英语朗诵材料B.doc

（6）What is Life About
What is life about? We push very hard everyday to make more money, to gain power and recognition.
We neglect our health, time with our family and to appreciate the surrounding beauty and the hobbies we love to do. One day when we look back, we will realize that we don't really need that much, but then we cannot turn back time for what we have missed.
Life is not about making money, acquiring power or recognition. Life is definitely not about work! Work is only necessary to keep us living so as to enjoy the beauty and pleasures of life.
Life is a balance of work and play, family and personal time. You have to decide how you want to balance your life.Define your priorities, realize what you are able to compromise but always let some of your decisions be based on your instincts.
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,the whole aim of human existence. So, take it easy, do what you want to do and appreciate nature. Life is fragile. Life is short. Do not take life for granted. Live a balanced lifestyle and enjoy life!
（7）(Important Things in Life)
Sometimes things happen to you that may seem horrible, painful, and unfair at first, but upon reflection you find that without overcoming those obstacles you never would have realized your potential, strength, willpower,or heart.
　　Illness, injury, lost moments of true greatness, and sheer stupidity all occur to test the limits of your soul. Without these small tests, whatever they may be, life would be like a smoothly paved road to nowhere. It would be safe and com-fortable, but dull and utterly pointless.
　　If someone hurts you, betrays you, or breaks your heart,forgive them, for they have helped you learn about trust and the importance of being cautious to whom you open your heart.
　　Make every day count. Appreciate every moment and take from those moments everything that you possibly can for you may never be able to experience it again. Talk to people that you have never talked to before, and listen to what they have to say.
　　You can make anything you wish of your life. Create your own life and then go out and live it with absolutely no regrets.
（8）Different Strokes of Our Duties不同的义务
Life teaches us to live. To live, you have to exist. To exist, you should have a passport to this living world. Thanks to your parents, who brought you into this world.
Parents have taken care of us and satisfied all our needs. They helped whenever we were hungry, afraid or iii. They were always there by you, whenever you needed them. You almost assumed that they would always be there for you and never thought of how your life would be without them. But as you grow up, age also catches up with your parents and they need your help and support.
Man is a child first, after which he attains his youth. After youth he again goes through the second phase of childhood, also called as old age. This is the phase where everyone needs a cornfort of a sense of belonging and being taken care of. Woulch't we all expect the Same of security when we grow old? Even our parents are expecting us to be their caretaker, as they grow old.But they never make that obvious to us. They do their further duty by taking care of their grandchildren, paying e-bills, giving the clothes for laundry etc.
Isn't it unfair on our part that we aren't giving them what they need the most? It is our prime duty to take the very best care of them. It's our pay back time. Let's give the same sense of emotional security, care and love to our parents in their old age.
（9）Autumn Sunset 秋天的落日
We had a remarkable sunset one day last November. I was walking in a meadow, the source of a small brook, when the sun at last, just before setting, after a cold gray day, reached a clear stratum in the horizon, and the softest, brightest morning sunlight fell on the dry grass and on the stems of the trees in the opposite horizon, and on the leaves of the shrub-oaks on the hill-side, while our shadows stretched long over the meadow eastward, as if we were the only motes in its beams. It was such a light as we could not have imagined a moment before, and the air also was so warm and serene that nothing wanted to make a paradise of that meadow.
The sun sets on some retired meadow, where no house is visible, with all the glory and splendor that it lavishes on cities, and, perchance, as it has never set before, --where there is but a solitary marsh-hawk to have his wings gilded by it, or only a masques lookout from his cabin, and there is some little black-veined brook in the midst of the marsh, just beginning to meander, winding slowly round a decaying stump. We walked in so pure and bright a light, gilding the withered grass and leaves, so softly and serenely bright, I thought I had never bathed in such a golden flood, without a ripple or a murmur to it.
（10）Love Your Life
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names.It is not so bad as you are.
It looks poorest when you are richest.The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is.
You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.
The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. Maybe they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. which should be more disreputable.
Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage.Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old, return to them.
Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
（11）LIFE IS A DO-IT-YOURSELF PROJECT 生活是一个自己动手的项目
An elderly carpenter was ready to retire.
he told his employer contractor of his plans to leave the house building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife enjoying his extended family.
He would miss the paycheck,but he needed to retire.
They could get by.
The contractor was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor.
The carpenter said yes,but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work.
He resorted to shooddy workmanship and used inferior materials.
It was an unfortunate way to end his career.
When the carpenter finished his work and the builder came to inspect the house,the contractor handed the front door key to the carpenter.
"This is your house,"he said,"my gift to you."
What a shock!
What a shame!
If he had only known he was building his own house,he would have done it all so differently.
Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.
So it is with us.
We build our lives in a distracted way,reacting rather than acting,willing to put up less than the best.
At important points we do not give the job our best effort.
Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built.
If we had realized that we would have done it differentl