I was 45 years old when I decided to learn how to surf.
They say that life is tough enough.
But I guess I like to make things difficult on myself, because I do that all the time.
Every day and on purpose.
That's because I believe in disrupting my comfort zone.
When I started out in the entertainment business, I made a list of people that I thought would be good to me.
Not people who could give me a job or a deal, but people who could shake me up, teach me something, challenge my ideas about myself and the world.
So I started calling up experts in all kinds of fields.
Some of them were world-famous.
Of course, I didn't know any of these people and none of them knew me.
So when I called these people up to ask them for a meeting, the response wasn't always friendly.
And even when they agreed to give me some of their time,the results weren't always what one might describe as pleasant.
Take, for example, Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb.
It took me a year of begging and more begging to get to him to agree to meet with me.
And then what happened? He ridiculed me and insulted me.
But that was okay.
I was hoping to learn something from him—and I did,even if it was only that I'm not that interesting to a physicist with no taste for our pop culture.
Over the last 30 years, I've produced more than 50 movies and 20 television series.
I'm successful and, in my business, pretty well known.
So why do I continue to subject myself to this sort of thing?
The answer is simple:
Disrupting my comfort zone, bombarding myself with challenging people and situations—this is the best way that I know to keep growing.
And to paraphrase a biologist I once met,if you're not growing, you're dying.
So maybe I'm not the best surfer on the north shore, but that's okay.
The discomfort, the uncertainty, the physical and mental challenge that I get from this—all the things that too many of us spend our time and energy trying to avoid—they are precisely the things that keep me in the game.
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
Their chief use for delight, is in privateness and retiring;for ornament, is in discourse;and for ability, is in the judgement and disposition of business.
For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one;but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs,come best from those that are learned.
To spend too much time in studies is sloth;to use them too much for ornament,is affectation;to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar.
They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience:for natural abilities are like natural plants,that need pruning by study;and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large,except they be bounded in by experience.
Crafty men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them;for they teach not their own use;but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.
Read not to contradict and confute;nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse;but to weigh and consider.
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed,and some few to be chewed and digested;that is, some books are to be read only in parts;others to be read, but not curiously;and some few to be read wholly,and with diligence and attention.
Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others;but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books;else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things.
Reading makes a full man； conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
And therefore,if a man write little，he had need have a great memory;if he confer little, he had need have a present wit;and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he does not.
Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle;natural philosophy deep; moral grave;logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Beauty
there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that have nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart.
I have thought about her often over the years and how she struggled in a society that places an incredible premium on looks, class, wealth and all the other fineries of life. She suffered from a disfigurement that cannot be made to look attractive. I know that her condition hurt her deeply.
Would her life have been different had she been pretty? Chances are it would have. And yet there were a sensitivity and a beauty to her that had nothing to do with looks. She was one to be listened to, whose words were so easy to take to heart. Her words came from a wounded but loving heart, very much like all hearts, but she had more of a need to be aware of it, to live with it and learn from it. She possessed a fine-tuned sense of beauty. Her only fear in life was the loss of a friend.
It is said that the true nature of being is veiled. The labor of words, the expression of art, the seemingly ceaseless buzz that is human thought all have in common the need to get at what really is so. The hope to draw close to and possess the truth of being can be a feverish one. In some cases it can even be fatal, if pleasure is one's truth and its attainment more important than life itself. In other lives, though, the search for what is truthful gives life.
The truth of her life was a desire to see beyond the surface for a glimpse of what it is that matters. She found beauty and grace and they befriended her, and showed her what is real.
Dreams
When we were young, we had dreams and expectations. We imagine things; we keep thinking about what we want to be, what we want to do, what makes us proud and happy and what will we become.
We grew up, and things seemed like having their own way. We accept our success or failures and we move on. The rapid change, the need to do the urgent things, the works, the pressures and the failures, all kill part of our visions.
Things have changed, but they cannot really take away the dreams. We still have to dream on, to visualize our desires, our wants, our vision of our future, even when we are considered too old for such things.
Cornell Sanders started his business when he was sixty, and started the whole successful KFC business. The main thing is not the age whether being too old, or too young, but it is the desire to dream on, and the courage to realize it.
The ability to dream on is one of the fine qualities of human race that other species do not possess. So dream on, and put a deadline: make it a giant dream, a tiny one, an old everlasting one, a new-found one, a hobby-related one, a change of life one, a religious one, a stupid one, a stroke of genius one, or just whatever... just continue to dream on... Then, Just Go and Do It!
We Were Dear to Each Other
Stray birds of summer come to my window to sing and fly away.
And yellow leaves of autumn,which have no songs,flutter and fall there with a sign.
O Troupe of little vagrants of the world,leave your footprints in my words.
The world puts off its mask of vastness to its lover.
It becomes small as one song,as one kiss of the eternal.
It is the tears of the earth that keep her smiles in bloom.
The mighty desert is burning for the love of a blade of grass who shakes her head and laughs and flies away.
If you shed tears when you miss the sun,you also miss the stars.
The sands in your way beg for your song and your movement,dancing water,Will you carry the burden of their lameless?
Her wishful face haunts my dreams like the rain at night.
Once we dreamt that we were strangers.
We wake up to find that we were dear to each other.
"On the 14th of March, at a quarter to three in the afternoon, the greatest living thinker ceased to think. He had been left alone for scarcely two minutes, and when we came back we found him in his armchair, peacefully gone to sleep-but forever.
"An immeasurable loss has been sustained both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the departure of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt.
"Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means of subsistence and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case.
"But that is not all. Marx also discovered the special law of motion governing the present-day capitalist mode of production and the bourgeois society that this mode of production has created. The discovery of surplus value suddenly threw light on the problem, in trying to solve which all previous investigations, of both bourgeois economists and socialist critics, had been groping in the dark.
