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     I'm 30 years old, and there are several things that life has taught me that I want to share with you. Here are the 4 lessons that life has taught me in the past 30 years.

1 Take care of your body

      Life is “unfairly” biased (偏向的) towards people who “look good,” like it or not. So it's important that you do all that is in your power to look your best. You will live longer, and you will live happier, if you take care of your body; you may even get promoted faster on your job. Remember that your health is really your greatest wealth.

2

      No one taught me to save when I was growing up; no one told me the importance of saving. Fortunately I was able to learn the value of saving through reading great books like “The Millionaire Next Door”. What I want to teach others is to save at least twenty percent of your income. If you are tobe wealthy, you must not just earn a lot, you must save a lot.

3 Think in the long term

      In high school I was thinking about college, in college I was thinking about life after college. I'm designing my life and I'm making decisions today that will enable me to live the life I desire when I'm in my 40's, 50's and 60's. You have to think in the long term; you have to see the“big picture”.

4 Realize the power of focus

      Focus, focus, focus…If you fail in this lifetime, you will fail because of broken focus.If you focus on the goals that are most important to you, you will achieve them. The problem is that there are so many distractions.Winners decide to major on majors, and they even let important things slip, because they just focus on achieving whatis critical to their goals.

A．The importance of saving.

B．If you plan your future properly, you will live into your plans.

C．Save your money.

D．Nothing is more important than focus.

E．What separates the winners from the losers is that the winners learn to focus on their goals.

F．I mean dressing nicely, working out and eating right.

G．It's important that you pursue relationships with individuals who are good first.

    I had to knock on the taxi to get his attention. Finally, the driver, a man about 60, looked up from behind the wheel and apologized, “I'm sorry, but I was reading a letter.” He sounded as if he had a cold or a cough.

    Since I was in no hurry, I told him to finish his letter. He shook his head, explaining that he had already read it several times and almost knew it by heart. Curious, I asked whether it was from a child or maybe a grandchild. “This isn't family,” he replied. “though he might just as well have been a regular member of the family. Old Ed and I grew up together.”

    They were always friends. But since he moved away from the neighborhood 30 years ago, it'd generally just been postcards at Christmas time between them. A couple of weeks ago, Ed died. “I should have kept in touch.” He repeated this, more to himself than to me. To comfort him, I said sometimes we just didn't seem to find the time. “But we used to find the time,” he said. “Take a look.” He handed the letter over to me.

    The first sentence “I've been meaning to write for some time, but I've always delayed it.” reminded me of myself. It went on to say that he often thought about the good times they had had together. When I read the part where it said “Your friendship really means a lot to me, more than I can say because I'm not good at saying things like that”, I found myself nodding in agreement.

    We had gone several kilometers and were almost at my hotel, so I read the last paragraph: “So I thought you'd like to know that I was thinking of you.” And it was ended with “Your Old Friend, Tom.”

    “I thought your friend's name was Ed,” I said.

    “I'm Tom,” he explained. “It's a letter I wrote to Ed before I knew he'd died. I never put it in the mailbox. I guess I should have written it sooner.” His face was pale as he wiped his eyes with a handkerchief.

    When I got to my hotel room I didn't unpack right away. I had to write a letter and post it.

根据短文内容，选择最佳答案，并将选定答案的字母标号填在题前括号内。

    Last year, I was on a plane with my friend, waiting for it to take off. The pilot's voice was heard throughout the plane: “Sorry for the delay, ladies and gentlemen. Our engines don't work. We are going to jump-start them. Once we get them going, we'll get up in the air and see what happens.”

    That was all he said. “See what happens? Shouldn't we have had a better plan than that?” At that point, I could only laugh nervously. One woman started crying: “Oh, no! We are going to crash!” There are sighs of desperation and anxiety, and we hadn't even taken off yet.

    The pilot even seemed unhappy. He told us one engine was working double time, and his plan was to get up in the air and see what happens! Then we did. We got up in the air, and what happened? Nothing. We arrived in Norfolk, and no sooner had the wheels touched down than applause burst out as everyone on the airplane breathed a sigh of relief.

    All too often, people stop achieving their goals just because they don't have a guaranteed result. But success will never be guaranteed. The best thing that you can do is to just get up in the air, and see what happens.

