英语美文朗读.doc

英语美文朗读

1 The Happy Door
Happiness is like a pebble
dropped into a pool to set in motion an ever-widening circle of ripples.
As Stevenson has said, being happy is a duty.
There is no exact definition of the word happiness.
Happy people are happy for all sorts of reasons.
The key is not wealth or physical well-being,
since we find beggars, invalids and so-called failures,
who are extremely happy.
Being happy is a sort of unexpected dividend.
But staying happy is an accomplishment,
a triumph of soul and character.
It is not selfish to strive for it.
It is, indeed, a duty to ourselves and others.
Being unhappy is like an infectious disease.
It causes people to shrink away from the sufferer.
He soon finds himself alone, miserable and embittered.
There is, however, a cure so simple as to seem,
at first glance, ridiculous;
if you don't feel happy, pretend to be! It works.
Before long you will find that instead of repelling people,
you attract them. You discover
how deeply rewarding it is to be the center
of wider and wider circles of good will.
Then the make-believe becomes a reality.
You possess the secret of peace of mind,
and can forget yourself in being of service to others.
Being happy, once it is realized as a duty and established as a habit,
opens doors into unimaginable gardens thronged with grateful friends

2 Abundance Is a Life Style

Abundance is a life style, a way of living your life.
It isn't something you buy now and then or pull down from the cupboard,
dust off and use once or twice, and then return to the cupboard.
Abundance is a philosophy;
it appears in your physiology, your value system,
and carries its own set of beliefs.
You walk with it, sleep with it, bath with it,
feel with it, and need to maintain and take care of it as well.
Abundance doesn't always require money.
Many people live with all that money can buy yet live empty inside.
Abundance begins inside with some main self-ingredients,
like love, care, kindness and gentleness, thoughtfulness and compassion.
Abundance is a state of being.
It radiates outward.
It shines like the sun among the many moons in the world.
Being from the brightness of abundance doesn't allow the darkness to appear
or being in the path unless a choice to allow it to.
The true state of abundance doesn't have room
for lies or games normally played.
The space is too full of abundance.
This may be a challenge
because we still need to shine for others to see.
Abundance is seeing people for their gifts
and not what they lack or could be.
Seeing all things for their gifts and not what they lack.
Start by knowing what your abundances are,
fill that space with you,
and be fully present from that state of being.
Your profession of choice is telling you this already.
Examples: coaches have an abundance of knowing and possibilities.
That is their gift.
Consultants and customer service professionals have the abundance of success,
practicality, in common.
Administrative assistants and virtual assistants
have an abundance of coordination and time management.
Abundance is all around you, and all within.
See what it is; love yourself for what it is,
not what you're missing, or what that can be better.
But for what is, at this present moment.
Be in a state of abundance of what you already have.
I guarantee they are there; it always is buried but there.
Breathe them in as if they are the air you breathe
because they are yours.
Let go of anything that isn't abundant for the time being.
Name the shoe boxes in your closet with your gifts of abundance;
pull from them every morning if needed. Know they are there.
Learning to trust in your own abundance is required.
When you begin to be within your own space of abundance,
whatever you need will appear whenever you need it.
That's just the way the higher powers set this universe up to work.
Trust the universal energy.
The knowing of it all will humble you to its power
yet let the brightness of you shine everywhere it needs to.
Just by being from a state of abundance, it is being you.

