Would you BET on the future of this man? He is 53 years old. Most of his adult life has been a losing struggle against debt and misfortune (不幸). A war injury has made his left hand stop functioning, and he has often been in prison. Driven by heaven-knows-what motives, he determines to write a book.
The book turns out to be one that has appealed to the world for more than 350 years. That former prisoner was Cervantes, and the book was Don Quixote (《堂吉诃德》). And the story brings an interesting question: why do some people find new energy and creativity to the end of their days, but others find them long before?
We’ve all known people who run out of steam before they reach life’s halfway mark. I’m not talking about those who fail to get to the top. We can’t all get there. I’m talking about people who have stopped learning on growing because they have taken in the fixed attitudes and opinions that all too often come with passing years.
Most of us, in fact, progressively narrow the variety of our lives. We succeed in our field of specialization and then become trapped in it. Nothing surprises us. We lose our sense of wonder. But, if we are willing to learn, the opportunities are everywhere.
The things we learn in maturity (成熟) seldom involve information and skills. We learn to bear (容忍) with the things we can’t change. We learn to avoid self-pity. We learn that however much we try to please, some people are never going to love us — an idea that troubles at first but is eventually relaxing.
With high motivation and enthusiasm (动机和热情), we can keep on learning. Then we will know how important it is to have meaning in our life. However, we can achieve meaning only if we have made a promise to something larger than our own little egos (自我), whether to loved ones, to fellow humans, to work, or to some moral concept.
Many of us regard “promise” with such “caring” jobs as teaching and nursing. But doing any ordinary job as well as one can is in itself an admirable promise. People who work toward such excellence — whether they are driving a truck, or running a store — make the world better just by being the kind of people they are. They’ve learned life’s most valuable lesson.
【小题1】The passage starts with the story of Cervantes to show that ________.| A．loss of freedom stimulates one’s creativity |
| B．age isn’t a block (障碍) to achieving one’s goal |
| C．disability cannot stop a man fighting for success |
| D．misfortune prevents a man fighting against his fate |
| A．End one’s fight for freedom. |
| B．Waste one’s energy taking risks. |
| C．Miss the opportunity to succeed. |
| D．Lose the interest to continue learning. |
| A．A wise man can live without self-pity. |
| B．A strong-willed man can bear suffering. |
| C．A man is supposed to satisfy people around him. |
| D．A man should learn suitable ways to deal with life. |
| A．To stress the need of shouldering responsibilities at work. |
| B．To provide guidance on leading a meaningful adult life. |
| C．To tell the importance of having a strong will for learning. |
| D．To suggest a way of going after excellence in our lifelong career. |