    If your aim is to build a business, then get up in the air and see what happens! Don't give yourself all the reasons why you can't. Do not wait until you have everything you need. You never will.

    If your goal is to start a friendship, say “Hello”, get up in the air and see what happens! The results could be very rewarding. If your goal is to learn a new skill, get up in the air and see what happens! It might not be as difficult as you think. It could be fun!

    My parents were in a huge argument, and I was really upset about it. I didn't know who I should talk with about how I was feeling. So I asked Mom to allow me to stay the night at my best friend's house. Though I knew I wouldn't tell her about my parents' situation, I was looking forward to getting out of the house. I was in the middle of packing up my things when suddenly the power went out in the neighborhood. Mom came to tell me that I should stay with my grandpa until the power came back on.

    I was really disappointed because I felt that we did not have much to talk about. But I knew he would be frightened alone in the dark. I went to his room and told him that I'd stay with him until the power was restored. He was quite happy and said, “Great opportunity.”

    “What is it?” I asked.

    “To talk, you and I” he said. “To hold a private little meeting about what we're going to do with your mom and dad, and what we're going to do with ourselves now that we're in the situation we are in.”

    “But we can't do anything about it. Grandpa,” I said, surprised that here was someone with whom I could share my feelings and someone who was in the same “boat” as I was.

    And that's how the most unbelievable friendship between my grandfather and me started. Sitting in the dark, we talked about our feelings and fears of life — from how fast things change to how they sometimes don't change fast enough. That night, because the power went out, I found a new friend, with whom I could safely talk about all my fears and pains, whatever they may be. Suddenly, the lights all came back on. “Well,” he said, “I guess that means you'll want to go now. I really like our talk. I hope the power will go out every few nights!”

    In 1978, I was 18 and was working as a nurse in a small town about 270 km away from Sydney, Australia. I was looking forward to having five fays off from duty. Unfortunately, the only one train a day back to my home in Sydney had already left. So I thought I'd hitch a ride (搭便车).

    I waited by the side of the highway for three hours but no one stopped for me. Finally, a man walked over and introduced himself as Gordon. He said that although he couldn't give me a lift, I should come back to his house for lunch. He noticed me standing for hours in the November heat and thought I must be hungry. I was doubtful as a young girl but he assured （使…放心）me I was safe, and he also offered to help me find a lift home afterwards. When we arrived at his house, he made us sandwiches. After lunch, he helped me find a lift home.

    Twenty-five years later, in 2003, while I was driving to a nearby town one day, I saw an elderly man standing in the glaring heat, trying to hitch a ride. I thought it was another chance to repay someone for the kindness I'd been given decades earlier. I pulled over and picked him up. I made him comfortable on the back seat and offered him some water.

    After a few moments of small talk, the man said to me, “You haven't changed a bit, even your red hair is still the same.” I couldn't remember where I'd met him. He then told me he was the man who had given me lunch and helped me find a lift all those years ago. It was Gordon.

    Some people think if you are happy, you are blind to reality. But when we research it, happiness actually raises every single business and educational outcome for the brain. How did we miss this? Why do we have these social misunderstandings about happiness? Because we assumed you were average. When we study people, scientists are often interested in what the average is.

    Many people think happiness is genetic. That's only half the story, because the average person does not fight their genes. When we stop studying the average and begin researching positive outliers —people who are above average for a positive aspect like optimism or intelligence —a wildly different picture appears. Our daily decisions and habits have a huge impact upon both our levels of happiness and success.

    Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your single processor brain will devote its limited resources as you process the world. If you scan for the negative first, your brain really has no resources left over to see the things you are grateful for or the meaning embedded(嵌入) in your work. But if you scan the world for the positive, you start to acquire an amazing advantage.

    I wrote the cover story for the Harvard Business Review magazine on “Happiness Leads to Profits.” Based on my article called “Positive Intelligence” and my research in The Happiness Advantage, I summarized our researched conclusion: the single greatest advantage in the modern economy is a happy and busy workforce.

    A decade of research in the business world proves that happiness raises nearly every business and educational outcome: increasing sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%, as well as a number of health and quality-of-life improvements.

