Michael is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I’d be twins!” He was a natural motivator.
迈克尔是那种你真想恨一恨的家伙，他总是乐呵呵的，总是说些积极上进的话。如果有人问他近况如何，他会这样回答：“如果我还能再好，我就成双胞胎了！”他生来就会让人积极进取。
If an employee was having a bad day, Michael was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation. Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Michael and asked him, "I don' t get it. You can' t be positive all the time. How do you do it?"
如果哪位雇员有天过得很糟糕，迈克尔会告诉他如何看待问题的积极一面。他的这种方式着实让我好奇，所以有一天我找到迈克尔问：“我真弄不明白。你怎么能总是那样积极乐观？你是如何做到这一点的？”
Michael replied, each morning I wake up and say to myself 'Mike, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."
迈克尔回答说，“每天早晨醒来时我对自己说，‘迈克，今天你有两种选择。你可以选择心情愉快，你也可以选择心情恶劣。’我选择心情愉快。每次什么不愉快的事情发生时，我可以选择成为一个牺牲品，也可以选择从中吸取教训。我选择从中吸取教训。每次有什么人找我来抱怨，我可以选择接受他们的抱怨，也可以选择向他指出生活的积极面。我选择指出生活的积极面。”
"Yeah, right. It isn't that easy." I protested.
“是的，不错。可并不那么容易呀。”我表示异议。
"Yes it is, " Michael said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line is: It's your choice how you live life. " I reflected on what Michael said.
“其实很容易，”迈克尔说。“生活就是选择。从每一事物剔除一切枝节后剩下的都是一种选择。你选择如何应付生活中的种种情形。你选择他人会怎样影响你的情绪。你选择是心情愉快还是心情恶劣。说到底：如何生活是你自己的选择。”我琢磨着迈克尔的这席话。
Soon thereafter, I left the big enterprise that I had worked in for years to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often though about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I heard Michael was involved in a serious accident, falling off 60 feet from a communications tower.
那以后不久，我离开了工作数年的大企业去创建自己的公司。我们失去了联系，但当我对生活做出一种选择而非对它做出反应时，我时常想起迈克尔。几年之后，我听说迈克尔遭遇一场恶性事故，从一座通讯大楼的60英尺高处掉了下来。
After l8 hours of surgery, and weeks of intensive care, Michael was released from the hospital with rods placed in his back. I saw Michael about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I’d be twins. Wanna see my scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the accident took place.
在经历了18个小时的手术和数周的精心护理之后，迈克尔出院了，背部装有金属杆。大约事故半年之后，我见到了迈克尔。当我问他怎么样时，他回答，“如果我还能再好，我就成双胞胎了。想看看我的伤疤吗？”我拒绝看他的伤痕，但的确问了他事故发生时他是怎么想的。
"The first thing that went through my mind was the well being of my soon-to-born daughter," Michael replied. "Then, as I lay on the ground, remembered I had two choices: I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live." "Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Michael continued, "... the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the operation room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, l read 'He's a dead man.' I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked. "Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me” said Michael. "She asked me if I was allergic to anything. ‘Yes,’ I said. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breath and yelled", ‘Gravity’” Over their laughter, I told them, 'I'm choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead'."
“我首先想到的是我那即将出世的女儿的幸福生活，”迈克尔答道。“当时我躺在地上，我记起我有两种选择：我可以选择活着，也可以选择死。我选择了活。”“你难道不害怕吗？你失去知觉了吗？”我问。迈克尔接着说，“……那些护理人员棒极了。他们不停地告诉我我会好的。但当他们把我推进手术室，我看到医生和护士脸上的表情时，我真是吓坏了。在他们的眼里，我读出了‘他是个死人。’我知道我应该采取行动。”“你采取了什么行动？”我问道。“有一位人高马大的护士大声冲我问问题，”迈克尔说。“她问我是否对什么过敏。‘是的，’我说。医生和护士都停下手中的活儿等我回答。我深吸一口气大声说出，‘万有引力。’他们的笑声未了，我告诉他们，‘我选择活着。把我当活人而不是死人来做手术。”’
Michael lived, thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I 1eamed from him that every day we have a choice to live fully. Attitude is everything.
迈克尔活了下来，这要感谢他那些医生的高明医术，但也要归功于他那令人赞叹的态度。我从他那里学到了我们每天都有机会充实地活着，关键是态度。
美文欣赏:快唤醒你的生活
Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, "Barbara, be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience."
