At age four, I found a garden behind the kitchen. My eyes became glued to the patterns of roses across my childhood landscape. I saw them and felt a sense of joy and adventure. 【小题1】

When spring arrived, I ran so fast through the house, speeding ahead of my mother’s voice. I dashed out of the front door and threw myself on a fresh carpet of grass. Excited, I bounced to my feet and had three more cartwheels before landing by her side. 【小题2】 And I sat beside her, playing with mud pies in the flower bed. Work done, she rewarded me with an ice-cold glass of bittersweet lemonade.

【小题3】 She fed love to a generation of people with purple peas and greens. She encouraged me to go anywhere in the world that would make me happy. Since then. I have planted her gardens through art installations (装置) throughout the world, in countries of the people that I meet. Now they are lining parks and courtyards, painted on walls and even in bare lots off the street.

Gardening has taught me that planting and growing a garden is the same process as creating our lives. It begins in the spring, when you break up the soil and start anew. 【小题4】 The gardener must then make sure that the proper nutrients are correctly mixed in the soil. Then it’s important to aerate the topsoil and leave it loosely packed on the surface. When our gardens are balanced with care, we can harvest the beauty of living a life of grace. 【小题5】 So cultivate (培育) your garden for giving and plant those seeds for the future. The garden is the world living deep inside of you.

I decided to go single travel. The goal was to escape the four comers of my small room and the boring daily routines. There are comments from family and friends, saying it’s impossible and unsafe.【小题1】 Therefore, I reminded myself why I decided to travel alone:

【小题2】 Traveling alone allows me to be the “Captain of My Own Destiny”. It’s an experience of complete freedom.【小题3】 I can rest when I want and move on when I feel ambitious. I can taste—test anything like and alternatively I won’t be forced to eat anything dislike.

Challenge myself. I’m responsible to no one but myself. Every wrong turn is mine—and mine alone. Traveling alone is the greatest yet most rewarding challenges. It forced me to be confident in my choices. Every decision is based upon my own sense of self-belief. There’s no one to turn to or rely upon, and so trusting my own instincts(本能) becomes a necessary survival skill.【小题4】

Reflect deeper senses. When traveling alone, there’s no need for boring dialogues.【小题5】 Even so, I enjoy the long-lost freedom of becoming “one”. It leads to my deepest reflections about myself and the world around. I give my undivided attention to myself and the experience, which makes the most of the potential for personal reflection.

Travel alone helped me spread my wings and go beyond my greatest hopes and dreams.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from people is that their friends just aren’t there for them. More than that, sometimes friends are downright rude or even mean. You can’t change people, but you can surround yourself with more positive people. Here are some benefits that spending time with positive friends can provide.

With positive friends, you don’t need to beg for help when you need it because chances are that they will be there for you without asking. Positive individuals want others to be happy, and will go out of their way to help you when you’re feeling down. As About. com’s Guide to Stress states, “Ideal friendships provide support when you’re down, fun when you’re up, wisdom when you’re lost.”

Compare that to toxic friends, who might snipe at (诽谤，中伤) you or even laugh at you behind your back. Negative people celebrate the downfall of others, and as a result you’ll end up feeling worse about yourself or the situation you’re dealing with. Friends who aren’t positive will add to whatever amount of stress you are feeling.

Your positive friends will not only help you recover from negative hits you take in life, but they will also inspire you to be the best you can be. For example, perhaps you always wanted to be a writer. The negative people in your life will probably tell you all the reasons why you won’t succeed. But who needs that? Chances are you have already gone over the reasons why you might fail and this is what has prevented you from trying. But with positive people in your life, you’ll feel more comfortable sharing these types of goals because your friends will give you the emotional push you need to go after what you want in life.

You naturally attract the kinds of friends who are most like you. So if you’re a downer, you’ll probably find that negative people come to you. The same is true for being positive. The more you are able to keep a positive attitude, the more like-minded people you’ll attract in return.