    By May, after three months, I had lost22pounds and reached my goal of 115 pounds. My friends would say “Alice, you look great!” or “How did you lose so much weight?” Those compliments made me feel good and confident.

    Soon I dropped to110 pounds. A few of my friends told me that I needed to stop dieting, because I was starting to look sick. They brought me a present—— a bag of chocolates, which I later gave to my sister. My mother would come to my room, with tears in her eyes, and have long chats about how harmful this diet was and begged me to stop. My dad would leave worried messages on my cell phone at school, telling me that it would do serious harm to my body.

    By mid-June, when school was coming to an end, I was down to an only alive state of 95 pounds. All of a sudden, I knew I had to do something. I guessed the number itself scared me. I recalled my doctor. He told me about a girl who was 95 pounds and was at the risk of dying. I knew I was putting my life at risk, but for what? To make those who love me worried? Was it worthwhile to be thin?

    Now I realize that models in magazines, TV and movies are not realistic. The price to pay for the “perfect body” is living with a dangerous and sometimes deadly eating disorder. And there are more important things to think about than how thin you are.

    During my early twenties, to make my parents stop feeling angry, and simply to escape, I decided to live in my birthplace for a period of time, something I'd sworn I would never do. My parents were thrilled. They prayed that I'd come back triumphantly with a picture－perfect bridegroom. That was the furthest thing from my mind as I packed my faded jeans, tank tops, boots, and a photo of my freckle－faced then－boyfriend who was of Scottish descent.

    The moment I landed in Seoul, I was aware of how much I felt like a misfit. All my life I had tried to blend into the dominant culture and couldn't. And finally, when I was in a place where everyone looked like me, I still stood out. I took it for granted that I'd feel a sense of freedom. I thought I'd blend into the landscape. This was not the case. People stared at me with curious eyes. I became conscious of my American－girl swaggering body movements and inappropriate dress.

    Collecting my courage, I traveled to the demilitarized zone on my own. I touched the high barbed－wire fence that stretched across the belly of the peninsula(半岛), dividing Korea in half. I visited thousand－year－old temples and magnificent palace gates that had survived modernization and centuries of battle. I met with distant cousins who welcomed me with outstretched arms into their homes and related heroic tales about my mother and Halmoni (Grandmother) during the war. How Halmoni had led her young children out of north to the United Nation－backed south. How my mother, at the age of thirteen, saved the life of her baby sister.

    I listened with such an overwhelming thirst that when I returned to the States a year and a half later, I began to ask my parents and Halmoni (who had immigrated to the States some time after we did) all about the past. The past was no longer a time gone by, a dead weight. I now saw that it held ancient treasures. And the more I dug and discovered, the more I felt myself being steered toward a future I had never imagined for myself. I began to write. I didn't even know I could write. My family helped me knit stories into a book using Halmoni's voice. As her powerful words moved through me I was able to reflect and meditate on the ridiculous life I had fashioned for myself. I could feel my sense of self rising. This sparked a newfound awareness and excitement. I became a spokeswoman on Korean culture, traveling to various college campuses across the country. “Be proud. Embrace your heritage.” I said to young Korean American students wearing extra－large, trendy sportswear. But the whole time I was lecturing, I had very little understanding of what that self－concept meant. I was merely talking the talk. I hadn't yet fully embraced my own identity.

    It's a Saturday morning, and I am eager to fly away.My husband and I will meet up with our son on the other side of the country to learn and explore together.Sitting now at the airport gate,my husband wanders away to stretch his legs.Moments later,he returns and whispers in my ear.I rise and follow him around the comer toward a large window facing the landing area.

    On the road, Marines stand straight and the plane door is open.A white hearse(灵车）is parked nearby.A man and a soldier stand on either side of a woman,supporting her and waiting for what is to come.Airport personnel stand in reverent stillness.A few people place their hands over their hearts,as I have done.We're joined in witness,sending respect to an honorable soldier whose name we'll never know.

    The woman looks heartbroken. She cries, knowing she will never hear "Mom”from her son. She'll never feel his tender embrace or enjoy his sweet peck on her cheeks.Another man's face is twisted because of the grief.His son,the tiny boy he no doubt wrestled playfully,the teen he probably taught to drive,and the son he stood so proudly by,now lives only in his memory.

