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优秀英语美文篇1
匆忙中停留片刻
Be still.
Just for a moment.
Listen to the world around you. Feel your breath coming in and going out. Listen to your thoughts. See the details of your surroundings.
Be at peace with being still.
In this modern world, activity and movement are the default modes, if not with our bodies then at least with our minds, with our attention. We rush around all day, doing things, talking, emailing, sending and reading messages, clicking from browser tab to the next, one link to the next.
We are always on, always connected, always thinking, always talking. There is no time for stillness -- and sitting in front of a frenetic computer all day, and then in front of the hyperactive television, doesn't count as stillness.
This comes at a cost: we lose that time for contemplation(沉思,注视), for observing and listening. We lose peace.
And worse yet: all the rushing around is often counterproductive. I know, in our society action is all-important -- inaction is seen as lazy and passive and unproductive. However, sometimes too much action is worse than no action at all. You can run around crazily, all sound and fury, but get nothing done. Or you can get a lot done -- but nothing important. Or you can hurt things with your actions, make things worse than if you'd stayed still.
And when we are forced to be still -- because we're in line for something, or waiting at a doctor's appointment, or on a bus or train -- we often get antsy, and need to find something to do. Some of us will have our mobile devices, others will have a notebook or folder with things to do or read, others will fidget. Being still isn't something we're used to.
Take a moment to think about how you spend your days -- at work, after work, getting ready for work, evenings and weekends. Are you constantly rushing around? Are you constantly reading and answering messages, checking on the news and the latest stream of information? Are you always trying to Get Lots of Things Done, ticking off(列举) tasks from your list like a machine, rushing through your schedule?
Is this how you want to spend your life?
If so, peace be with you. If not, take a moment to be still. Don't think about what you have to do, or what you've done already. Just be in the moment.
Then after a minute or two of doing that, contemplate your life, and how you'd like it to be. See your life with less movement, less doing, less rushing. See it with more stillness, more contemplation, more peace.
Then be that vision.
It's pretty simple, actually: all you have to do is sit still for a little bit each day. Once you've gotten used to that, try doing less each day. Breathe when you feel yourself moving too fast. Slow down. Be present. Find happiness now, in this moment, instead of waiting for it.
Savor the stillness. It's a treasure, and it's available to us, always.
优秀英语美文篇2
冲破习惯 开始新的生活
Abraham Joshua Heschel was one of the leading American Rabbis, theologians(神学者), and social activists of the 20th century. He said something that I'll never forget and that has stayed with me since the moment I heard it. In his book God in Search of Man, he wrote, "Life is routine and routine is resistance to wonder."
There's a true story of a man I have worked with who has spent his entire life believing that his ears were not symmetrical(对称的) and therefore sunglasses always looked crooked on his face. He came to accept this over time, until he came in touch with mindfulness practice.
One day as he was standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom he chose to take a moment to come down from his busy mind, become present, and really look at himself. What he noticed was astonishing.
He suddenly realized that he had not been standing straight and that one shoulder was slightly lower than the other. In that moment, he chose to stand up straight and low and behold his eyeglasses were no longer crooked on his face. All this time he thought his face was lopsided(不平衡的) in some way when in effect, it was his posture.
This story is just a metaphor for the rest of us in our lives. Over time, what do we just get used to and learn to accept that keeps us limited in how we see things? What in our lives has become routine to a point that we have lost our sense of wonder in this world?
When dealing with a myriad of mental health conditions (e.g., stress, anxiety, depression, or addiction), we get stuck in routine ways of reacting to things. A challenge may arise and the automatic reaction is "who cares, I'll never succeed anyway." As we become accustomed to this, it can be likened to unknowingly walking around with crooked posture. Once we become aware of it, we can begin the process of straightening ourselves out.
It's a worthy question to explore: What do you notice in your life that's routine?
Do you watch TV every night? Do you take the same route to work every day? If you are in a relationship, do you sleep on the same side of the bed night after night or does only one of you cook the meals or clean? Do you often shoot down new ideas? Do you react to stress or pain with routine avoidance? Is this routine taking away the wonder in everyday life?"
To do: Pick one thing from your "routine list" and choose to begin becoming aware of it and switching it up.
优秀英语美文篇3
接受这个世界 生活将更快乐
One of the greatest sources of unhappiness, in my experience, is the difficulty we have in accepting things as they are.
Without judgment, without wishing for otherwise.
When we see something we don't like, we wish it could be different — we cry out for something better. That may be human nature, or perhaps it's something that's ingrained(根深蒂固的) in our culture.
The root of the unhappiness isn't necessarily that we want things to be different, however: it's that we decided we didn't like it in the first place. We've judged it as bad, rather than saying, "It's not bad or good, it just is."
An example: In my recent post, A Beautiful Method to Find Peace of Mind, quite a few commenters thought my outlook was negative, pessimistic, or fatalistic(宿命论的) … because I said you should expect people to mess up, expect things to go differently than you planned, and that you should embrace that.
It's too negative to expect things to go wrong, they said. However: it's only negative if you see it as negative. If you judge it as bad.
Instead, you could accept it as the way the world works — as the way things actually are. And try to understand why that is, and embrace it. As it is.
This can be applied to whatever you do: whether it be how other people act at work, how politics works and how depressing the news media can be. Accept these things as they are, and try to understand why they're that way.
It'll save you a lot of grief, because you'll no longer say, "Oh, I wish things didn't suck!"
Does it mean you can never change things? Not at all. But change things not because you can't accept things as they are, but because you enjoy the process of change, of learning and growing.
Can we make this world a better place? Again, that's assuming that it's a bad place right now. But instead, you could say the world is just what it is — and that's neither good nor bad. You can say that you'll continue to try to do things to help others, to grow as a person, to make a difference in this world — not because you're such a bad person now, or the world sucks, but because that's the path you choose to take, because you enjoy that path.
As you catch yourself judging, and wishing for different — and we all do it — try a different approach: accept, and understand. It might lead to some interesting results.