My dad doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would bake great bread, but he is and he does. Every Saturday he produces homemade bread. When he’s done, the whole house smells delicious.

The shop where Dad works doesn’t have enough work, so he’s under pressure. I think Dad bakes bread to help him relax.

Now I’ve been feeling kind of stressed out myself since I found out I didn’t make the school swim team. I think Dad knew I was feeling bad. Last Saturday he asked me how things were going. I said OK, even though I didn’t feel OK at all. He looked at me for a moment, and then he said it was time for me to help. Then he headed to the kitchen.

I followed right behind him. Once we were there, Dad took out his big mixing bowl, handed me a large wooden spoon, and told me to mix while he added the ingredients (烹饪原料). Dad isn’t big on measuring, but he knows how much of each ingredient to use, and the bread always turns out great.

Dad showed me how to knead the dough (揉面团). Next came the most difficult part — doing nothing. We put the dough back into the bowl and then we waited for more than an hour for the dough to slowly rise and double in size. Next, we divided it into two and waited for it to rise again.

Dad said the waiting is always the hardest part. “It’s hard to resist (抵制) putting the dough directly into the oven (烤箱), but if you do, the bread will be hard. The most important lesson of all is learning to be patient.” Dad taught me more than how to bake bread.

If you have failed in the past to try to make big changes in life, try again now, one tiny step at a time.

Every year it's the same.As December comes to an end, you think about the new year and all the ways you want to improve your life.But as you start to write down your hopes for the new year, you think about the last year.You excitedly write down all the changes you are going to make, but by the end of January those ideas get lost in your busy life.

Here's a suggestion: Forget the too big,hard-to-achieve goals and just think about the small ones.“We often think that we have to do everything in big steps. Even though it's so hard for us to reach it.” said Robert Maurer, who recently wrote the book One Small Step Can Change Your Life.“What we try to do is to begin with such a small step that we can't find any excuse not to do it.”

“Kaizen”, a Japanese word, is used to mean to change behavior and attitudes(态度). During World War Ⅱ, American factory managers were able to increase productivity by trying small continuous improvements instead of sudden changes. After the war, the idea was brought to a rebuilding(重建) Japan. It made Japan develop fast. The Japanese called it“Kaizen”, which means”improvement”.

Maurer studied the idea and did some experiments with it: “Kaizen” could possibly help people succeed in doing everything.

When I was about halfway between twenty and thirty, I lived in a large, run-down house that other people thought was romantic. The door to my bedroom was at least twelve feet tall. So I fixed a coatrack(衣帽架) over the top, and whenever I needed to get a jacket, or a towel, I stood on my desk chair to get them, swinging uncertainly.

There were six of us in the house. We were all about the same age. Two boys lived on the top floor and three lived in the basement. As the only girl, I was aware of being surrounded by shirtless boys, which is embarrassing especially in summer.

One hot afternoon, I wrote a long e-mail to my high-school English teacher, because I remembered him as handsome in a remote way. He wore expensive clothes and took an understated pleasure in saying inspiring things. I calculated that the English teacher was about forty, and then I pressed Send. The e-mail covered a lot of ground. I summarized what I called “my college experience”. Toward the end of the e-mail, I found myself saying that I couldn’t understand why I still needed to struggle in my college life.

When the English teacher wrote back, I was unexpected. In his response to my e-mail, he mentioned some stories about those who dropped out of school and their lives were hard for me to imagine.

With tears in my eyes, I decided to keep on trying even if I was not in a famous university. I believe as long as I am determined enough, I can make my life better in the future.