    Those behind the glass stay silent, reflecting on this loss, as the family and soldiers leave.Some of us women, with sorrowful expressions, move slowly away, sharing a mother's profound grief .Soon,each of us will fly off in planes and return to an ordinary life made extraordinary by this soldier's courage，by this family's sacrifice and by this love shared by all that look out of the window.

    My husband, my four-month-old daughter and I set out on a five-day driving journey from California to Washington. We had to stop frequently because our little child needed to stretch from the car seat.

    One of our stops, once we crossed the Oregon border, was at a Black Bear Diner. Walking towards the front door we noticed a gentleman standing at one side. He was clearly untidy, without shoes and wearing worn clothing. We passed right by him and opened the restaurant door. Then something told me to go back.

    Holding my daughter, I turned around and said to the gentleman, “Sir. Are you hungry?” He said, “Yes.” I then asked, “May we buy you something to eat?” He responded with, “Sure, I can order something myself.”

    My husband opened the door and the gentleman went straight to the counter. I told him to order whatever he wanted. The manager of the restaurant came over quite quickly and looked frightened. I spoke before he had an opportunity to say anything. “This gentleman will have lunch with us today,” I said. “Please add his order to our bill.” The manager said with a frown(皱眉), “Okay.” We turned to our table and the gentleman said, loudly and quickly, “Thank You!” We were seated and upon completing our meal we were handed our bill. I asked my husband what the gentleman had ordered. One fresh orange juice, one coffee, one breakfast combination with a side of hash browns.

    When we left the restaurant I looked for the gentleman but didn't see him, but that very small act just made my day. I hope in some small way we were able to add some joy to his life, even if only for a few minutes.

    A famous study was done in a school by a professor from a university. At the start of the school year, the teachers were given the names of five children. They were told that these five were the most excellent students in the class. But the fact was that these students were only average, and they were not the best students at all. Well, guess what? At the end of the year, all the five average students scored among the highest in the class.

    What made these average students change so much to become top students? The only difference was the change in their teachers' attitude. Because the teachers believed that these five kids were the top students, they expected (期望) more from them. And so these five average students began to believe and expect more from themselves. So they worked harder to do as well as they could.

    Do you know why? If you expect the best from people, they'll usually want to give you their best. A great leader said, “Treat (对待) a person just how he appears to be on the outside, and you'll make him even worse. But treat a person like he's already a success, and you'll help make him the best he can be.”

    Like the true story of 7-year-old Johnny, his teacher got so angry with him that one day she said, “Johnny, you're the naughtiest (最顽皮的) boy in this class. I'm sure you'll never change.” The next year Johnny had a new teacher. And on the first day of class, she met with Johnny after school and said, “Johnny, I've heard a lot about you! But do you know that I don't believe a word of it.” And every day after that, this new teacher treated Johnny as if he was one of the smartest students even when Johnny did naughty things. Later on, Johnny became a school leader. Because that's the power of our belief and attitude toward children.

    It had been some time since Jack had seen the old man. College, career, and life itself got in the way. In fact, Jack moved clear across the country in pursuit of his dreams. There, in the rush of his busy life, Jack had little time to think about the past and often no time to spend with his wife and son. He was working on his future, and nothing could stop him.

    Over the phone, his mother told him, “Mr. Belser died last night. The funeral is Wednesday.” Memories flashed through his mind like an old newsreel as he sat quietly remembering his childhood days.

    “Jack, did you hear me?”

    “Oh, sorry, Mom. Yes, I heard you. It's been so long since I thought of him. I'm sorry, but I honestly thought he died years ago.” Jack said.

    “Well, he didn't forget you. Every time I saw him he'd ask how you were doing. He'd reminisce (回忆) about the many days you spent over 'his side of the fence' as he put it.” Mom told him.

    “I loved that old house he lived in.” Jack said.

    “You know, Jack, after your father died, Mr. Belser stepped in to make sure you had a man's influence in your life.” she said.

    “He's the one who taught me carpentry. I wouldn't be in this business if it weren't for him. He spent a lot of time teaching me things he thought were important… Mom, I'll be there for the funeral.” Jack said.

    Busy as he was, he kept his word. Jack caught the next flight to his hometown. Mr. Belser's funeral was small and uneventful. He had no children of his own, and most of his relatives had passed away.

