When I was a child，I stayed with my grandmother a lot of the time while my mother was at work. One day some money problems started to arise for my grandmother and the family. They needed a little more income so she decided to sing at the nearby retirement home(养老院)．

So I had to go with her. I wasn't sure about it at first，but as soon as my grandmother actually persuade me to get on stage and start singing，I loved it. I just loved seeing that sparkle(光亮)in those people's eyes. They would stand up and dance and clap to the beat of the music. Eventually，we were singing at many of the homes in the surrounding area 5 out of 7 days a week.

Making other people happy has always made me happy. And during that experience I even discovered my gift，singing. My grandma still sings to those people 15 years later，only for no charge now. I moved to North Carolina when I was 13，leaving my grandma in Florida，but I still carry on her effort and try and go out of my way to do something kind，even if very small，for at least one person every day. There is no better feeling in the world than the one you get when you hear appreciation in someone's voice.

Attitude actually is mental energy and from the moment you awake in the morning until you fall asleep at night, you are continuously producing this mental energy, or attitude. There is never a time when you can have a neutral attitude. Your attitude right now is either positive or negative.

Your attitude determines your altitude. For example, as a plane is in the air, it has an altitude indicator. The indicator tells the pilot in which direction the plane is going, up or down. Just like the plane, you too have an altitude indicator and you’re the pilot of your plane. The feeling that you gain when something is wrong or what you are doing is not right serves as your altitude indicator. We all have an attitude to our thinking which determines our destiny.

In fact, attitude is a matter of choice. It determines the size of our dreams and influences our determination when we face new challenges and the thing is, no one can control your attitude but you. No one can make us angry. We make ourselves angry when we give in to that control of our attitude and when people do things to anger us. All it does is put our attitude to the tests. We have that choice every morning of what kind of attitude we are going to have for the rest of the day.

Attitude is everything. To begin with every problem is an adventure. To fall, rise and try again is what we call adventure and that’s the real fun of life. Failure is not a bad thing but another chance for success. Dreaming of becoming successful is not enough. There’ ll be a lot of things you hate doing, but you have to do them all and that’s a success.

With a positive attitude, you’ll have the ability to be happier every day, make others around you happier, and live a good life.

I watch documentaries, not movies. I read history books, not fiction. I use every free moment to accomplish one of the tasks on my never-ending checklist, and I am completely filled with thoughts of productivity. An hour sleeping is an hour wasted. And like the rest of 21st century America, I like it. But this fixation on productivity is increasingly destroying character and transforming men into robots.

New York Times columnist David Brooks warned American University students of this cultural decline in a speech. “We cut off all things spiritual and emotional in a competitive urge to stand out”, he said, “The pressure to succeed professionally, to acquire skills, to do the things you need to do to succeed in an information age economy really became the overwhelming(难以应付的)pressures, and it sort of weakens the thinking about character and morality.”

Many students happily go to college, viewing it as a next step on their rise to professional achievement. Forcing as many success-building activities into their schedules as they can, they enjoy keeping busy with little sleep. “Today’s outstanding kids are likely to spend their afternoons and weekends shuttling from one skill-improving activity to the next,” Brooks wrote in an article, “We fear failure more than we desire success.”

A century ago, college was about character building. Today, our characters are in decline. We are experts on economics, material things and professional skills. We fail to discuss and understand relationships, emotions and all things spiritual.

Philosopher Karl Popper divided the world into two categories: Clocks and Clouds. Clock problems are those that can be taken apart, examined and solved through deductive reasoning(演绎推理). Clouds cannot be taken apart. Cloud problems represent whole systems that need to be understood in a different way.

“When we have a Cloud problem, we try to turn it into a Clock problem,” Brooks said. And in a reason-centered culture, adding titles to one’s resume becomes a trend. At American University, 85 percent of seniors (and 89 percent of business majors) graduate with at least one practical experience which is often helpful to a student’s future career, but can sometimes draw focus away from academics.

To prevent the death of man’s character, Brooks urges rediscovering our human natures through falling in love. And by love he means love for a task, job, or another person. “Synchronicity is key to happiness,” he said. Rather than crazily increasing our long lists of accomplishments, we need to lose ourselves in what we do, and success will come on its own.