My father died when I was nine, and I remember doing the household chores(杂务)to help my mother. I hated changing the vacuum cleaner(真空吸尘器)bag and picking up things the machine did not suck up.

Twenty years later, in 1978, I was doing chores at home alongside my wife. One day the vacuum cleaner was screaming away, and I had to empty the bag because I could not find a replacement for it. With this lifelong hatred of the way the machine worked. I decided to make a bagless vacuum cleaner.

Easier said than done, of course. I didn't realize that I would spend the next five years perfecting my design, a process that resulted in 5,127 different prototypes(设计原型). By the time I made my 15th prototype, my third child was born. By 2,627, my wife and I were really counting our pennies. By 3,727, my wife was giving art lessons for some extra cash, and we were getting further and further into debt. These were tough times, but each failure brought me closer to solving the problem.

I just had a passion for the vacuum cleaner as a product, but I never thought of going into a business with it. In the early 1980s, I started trying to get licensing agreements for my technology. The reality was very different, however. The major vacuum makers had built a business model based on the profits from bags and filters(滤网).

No one would license my idea, not because it was a bad one, but because it was bad for business.

That gave me the courage to keep going. Then, in 1993, when my bank manager personally persuaded Lloyds Bank to lend me $1 million, I was able to go into production. Within two years, the Dyson vacuum cleaner became a best-seller in Britain.

Today, I still embrace risk and the potential for failure as part of the process. Nothing beats the excitement of invention. Go out and brainstorm your ideas. You are not bound to any rules—in fact, the stranger and riskier your idea, the better.

It’s Never Too Late to Pursue a Dream

Six weeks before his 97^th birthday, Giuseppe Paterno fulfilled the dream of a lifetime: He got a university degree. “Don’t get lost because you find obstacles — because there will always be obstacles,” Mr. Patero told reporters after he graduated with honors last week from the University of Palermo, where he received a degree in history and philosophy. “You have to be strong.”

【小题1】 It is partly because of his age. But he has also drawn attention because his life story speaks of commitment, a theme that has resonated (引起共鸣) as millions of schoolchildren in Italy and elsewhere face extraordinary uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Born in Palenmo in 1923, the first of seven children in a “very poor family”, 【小题2】 It was only after he retired, in the mid-1980s, that he returned to his books.

“【小题3】 You can remain young — if not in age at least in spirit — if you cultivate interests,” said Rossella Cancila, his thesis adviser and a professor of history at the University of Palermo.

Italy’s university system is based on a three-year degree, followed by a two-year master’s course. 【小题4】

He isn’t so sure. “I have to confess that in this moment, I don’t know whether I would cope with it with the same spirit,” he said, noting that all the attention had been a bit tiring. Still, Mr. Paterno said, he would probably enroll anyway. “I want to keep my option open.”

Twelve years ago, Danny called me from a dark, damp subway station. “A baby!” he shouted. “Get down here, and flag down a police car or something.” By nature, Danny is a remarkably calm person, so when I felt his heart pounding through the phone line, I ran.

When I got to the subway station, Danny was holding a light-brown-skinned baby, about a day old. The baby had been wrapped in an oversize black sweatshirt and left on the ground in a corner behind the gate.

What neither of us knew, or could have predicted, was that Danny had not just saved an abandoned infant; he had found our son.

Three months later, Danny appeared in family court to give an account of finding the baby. Suddenly, the judge asked, “Would you be interested in adopting this baby?” The question surprised everyone in the courtroom, except Danny, who answered, simply, “Yes.”

“But I know it’s not that easy,” he said.

“Well, it can be,” assured the judge before barking out orders to allow me to be a parent-to-be.

My first reaction, when I heard, went something like, “Are you crazy? How could you say yes without consulting me?”

In three years as a couple, we had never discussed adopting a child. I was an ambitious playwright working as a part-time word processor. Danny was a respected yet wildly underpaid social worker. We had a roommate, who slept in our living room, to help pay the rent.

We knew how many challenges couples usually faced when they wanted to adopt. And while Danny had patience and selflessness, I didn’t know how to change a diaper (尿布), let alone nurse a child. I didn’t trust the system and was sure there would be obstacles. Also, I couldn’t handle parenthood. So I promised myself I wouldn’t get attached.

The caretaker held him and then placed him in my arms. But when the baby stared up at me, with all the innocence and hope he represented, I, like Danny, was completely hooked.