    The night before he had to return home, Jack and his Mom stopped by to see the old house next door one more time, which was exactly as he remembered. Every step held memories. Every picture, every piece of furniture… Jack stopped suddenly.

    “What's wrong, Jack?” his Mom asked.

    “The box is gone.” he said.

    “What box?” Mom asked.

    “There was a small gold box that he kept locked on top of his desk. I must have asked him a thousand times what was inside. All he'd ever tell me was 'the thing I value most'.” Jack said.

    It was gone. Everything about the house was exactly how Jack remembered it, except for the box. He figured someone from the Belser family had taken it.

    “Now, I'll never know what was so valuable to him,” Jack said sadly.

    Returning to his office the next day, he found a package on his desk. The return address caught his attention.

    “Mr. Harold Belser” it read.

    Jack tore open the package. There inside was the gold box and an envelope. Jack's hands shook as he read the note inside.

    “Upon my death, please forward this box and its contents to Jack Bennett. It's the thing I valued most in my life.” A small key was taped to the letter. His heart racing, and tears filling his eyes, Jack carefully unlocked the box. There inside he found a beautiful gold pocket watch. Running his fingers slowly over the fine cover, he opened it.

    Inside he found these words carved: “Jack, Thanks for your time! Harold Belser.”

    “Oh, My God! This is the thing he valued most…” Jack held the watch for a few minutes, then called his assistant and cleared his appointments for the next two days.

    “Why?” his assistant asked.

    “I need some time to spend with my son.” he said.

    Five people are talking about working from home.

Chris: I'm a language graduate and I've been translating from Italian to English for most of my career. We've been in Milan for nearly 20 years and I've been working from home for 12 years, since my first child was born. I've found that my work-life balance has been easier to manage since I started working from home—and it needs to be easy to manage when you've got children.

    Miranda: I'm a writer and I've been working from home for the last 18 months. I must say it's been pretty difficult. For one thing, I've been paying a lot more for heating. And I've missed the office gossip. To be honest, it's quite lonely. I almost wish I could go back to my old job.

    Jordan: Working from home has really changed my life. I love it. I love being my own boss. I've been working from home as a website designer since I left my last job in 2004. I have a bit more time these days. I've bought myself a new guitar and I've been taking guitar lessons for the last six months.

    Ahmed: It's not for everyone, but I like working from home. I do contract(合同) work in design. The best thing is that I don't have to commute(通勤) to work on crowded trains. I've had lots more time and I've been learning a new language since I started working from home in January. I've always wanted to learn Spanish.

    Rageh: I'm German but I've been living abroad for five years. I've been working in marketing for a pharmaceutical(制药的) company near London and I've been working from home part of the time since January. I work from home three days a week and commute to the office twice a week. I was very lucky to get this opportunity. When I work from home I get up late and work late in the evenings. I've never been a morning person.

    Attention from strangers is nothing new to me. Questions about my height is the center of almost every public interaction. My friends say my height is just a physical quality and not a personality aspect. However, when I reflect on my life, I realize that my height has shaped my character in many ways and has helped to make me who I am.

    I learned how to be kind. When I was younger, some parents in my neighborhood regarded me kind of dangerous because I was so much larger than other children of my age. I had to be extra welcoming and gentle simply to play with other children. Of course, now my coaches wish I weren't quite so kind on the basketball court.

    I learned the quality of not being too proud about myself. At 7 feet tall, everyone expects me to be an amazing basketball player. They come expecting to see Dirk Nowitzki, and instead they might see a performance more like Will Ferrell (successfully starred a professional basketball player). I have learned to be modest and to work even harder than my fellows to meet their (and my) expectations.

    I developed a sense of lightheartedness. When people playfully make fun of my height, I laugh at myself too. On my first day of high school, a girl dropped her books in a busy hallway. I got down to her level and gathered some of her notebooks. As we both stood up, her eyes widened as I kept rising over her. Astonished, she dropped her books again. Embarrassed, we both laughed and picked up the books a second time.

    All of these lessons have defined me. Looking back, I realize that through years of such experiences, I have become a confident, expressive person. Being a 7-footer is both a blessing and a curse (诅咒), but in the end, accepting who you are is the first step to happiness.

