Michael Priscilla is a young architect with a blog that I follow. In a post, he described how in 2005, he rode coast-to-coast, 4547 miles to Portland, Oregon, and he ended up staying there. He thought his experience changed his life.

The story resonated with me, because when I was 17, the summer before I went into architecture school, I did much the same thing, and it changed my life too. I did not go quite as far, traveling 2700 miles to Vancouver.

But it was still a very long way and in 1970, nobody was riding bikes. Our diet only consisted of a loaf of white bread and a jar of peanut butter each meal, or dinner with other people in the campgrounds who were just amazed that we were doing this. Equipment was primitive and we had no sunscreen.

But, as it was for Michael, it was a life-changing experience. I have never forgotten that everything weighs something and every ounce matters; in architecture I always tended toward light and portable and simple. I learned that people of all ages and origins are generally really, really nice and helpful and friendly. When I got back to architecture school, I saw the world differently, understood space and time differently, and I don’t think that ever left me.

Going with the flow, having a good attitude and just being open to accept whatever happens, is the formula (公式) to having an amazing experience. Worrying and planning too much stops any experience from ever taking place. This is a hard lesson to learn.

Nowadays, lots of people of all ages are doing it. In America and Europe, bicycle tourism has become a big deal, with one website noting that bicycle vacations are the new golf. Perhaps crossing the entire country is a bit much, but reading Michael’s post makes me want to get back on my bike and take a good long ride.

A young woman was walking in Santa Ana, California, when she came upon an elderly street vendor (小贩) selling tamales (玉米粉蒸肉). Seeing how tired he looked in his wheelchair, she decided to give him a few bucks and a sandwich—and she also gave him a sympathetic ear to listen to his story.

When Kenia Barragan first saw Jose Villa Ochoa, she thought of her own parents. “I felt for him,” she told KTTV News, “My parents are both older, and I would hate to see my dad out selling tamales for somebody and barely making ends meet.”

Known as “Don Joel”, he explained that although he wanted a job, no company would hire him because of his age. In order to keep himself out of debt, he started to sell tamales cooked by a local woman. At the end of each hard day, she would give him a cut of the earnings. This allowed him to buy food, but was not enough for him to afford his medical treatment or a phone.

The 28-year-old woman was happy to listen to Don Joel’s story, but she wanted to do more. She made an appeal to her followers on Instagram for some assistance. Within a week, friends and strangers flooded her with more than $84 000 in donations.

In addition to the money raised for Don Joel’s retirement, Kenia purchased him a new wheelchair and a shiny new pair of shoes. Even though he’s 94, he says he feels like he’s 40 now, because the kindness has made him feel so alive. He describes the generosity as “life-changing”.

Kenia feels exactly the same way. She says she’s always looking for a purpose that helps people and that she’s been living in line with those values in her current job, working with people who have disabilities to get them transportation. Her goal in life is to establish a homeless shelter.

Look people in the eye. Smile. Shake hands. Sit up tall. Speak confidently. That’s the last-minute advice Professor Paul Calhoun gives college students before they head off for job interviews. The Skidmore College seniors he’s talking to are dressed in suits, dresses and heels. They stand out in a college library with other finals-takers, most in sweatpants or T-shirts.

There isn’t an actual job interview, just a satisfactory or unsatisfactory grade from a popular, semester-long class called Presenting the Brand Called Me at this college in New York.

Calhoun created the popular, semester-long course 10 years ago. He’d spent more than three decades working in the banking industry, where he saw the importance of presentation skills: “A lot of it is acting.”

When Calhoun came to Skidmore as a business professor, he noticed a lot of students struggling with self-confidence and public speaking. He shaped what eventually became this class with the help of theater professors, in order to give business majors “the same training that the theater department gives to actors.”

Over the 13 weeks, there are dance classes, role-playing, and a group of guest speakers who talk about cover letters and resumes(简历). By the end of the course, students leave with a “STAR” story — the short story about yourself and your abilities that’s designed to help land you a job.“People don’t remember when you tell them you’re good at something,” Calhoun explains, “they remember when you tell them a story that proves you’re good at something.”

Dante Delemos is a junior business major, soft-spoken but confident. He says this class has helped him realize that telling a story — his story — has value, so he uses it whenever he can: in cover letters, to shape his resume and during interviews. And it worked. Delemos is spending the summer working in finance, with an internship(实习) in Manhattan.