Coming home, we loaded our old truck with three heavy barrels of coffee grounds (咖啡渣). As we came up a ramp (斜坡), all the barrels rolled out behind us. Thank goodness there were no cars behind us since it was lunch hour.

We were wondering how we could load them in the truck without getting killed by those cars coming down the ramp. As my husband was pulling one barrel back to the truck, I ran to get the others out of the way.

Just then there was a man running to me shouting, "I can help!" With dirty hands and a nice smile, he took a barrel from me and dragged it back to the truck as I ran back to get the third one.

When he had that one safe, he came back to help me and was surprised how heavy the third one was. I explained it was full of coffee grounds and he laughed. Getting it in the truck was another thing, but we made it together.

We asked him if we could pay him something for his help. He didn't answer. He looked as if he didn't really know what to say. So we thanked him and got back in the truck. It was then that we noticed the man returned to the side of the road where there was a sign reading "Out of work. Anything will help."

We wished we'd given him some money. But he left quickly. Later, I went to the ramp to look for him, but in vain. We will remember his help and pass down this selfless kindness.

Rene Compean had hiked the park near his home in Southern California many times. But after exploring a new path last April, he was lost.

With no flashlight, only a little water and less than ten percent battery remaining on his cell phone, Compean climbed to a spot where he found at least one bar of signal. “SOS. My phone is going to die. I’m lost,” he texted a friend, attaching a photo showing where he was. The shot showed his dirty legs hanging over a number of steep rocks. All Compean could do then was to wait and hope.

Sixty miles away in Ventura, Ben Kuo was working at home when he read a tweet from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, showing an unclear image of a man’s legs. The sheriff’s search-and-rescue teams had spent the previous night unsuccessfully looking for Compean, so they released the photo to the public, hoping someone might know the location.

When he saw the unclear picture, he pulled up a satellite map on his laptop. The first thing he noticed in Compean’s photo was patches of greenery. After comparing it to the satellite map, Kuo realized something: He’s got to be on the south side because there’s not really any green valleys on the north side.

That finding tightened his search, leading him to an area that resembled the place in the image. The final step was cross-referencing(相互参照) the original photo with 3D images of the area from Google Earth. The locations matched!

He quickly called the sheriff’s department with the latitude and longitude supplied by Google Earth. Soon, a search-and-rescue team helicopter was in the air, hovering above Compean.

After spending 27 hours alone in the wilderness, Compean cried, “I’m safe!”

Sgt. John Gilbert in the sheriff’s department thought Compean’s story probably would have ended very differently had a total stranger with strong satellite skills and a sharp eye for detail not taken action.

At an outdoor restaurant, a cockroach（蟑螂）flew in and landed on a woman. She started screaming out of fear; with a panic-stricken face and trembling voice, she started jumping,   with both her hands desperately trying to get rid of the cockroach. Her reaction was spreading, as everyone in her group also got into a panic. The woman finally managed to flick the cockroach away but it landed on a man in the group who continued the drama. In the relay（接力赛）of throwing, the cockroach next fell upon a waitress who had rushed to their rescue.

The waitress stood firm, calmed herself and observed the behavior of the cockroach on her blouse. When she was confident enough, she grabbed it and threw it out of the restaurant.

Sipping my coffee and watching the amusement, I started wondering: was the cockroach responsible for their funny behavior? If so, then why was the waitress not disturbed? She handled the situation to near perfection, without panic.

It was not the cockroach, but the inability of the customers to handle the disturbance caused by the cockroach that disturbed them. I realized that it was not the shouting of my children or my boss or my wife, but my inability to handle the disturbances caused by their shouting that disturbed me.

It’s not the traffic jams on the road that disturb me, but my inability to handle the disturbance caused by the traffic jam. More than the problem, it’s my reaction to the problem that creates chaos in my life.

I understood. I should not react in life. I should always respond. The customers reacted, while the waitress responded. Reactions are always instinctive（本能的）, while responses tend to be well thought out.