    Devon Gallagher, a college graduate from Philadelphia, wants the world to know exactly here she's been during her worldwide vacation in a special way.

    The traveler, who was born with a bone disease, had her right leg amputated(k)at the age of four. Although the amputation caused setbacks for Gallagher early on, she now sees it as nothing short of inspiration for living her best life.

    To spread that message, Gallagher has taken to social media, where she shares photos of her travels across the globe, but instead of simply using a geo-tag, she writes her location across her artificial leg before taking a picture.

    Now she has been taking pictures across the Continent, which show her cycling over the canal in Amsterdam relaxing on a wall overlooking the city of Barcelona, posing with a waffle in Brussels, taking in the spectacular Parthenon temple in Athens and enjoying a river cruise in Budapest, all with the well-known locations written on her artificial leg “I get a new leg every two years and I can choose the design on it. One day I had a sudden thought to get a chalk-board, "Gallagher said. "My mum and grand-mother weren't too keen on the idea, but my friends thought it was great and told me to go for it, so I did.”

    Gallagher said people often stare when she's writing on her leg, but once she shares the photos she receives only positive feedback. "My leg hasn't stopped me from doing anything I've wanted to do," she said. "I don't know if it's my determination to prove to myself that I can do it, but regardless, I've been able to keep up with my peers and lead a pretty great life, Gallagher shows us that you should never let anything stand in the way of your dreams. And if life gives you an artificial leg, make art

    For the past two years I have been travelling and living abroad. Home has become more of a feeling than a place. I feel at home when I am with my family in London, but I also feel at home in Italy with friends I love. Home is no longer a picture of a house with a front door and some windows. It is more complicated than that.

    This is one of the reasons that celebrating the new year has become very important for me. I do not care about "New Year's resolutions (愿望)"—living abroad has made me constantly reconsider what kind of person I want to be and how I will live my life, so I don't feel the need to plan for change: I live for change.

    New Year's Eve has become my time to reconnect with the friends that makes me feel at home. Every year we try to reunite wherever we are and remember the time when we knew each other so well that we felt like a family. It is a moment to reconnect and get to know each other again. Last year, we travelled to a cottage in Ireland where we had no internet and no neighbours. In the middle of the countryside, away from our big and constantly changing lives, we were able to become like a little family again.

    This year, we went to Barcelona. It was a very big change. We were surrounded by culture and life and joy. There were bars and parties. It was different, but one thing stayed very much the same-I felt at home again and we felt like a family again.

    A lot of people feel that New Year's Eve cannot live up to expectations. Ideas such as the "New Year's kiss" and "resolutions" create a lot of pressure for people to have a night to remember, a night that will change their lives and perhaps make the next year one worth living. I think those people are missing the point. If Christmas is about family, why can't New Year be about friends?

I think it was October, 1982. A friend had business dealings in the city of Reno, Nevada, and I was asked to accompany her on an overnight trip. While she conducted her business, I was aimlessly wandering down Virginia Street, heading into a most gloriously beautiful sunset. I had an urge to speak to someone on the street to share that beauty, but I couldn't make eye contact with anyone. Quickly I ducked into a department store and asked the lady behind the counter if she could come outside for just a minute. She looked at me as though I were from some other planet and said," Well..." Surprisingly, she followed me out.

When she got outside I said to her, "Just look at that sunset! Nobody out here was looking at it and I just had to share it with someone."

For a few seconds we just looked. Then I said, "God's in his heaven and all's right with the world." I thanked her for coming out to see it and sharing the beauty.

Four years later my situation had changed considerably. I had come to the end of a twenty­year marriage. I was alone and on my own for the first time in my life. One day, while my clothes were going around, I picked up a Unity Magazine and read an article about a woman who had been in similar circumstances. She had come to the end of a marriage, moved to a strange community, and the only job she could find was one she disliked: cosmetic sales in a department store. We had a lot in common.

Then something happened to her that changed everything. She said a woman came into her department store and asked her to step outside to look at a sunset. The stranger had said "God's in his heaven and all's right with the world," and she had realized the truth in that statement and that she simply had not been seeing it. From that moment on, she turned her life around.