3 Get a Thorough Understanding of Oneself
In all one's life time it is oneself that one spends the most time being with or dealing with. But it is precisely oneself that one has the least understanding of.
When you are going upwards in life you tend to overestimate yourself. It seems that everything you seek for is within your reach; luck and opportunities will come your way and you are overjoyed that they constitute part of your worth. When you are going downhill you tend to underestimate yourself, mistaking difficulties and adversities for your own incompetence. It's likely that you think it wise for yourself to know your place and stay aloof from worldly wearing a mask of cowardice, behind which the flow of sap in your life will be retarded. To get a thorough understanding of oneself is to gain a correct view of oneself and be a sober realist—aware of both one's strength and shortage.
You may look forward hopefully to the future but be sure not to expect too much, for ideals can never be fully realized.
You may be courageous to meet challenges but it should be clear to you where to direct your efforts. That's to say so long as you have a perfect knowledge of yourself there won't be difficulties you can't overcome, nor obstacles you can't surmount. To get a thorough understanding of oneself needs self-appreciation.
Whether you liken yourself to a towering tree or a blade of grass, whether you think you are a high mountain or a small stone, you represent a state of nature that has its own raison deter. If you earnestly admire yourself you'll have a real sense of self-appreciation, which will give you confidence.
As soon as you gain full confidence in yourself you'll be enabled to fight and overcome any adversity. To get a thorough understanding of oneself also requires doing oneself a favor when it's needed. In time of anger, do yourself a favor by giving vent to it in a quiet place so that you won't be hurt by its flames; in time of sadness, do yourself a favor by sharing it with your friends so as to change a gloomy mood into a cheerful one; in time of tiredness, do yourself a favor by getting a good sleep or taking some tonic. Show yourself loving concern about your health and daily life. As you are aware, what a person physically has is but a human body that's vulnerable when exposed to the elements.
So if you fall ill, it's up to you to take a good care of yourself. Unless you know perfectly well when and how to do yourself a favor, you won't be confident and ready enough to resist the attack of illness.
To get a thorough understanding of oneself is to get a full control of one's life. Then one will find one's life full of color and flavor

4 Mirror， Mirror—What do I See
A loving person lives in a loving world.
A hostile person lives in a hostile world.
Everyone you meet is your mirror.
Mirrors have a very particular function.
 They reflect the image in front of them.
 Just as a physical mirror serves as the vehicle to reflection,
 so do all of the people in our lives.
When we see something beautiful such as a flower garden,
that garden serves as a reflection.
In order to see the beauty in front of us,
we must be able to see the beauty inside of ourselves.
When we love someone, it's a reflection of loving ourselves.
We have often heard things like
"I love how I am when I'm with that person."
That simply translates into "I'm able to love me
 when I love that other person."
Oftentimes, when we meet someone new,
 we feel as though we "click".
Sometimes it's as if we've known each other for a long time.
 That feeling can come from sharing similarities.
Just as the "mirror" or other person can be a positive reflection,
it is more likely that we'll notice it
when it has a negative connotation.
 For example, it's easy to remember times
when we have met someone we're not particularly crazy about.
We may have some criticism in our mind about the person.
 This is especially true
when we get to know someone with whom we would rather spend less time.
Frequently, when we dislike qualities in other people,
 ironically, it's usually the mirror that's speaking to us.
I began questioning myself further each time I encountered someone
 that I didn't particularly like.
Each time, I asked myself,
"What is it about that person that I don't like?" and then
 "Is there something similar in me?" in every instance,
I could see a piece of that quality in me,
and sometimes I had to really get very introspective.
 So what did that mean?
It means that just as I can get annoyed or disturbed
 when I notice that aspect in someone else,
 I better reexamine my qualities and consider making some changes.
 Even if I'm not willing to make a drastic change,
at least I consider how I might modify some of the things that I'm doing.
At times we meet someone new and feel distant,
 disconnected, or disgusted.
 Although we don't want to believe it,
and it's not easy or desirable to look further,
it can be a great learning lesson to figure out
what part of the person is being reflected in you.
 It's simply just another way to create more self-awareness.

