreline and boardwalk. We couldn’t wait to dig our toes into the warm sand. Our daughter was seven at the time and our friends’ daughters were eight and three. We packed enough toys, beach towels, and tanning lotion to last three weekends.
After pitching our tents and setting up camp, the seven of us piled into our cars and began the hunt for parking spaces closest to the water so that the men would not have to resort to camel-like behavior when hauling our supplies to the beach.
We staked our claim on the remaining ten feet of sand and sent the children to the ocean’s edge. Our striped towels and white flesh blended with the thousands of other sun worshipers. Music blared from cranked-up radios while Frisbees whizzed overhead. Fair-haired recruits in muscle shirts hawked their ice cream sandwiches and cold soda while I poured lukewarm Kool-Aid.
From where I reclined, I had a clear view of the three girls splashing near the water. They chased the waves and tunneled into the wet sand, building castle after castle. It took extreme persuasion to convince them to relinquish the sea long enough to split soggy sandwiches with us. Periodically, the men would drop their books and leap into an incoming wave while capturing an unsuspecting child. I could only imagine the giggles above the beach clatter.
After hours of play - and sunburned feet - we motioned for the girls to join us. I packed the towels and lotion while my best friend packed the toys and food. We each had our responsibilities but neglected the most important one. My daughter and her eldest daughter arrived by our side. Their youngest girl didn’t.
We locked eyes. Our previously orderly world shrunk to the beach and the thousands of people strewn around us. Instinct jolted us into action. We screamed her name and pushed past bathers and tanners, frantic to find a missing child in a green bathing suit. Each second ticked by as though specifically designed to torment us.
“Angela!” My head snapped as the perfect picture of a mother and daughter reuniting exploded in my vision. I wanted to fall to the ground and weep amid the mass of strangers who had been unsuspecting participants in a drama unfolding before them.
Since that day, I’ve relived those five minutes of fear at Rehoboth Beach too many times. I relived them each time my daughter hid from me behind a store fixture or ventured out alone in the car after passing her driver’s test. I relived them when she was late returning home from dates and when she married and moved to a city far from my reach.
英语阅读：AnEmptyBox
Once upon a time, a man punished his 5-year-old daughter for using up the family's only roll of expensive gold wrapping paper. Money was tight, and he became even more upset when on Christmas Eve, he saw that the child had pasted the gold paper so as to decorate a shoebox to put under the Christmas tree.
Nevertheless, the next morning the little girl, filled with excitement, brought the gift box to her father and said, "This is for you, Daddy!"
As he opened the box, the father was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction.
But when he opened it, he found it was empty and again his anger flared. "Don't you know, young lady, " he said harshly, "when you give someone a present there's supposed to be something inside the package!"
The little girl looked up at him with tears rolling from her eyes and said: "Daddy, it's not empty. I blew kisses into it until it was all full."
The father was crushed. He fell on his knees and put his arms around his precious little girl. He begged her to forgive him for his unnecessary anger.
An accident took the life of the child only a short time later. It is told that the father kept that little gold box by his bed for all the years of his life. Whenever he was discouraged or faced difficult problems he would open the box, take out an imaginary kiss, and remember the love of this beautiful child who had put it there.
In a very real sense, each of us as human beings have been given an invisible golden box filled with unconditional love and kisses from our children, family, friends and God.
There is no more precious possession anyone could hold.
英语阅读：HappinessEquateswithFun?
I live in Hollywood. You may think people in such a glamorous, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more abiding emotion.
Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful inpiduals have constant access to glamorous parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells "happiness".
But in memoir after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children, profound loneliness.
The way people cling to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equates happiness actually diminishes their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is true: More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very endeavors that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment, civic or charitable work, and self-improvement.
英语阅读：TodayisaGift
Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs. His bed was next to the room‘s only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back. The men talked for hours on end.
They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window. The man in the other bed began to live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the world outside.
The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.
One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man couldn‘t hear the band - he could see it in his mind‘s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.
Days and weeks passed. One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep. She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.
As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly and painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the world outside. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it for himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.
The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window. The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, "Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you."
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