Recently I attended several meetings where we talked about ways to attract students and keep younger faculty members from going elsewhere. It seems higher education has become an industry of meeting-holders whose task is to "solve" problems — real or imagined. And in my position as a professor at three different colleges, the actual problems in educating our young people and older students have deepened, while the number of people hired — not to teach but to hold meetings — has increased significantly. Every new problem creates a new job for an administrative fixer. Take our Center for Teaching Excellence. Contrary to its title, the center is a clearing house (信息交流中心) for using technology in classrooms and in online courses. It's an administrative sham (欺诈) of the kind that has multiplied over the last 30 years.

I offer a simple proposal in response: Many of our problems — class attendance, educational success, student happiness and well-being — might be improved by cutting down the bureaucratic (官僚的) mechanisms and meetings and hiring an army of good teachers instead.

If we replaced half of our administrative staff with classroom teachers, we might actually get a majority of our classes back to 20 or fewer students per teacher. This would be an environment in which teachers and students actually knew each other. The teachers must be free to teach in their own way — the curriculum should be flexible enough so that they can use their individual talents to achieve the goals of the course.

Additionally, they should be allowed to teach, and be rewarded for doing it well. Teachers are not people who are great at and consumed by research and happen to appear in a classroom. Good teaching and research are not exclusive, but they are also not automatic companions. Teaching is an art and a craft, talent and practice; it is not something that just anyone can be good at. It is utterly confusing to me that people do not recognize this, despite the fact that pretty much anyone who has been a student can tell the difference between their best and worst teachers.

Since 1993, Chicken Soup for the Soul has been a socially conscious company that combines storytelling with making the world a better place. We tell the stories of all people through our efforts, always with an eye to furthering unity and understanding, and an appreciation for our differences.

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Facts & Figures

• The Chicken Soup for the Soul book series of over 250 titles has sold more than 110 million copies nationwide. Our books have been translated into 43 languages, have been published in over 100 countries, and have sold more than 500 million copies worldwide.

• In 2004, Chicken Soup for the Soul launched Pet Food, Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul, which today can be found in over 5,000 independent pet specialty stores.

• In 2008, Chicken Soup for the Soul became the best-selling trade paperback series of all time.

• In 2013 Kerner Entertainment agreed to produce a film based on Chicken Soup for the Soul.

I want you all to know that I've quit social media, and my life has gotten so much better. I mean, it's only been 15 minutes but I can already tell I'm a different person. Fifteen minutes ago, I stopped using Facebook and Twitter. Within seconds, I noticed I am happier, less irritable, more contemplative(深思熟虑的) and balanced. I'm spending more time on activities that matter. Just in the past two minutes, I've looked at a book on my bookshelf and briefly pondered opening it.

I'm truly changing. This is going to sound crazy, but since quitting social media—now, let's see, 16 minutes ago—all of my senses are enhanced. My eyesight is clearer. Food tastes better. I just smelled the first tulips of spring. I am jolted by a burst of energy. Every morning I am going to meditate or at least lie in my bed and consider meditating.

What purpose does social media serve, anyhow? The academics tell us it's making us miserable—the constant updates from friends with their expensive vacations and gossips about celebrities. If you think about it, the Internet was really only supposed to be for one thing: ordering socks from J. Crew. Then people started posting photographs of their dogs in Halloween costumes, and we all began sending Happy Birthday wishes to classmates we'd lost touch with since fifth grade, and the whole thing became the nightmare.

Social media ruins perfectly good human beings. There are people I love in real life and hate on social media. Worst still, social media stifles(抑制) creativity. They've studied this in rats, you know. Scientists made rats quit using Facebook, and when they came back in a few hours, all of the rats were writing really solid debut novels.

It's been 17 minutes. I have a feeling that my quitting social media is having a physical effect. All I did was quit looking at my phone 900 times a day. I'll tell them the secret. Quit social media. All of life's annoying problems will be over. Your relationships will improve. You'll never feel down. You'll never get stuck in traffic.

Do I miss it? Thanks for asking. I don't even know why I thought it was so important. I do not need to see the 800th photo from my co-worker's trip. I have no idea how a hot topic is going on. And it's OK. I can't imagine going back. I've quit social media. It's only been 18 minutes, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to make it a full twenty.