5 Growing Roots
When I was growing up, I had an old neighbor named Dr. Gibbs.
 He didn't look like any doctor I'd ever known.
 He never yelled at us for playing in his yard.
 I remember him as someone
 who was a lot nicer than circumstances warranted.
When Dr. Gibbs wasn't saving lives, he was planting trees.
His house sat on ten acres,
and his life's goal was to make it a forest.
The good doctor had some interesting theories concerning plant husbandr
He came from the "No pain, no gain" school of horticulture.
He never watered his new trees,
which flew in the face of conventional wisdom.
Once I asked why. He said that watering plants spoiled them,
and that if you water them,
each successive tree generation will grow weaker and weaker.
So you have to make things rough for them
and weed out the weenie trees early on.
He talked about how watering trees made for shallow roots,
 and how trees that weren't watered had to grow deep roots in search of
I took him to mean that deep roots were to be treasured.
I planted a couple of trees a few years back.
Carried water to them for a solid summer.
 Sprayed them. Prayed over them.
The whole nine yards.
Two years of coddling has resulted in trees
that expect to be waited on hand and foot.
 Whenever a cold wind blows in,
they tremble and chatter their branches. Sissy trees.
Funny things about those trees of Dr. Gibbs'.
 Adversity and deprivation seemed to benefit them
in ways comfort and ease never could.
Every night before I go to bed,
 I check on my two sons.
I stand over them and watch their little bodies,
 the rising and falling of life within.
I often pray for them.
Mostly I pray that their lives will be easy.
But lately I've been thinking that it's time to change my prayer.
This change has to do with the inevitability of cold winds
that hit us at the core.
I know my children are going to encounter hardship,
 and I'm praying they won't be naive.
There's always a cold wind blowing somewhere.
So I'm changing my prayer.
Because life is tough, whether we want it to be or not.

Too many times we pray for ease,
but that's a prayer seldom met.
What we need to do is pray for roots that reach deep into the Eternal,
so when the rains fall and the winds blow,
we won't be swept asunder.
6 Restraints to Soar

One windy spring day,
I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites.
Multicolored creations of varying shapes
and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing.
As the strong winds gusted against the kites,
a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind,
they arose against it to achieve great heights.
They shook and pulled,
but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow,
facing upward and against the wind.
As the kites struggled and trembled against the string,
they seemed to say:"Let me go! Let me go!
I want to be free!" They soared beautifully
even as they fought the restriction of the string.
Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose.
"Free at last." it seemed to say. "Free to fly with the wind."
Yet freedom from restraint
simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze.
It fluttered ungracefully to the ground
and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush.
"Free at last" free to lie powerless in the dirt,
to be blown helplessly along the ground,
and to lodge lifeless against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are.
The Heaven gives us adversity and restrictions,
rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength.
Restraint is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition.
Some of us tug at the rules so hard that
we never soar to reach the heights we might have obtained.
Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that
some of the restraints that

we may chafe under are actually the steadying force
that helps us ascend and achieve.

7 On the Road, No Burden
To a large degree,
the measure of our peace of mind is determined by
how much we are able to live in the present moment．
Irrespective of what happened yesterday or last year,
and what may or may not happen tomorrow,
the present moment is where you are—always.
Without question,
many of us have mastered the neurotic art of spending much of our lives
worrying about a variety of things—all at once.
We allow past problems and future concerns to dominate our present moments,

so much so that we end up anxious, frustrated, depressed,
and hopeless. On the flip side,
we also postpone our gratification, our stated priorities,
and our happiness,
often convincing ourselves that "someday" will be better than today.
Unfortunately,
the same mental dynamics that tell us to look toward the future
will only repeat themselves so that "someday" never actually arrives.
John Lennon once said:
"Life is what's happening while we're busy making other plans."
When we're busy making "other plans",
our children are busy growing up,
the people we love are moving away and dying,
our bodies are getting out of shape,
and our dreams are slipping away.
In short, we miss out on life.
Many people live as if life were a dress rehearsal for some later date.
It isn't. In fact,
no one has a guarantee that he or she will be here tomorrow.
Now is the only time we have,
and the only time that we have any control over.
When our attention is in the present moment,
we push fear from our minds.
Fear is the concern over events
that might happen in the future—we won' t have enough money,
our children will get into trouble,
we will get old and die, whatever.
To combat