Larry seemed always silent and didn’t have any friends. His teacher Mr. Brown noticed (注意到) this. One day, he asked Larry to meet him after class. Mr. Brown said, “I see that you don’t talk to anyone or show any interest in anything. What’s wrong?” Larry answered, “Sir, I have a very difficult life. I have to face some very sad things and I always keep thinking about them. Because of this, I can’t focus on (集中注意力) anything and even don’t feel like talking to anybody.” Mr. Brown listened carefully, thought for a while and said, “Would you like some lemonade (柠檬汽水)?” Larry felt a little surprised and nervously said, “Yes, thank you!”

While preparing lemonade (柠檬). Mr. Brown added more salt (盐) but less sugar (糖). Larry made a strange face as soon as he drank a sip (一小口) of that lemonade. Seeing this, Mr. Brown asked, “You don’t like it?” “Um… it’s just because there is a bit too much salt in it,” Larry answered.

Mr. Brown stopped him, “Oh, it doesn’t matter. I will throw it away.”As the teacher was lifting the glass to take it away, Larry stopped him and said, “Sir, please don’t throw it away. If we put a little more sugar in the lemonade, it will be fine to drink.”

Hearing this, Mr. Brown said happily, “This is what I want to hear from you. To improve the taste of lemonade, we don’t need to remove (去除) the salt from it. Instead, we can just add some sugar to it. Similarly, we can not remove sad things that have already happened to us, but we can add sweetness of good experiences in our life. If you keep on crying about your past, neither your present will be right nor the future will be bright.”

Larry realized his problem and began to live a happy life.

Few buildings on earth can compete with the legendary beauty of the Taj Mahal. Towering over the ancient Indian city of Agra, the Taj Mahal is the grandest monument (纪念碑) to love ever created.

The lovers in this story are the 17th century Indian emperor Shah Jehan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. She took a leading role in advising him, which is something unusual for a woman to do for a husband who’s an emperor. Over the course of their nineteen-year marriage she gave birth to 14 children. But in 1631 while trying to deliver their fifteenth — she tragically died. He was heartbroken when she died. And after her death, he decided to build the world’s greatest monument ever built, for love.

He ordered the royal architects to design the most beautiful building the world had known and decided to name it after his beloved, Mumtaz Mahal. He called on twenty thousand workers and sent many more people to all corners of his country in search of valuable metals and jewels. And after seventeen years of hard work, Shah Jehan’s monument was completed and his beloved empress was moved to her final resting place.

Everything had gone according to plan, but Shah Jehan’s luck was about to change ... In 1658, just four years after the completion of the Taj Mahal, he was thrown out of power. Unfortunately, his son, Aran Azibe imprisoned him, his own father. And he spent the last seven years of his life in prison. And he was allowed to look at the Taj Mahal through a window. His life was in ruins, but when he died his last wish was promised. He was buried beside his beloved wife in the Taj Mahal.

When Sarah Hansen first came to Bonnie Schlachte’s ballet studio, she jokingly called herself a “weeble-wobble,” telling her ballet teacher that when she tried to walk, she would fall. “She couldn’t walk across the room without holding on to something,” recalls Schlachte. “She would immediately fall.”

Hansen was only in middle-school, but a progressive neurological disease was hindering her ability to walk, let alone do ballet. But Hansen had a tenacious spirit and desperately wanted to learn ballet. Hansen joined in weekly group classes at Schlachte’s ballet studio called Ballet for all Kids, a studio that teaches children with disabilities. Soon after she began classes and private lessons, her family saw a vast improvement in her ability to move.

She worked tirelessly in the studio, focusing on what her instructor wanted from her. “At the time, her foot wouldn’t fully rest on the floor,” explains Schlachte. “That’s why she couldn’t stand on her own, there was no support.” Schlachte pushed her student, explaining to Hansen that her brain has neuroplasticity (可塑性) so eventually it will receive the message.

As a mom, a classically trained ballerina, and holding a degree in psychology, Bonnie Schlachte was the perfect person to push Hansen to do her best. Schlachte put herself through college with dance and theater scholarships. After graduation, she came across an opportunity with children with developmental disabilities. She fell in love and chose to focus on jobs in that field.

Years later, Schlachte found herself watching and celebrating Hansen, who at one point could barely walk, was now moving across the floor on her own two feet. “One day, her ankle dropped, and she put her whole foot on the ground,” says Schlachte. “I was crying, her mom was crying, it was a great moment.”