How right they were. Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and strangers into friends.
多年前， 当我第一次找工作时， 不少明智之士强烈向我建议：“巴巴拉，要有热情！热情比任何经验都更有益。”这话多么正确，热情的人可以把沉闷的车程变成探险， 把加班变成机会， 把生人变成朋友。
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the paste that helps you hang in there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, "I can do it!" when others shout, "No, you can't."
“没有热情就不会有任何伟大的成就，” 拉尔夫-沃尔多-爱默生写道当事情进展不顺时，热情是帮助你坚持下去的粘合剂当别人叫喊“你不行”时， 热情是你内心发出的声音：“我能行”。
It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn't let up on her experiments. Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.
1983年诺贝尔医学奖的获得者遗传学家巴巴拉-麦克林托克早年的工作直到很多年后才被公众所承认但她并没有放弃实验工作对她来说是一种如此巨大的快乐， 她从未想过要停止它。
We are all born with wide-eyed, enthusiastic wonder as anyone knows who has ever seen an infant's delight at the jingle of keys or the scurrying of a beetle.
It is this childlike wonder that gives enthusiastic people such a youthful air, whatever their age.
我们都生来好奇, 睁大眼睛，满怀热情——每一个看到过婴儿听到钥匙声或看见乱爬的甲虫就兴奋不已的人都会明白这一点。
At 90, cellist Pablo Casals would start his day by playing Bach. As the music flowed through his fingers, his stooped shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. Music, for Casals, was an elixir that made life a never ending adventure. As author and poet Samuel Ullman once wrote, "Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."
正是这种孩子气的好奇给了热情的人们（不论年龄大小） 一种青春的气息大提琴家帕布罗-卡萨尔斯在90岁时还坚持以拉巴赫开始他的每一天音乐从他的指间流出， 他弯着的背挺直起来， 欢乐再度溢满他的眼眸音乐对卡萨尔斯来说, 是使人生变成无止境的探索之旅的灵丹妙药就像作家兼诗人塞缪尔-厄尔曼曾写过的：“岁月使皮肤起了皱纹， 但如果失去热情， 便会使灵魂起皱纹”。
How do you rediscover the enthusiasm of your childhood? The answer, I believe, lies in the word itself. "Enthusiasm" comes from the Greek and means "God within." And what is God within is but an abiding sense of love -- proper love of self (self-acceptance) and, from that, love of others.
怎样才能找回孩提时代的热情呢？我相信答案就在“热情”这个词本身“热情”一词源于希腊语， 原意是“内在的上帝”这里所说的“内在的上帝”不是别的, 而是一种持久不变的爱——恰当的自爱（自我接受）， 并推而及于他人。
Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money or title or power. If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can as a part-time avocation, like the head of state who paints, the nun who runs marathons, the executive who handcrafts furniture.
热情的人们同样热爱他们所做的事，而不是考虑钱位权如果我们不能把热爱的事作为正式职业， 我们也可把它当作业余消遣：比如有国家元首喜欢画画的， 有修女参加马拉松长跑的， 有行政官员手工制作家具的。
Elizabeth Layton of Wellsville, Kan, was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended bouts of depression that had plagued her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, "I am tempted to call Layton a genius." Elizabeth has rediscovered her enthusiasm.
堪萨斯州韦尔斯维尔市的伊丽莎白-莱顿到68岁才开始画画这一爱好消除了曾纠缠她至少达30年之久的忧郁症而她的作品水准之高使得一个评论家说：“我忍不住要称莱顿为天才”伊丽莎白又找回了她的热情。
We can't afford to waste tears on "might-have-beens." We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go after "what-can-be."
我们不应该把眼泪浪费在“早该”之类的后悔上我们需要把眼泪化为汗水，去追求“可能”之物。
We need to live each moment wholeheartedly, with all our senses -- finding pleasure in the fragrance of a back-yard garden, the crayoned picture of a six-year-old, the enchanting beauty of a rainbow. It is such enthusiastic love of life that puts a sparkle in our eyes, a lilt in our steps and smooths the wrinkles from our souls.
我们需要以全副身心去度过生命中的每一分钟——在后花园的芬芳中在6岁小孩的蜡笔画中在彩虹醉人的美中找到快乐正是这种对生活的热爱， 让我们双目有神，让我们步履矫健，让我们灵魂的皱纹展平。 |
