It’s been said that diving can be addictive(使人上瘾的), yet I doubted it.

But the doubt was gone after three friends and I got back from our one-week trip to learn scuba diving(水肺潜水) in Moalboal, Philippines.

We spent our first morning sitting in a room watching diving videos. The rest of the days we would practice in the pool what we’d learned with our coach. Every day, we had to dress ourselves up in a tight diving suit and a jacket with a heavy steel tank(钢瓶) on the back.

This isn’t how most people would imagine spending their vacation at the beach, but we really enjoyed it. Different from snorkeling(浮潜) in a life jacket, we were able to get away and explore underwater, swimming with turtles and other beautiful sea creatures.

As US journalist James Nestor wrote in his book Deep(《深海》, 2015), “There are no mobile phones down there, … no car keys to lose, no terrorist threats(恐怖主义威胁)… All the stress, noise, and distractions(烦心事) of life are left at the surface.”

The experience also allowed us to get to know ourselves better. We had to pay attention to how we breathed, because even a little bit of difference in the amount of air we breathed in or out could change our buoyancy. By doing so, we started to realize how we’d been taking it for granted(想当然) and had never truly “felt” ourselves breathe.

Now I no longer have any doubt about the attraction of diving. In fact, my friends and I are already planning another diving trip, probably to the Red Sea in Egypt. This hobby truly is addictive.

A couple had a son eleven years after they married. They were a loving couple and the boy was the apple of their eye. When the boy was around four years old, one day the father was very tired after work so he asked his wife to pick up their son. The mother, who was very busy in the kitchen, totally forgot about it.

Later the boy lost his way on the street. When the son was found missing, the mother hurried to look for him, but she didn't find him. The mother felt very sad and didn't know how to face her husband.

When the father went to the police station after hearing that the son was missing, he looked at his wife and said just four words. What do you think the four words were? The husband just said “I love you, darling.”

The son was missing. If she had picked him up earlier, this would not have happened. There is no point in blaming (责备) anyone. His wife had also lost her only child. What his wife needed at that moment was comfort and understanding from her husband. That is what the husband gave his wife. Several weeks later, with the help of the police, the couple finally found their lost son. The family's relationship became stronger over that time.

Sometimes we spend lots of time asking who is to blame. We miss many chances to give each other support and let each other feel the warmth of human relationships. Get rid of all your unwillingness to forgive, selfishness, and fears and you will find the world is much more wonderful.

Some time ago, I discovered that one of my chairs had a broken leg. I didn’t think there would be any difficulty in getting it mended, as there was a lot of antique (古董) shops near my home. So I left home one morning, carrying the chair with me. I went into the first shop, expecting a friendly reception. I was quite wrong. The man didn’t even look at my chair.

The second shop, though slightly more polite, was just the same, and the third and the fourth — so I decided that my approach (way) must be wrong.

I went into the fifth shop with a plan in my mind. I placed the chair on the floor and said to the shopkeeper, “Would you like to buy a chair?” He looked it over carefully and said, “Yes, not a bad chair. How much do you want for it, sir?” “Twenty pounds,” I said. “OK,” he said, “I’ll give you twenty pounds.” “It’s got a slightly broken leg,” I said. “Yes, I saw that. It’s nothing.”

Everything was going according to the plan and I was getting excited. “What will you do with it?” I asked. “Oh, it will be easy to sell once the repair is done.” “I’ll buy it,” I said. “What do you mean? You’ve just sold it to me,” he said. “Yes, I know but I’ve changed my mind. I’m sorry. I’ll give you twenty-seven pounds for it.” “You must be crazy,” he said. Then, suddenly the penny dropped. “I know what you want. You want me to repair your chair.” “You’re right,” I said. “And what would you have done if I had walked in and said, ‘Would you mend this chair for me?’ ” “I wouldn’t have agreed to do it,” he said. “We don’t do repairs, not enough money in it and too much trouble. But I’ll mend this for you, shall we say for a fiver (five dollars)?” He was a very nice man and was greatly amused by the whole thing.