"Two such discoveries would be enough for one lifetime. Happy the man to whom it is granted to make even one such discovery. But in every single field which Marx investigated -- and he investigated very many fields, none of them superficially -- in every field, even in that of mathematics, he made independent discoveries.
What is life? What is the purpose of life? Purpose cannot say unimportant, the purpose decides the direction of life, but life is not equal to the purpose, life is still toward the purpose of the whole process, life is a process! Ah, this is the simplest and most unnoticed mistake. The goal of life is our eternal tomorrow, our life is always today, is now, is fleeting now!
The person who has the goal is the person who lives meaningfully, the person who can value the process of life itself and grasp the process is the person who lives fully and truthfully -- "never live a lifetime!" It should be both objective and process quality. The goal is to say, aim high, start from the province, people will get the ideal education. However, many people live for a lifetime. In the end, they do not have the pleasure of life process and enjoy life, which is a lack of life consciousness and introspection. The ups and downs of life, the realization of each situation, not pleased by external gains not saddened by personal losses, gain and loss are the blessings of life.
Life is full of ups and downs. But we often use a kind of benefit coordinate to judge the condition of life. The forward is positive, the back is negative, the rise is superior, and the sinking is bad. In fact, life is far more complex than this coordinate, and the life interest in the ups and downs is far from being a single one.
People are eager to get promoted, to cherish their fame, and to expect the speed of their goals. Life in this way, the process of life more and more neglected, become a kind of look forward to return to pay, to target cost, even the computer can unwanted files, just because of the need to speed up! Acceleration is the commonest common behavior in economic society, because the benefit is directly related to the speed. We also remember that "time is money, benefit is life", and life here is the life of enterprises and social groups, not people! If the pursuit of social benefits becomes the personal life process, that is what we often call alienation; The disease of life process rhythm is another kind of life state, when it is the realm of the individual life to emit light, disease has the beauty of disease, slow and gentle beauty.
Wang wei has a famous sentence: "the grass withered eagle eye disease, the snow to the horse's hoof light." The flash of life is not necessarily the time when the grass grows; When life is good, it is not always the step back. Similarly, du fu's famous sentence: "the fine rain fish out, the breeze swallow the slope." In the smooth and slow, write out the life calm, also write the love and joy of life. In his life, du fu did not have a chance to rise to the ground, but his soothing and peaceful life felt through thousands of years, slowly like rain, moistening our hearts.
If somebody tells you, " I'll love you for ever," will you believe it?
I don't think there's any reason not to. we are ready to believe such commitment at the moment, whatever change may happen afterwards. As for the belief in an everlasting love, that's another thing.
Then you may be asked whether there is such a thing as an everlasting love. I'd answer i believe in it. But an everlasting love is not immutable.
You may unswervingly love or be loved by a person. But love will change its composition with the passage of time. It will not remain the same. In the course of your growth and as a result of your increased experience, love will become something different to you.
In the beginning you believed a fervent love for a person could last indefinitely. By and by, however," fervent" gave way to " prosaic" . Precisely because of this change it became possible for love to last. Then what was meant by an everlasting love would eventually end up in a sort of interdependence.
We used to insist on the difference between love and liking. The former seemed much more beautiful than the latter. one day, however, it turns out there's really no need to make such difference. Liking is actually a sort of love. By the same token, the everlasting interdependence is actually an everlasting love.
I wish i could believe there was somebody who would love me forever. That's, as we all know, too romantic to be true. Instead, it will more often than not be a case of lasting relationship.
Friday and the Thirteenth
Friday-the Thirteenth has long been considered extremely unlucky because it has some bad associations which came from mythology,tale of the Bible,and the customs and habits. According to the Bible,the Lord God created the first man,Adam.Then he took a rib from Adam's body and out of it created the first woman, Eve. It was said that Adam was created on a Friday and it was on Friday that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit,and on a Friday they died.
Friday was also the common day in England for executing criminals , for which it was sometimes known as Hanging Day.
From the old Norse myth people got the idea that 13 people sitting at a table to have a dinner was unlucky. And this superstition was confirmed by the last supper of Christ and his disciples. Bible tells us that Christ sat down with his 12 disciples, which made up the number 13, at the last supper when Judas, one of the 12 disciples , sold his master for thirty pieces of silver. Christ was killed by nailing on the cross the following day on a Friday.
One day, the time management expert lectured to a group of business school students.
He made a demonstration at the scene, which left a lasting impression on the students.
Standing in front of students with high iqs, he said, let's take a quiz. Take out a one-gallon jar and set it on the table in front of him. Then he took out a bunch of fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them in a jar. When the jar was over the top of the jar and no more rocks could fit in, he asked, "is the jar full?" All students should say: "full!" . The time management expert replied, "really?" He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He poured some of the gravel in, and tapped the glass bottle wall to fill the gap between the stones. "Is the jar full now? "He asked the second time. But this time the students understood, "probably not," one student said. "Good! Experts say. He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of sand. The sand is filled with all the gaps between the rock and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "is this jar full?" "No! "Shouted the students. Once again he said, "good! Then he took a pitcher of water and poured it into the jar until it was flat. Looking up at the students, he asked, "what is the point of this illustration?" One eager student raised his hand and said, "no matter how tight your schedule is, if you work hard, you can do more!" "No!" The time management expert said, "that's not what it really means. This example tells us that if you didn't blow up the rock first, you couldn't put it in the bottle anymore. So, what are the big rocks in your life? Spend time with the people you love, your beliefs, education, dreams? Remember to deal with these big rocks first, otherwise, you can't do it all your life!
So tonight, perhaps this morning, you are reading this essay, and you have tried to ask yourself this question: what is the "big rock" in my life? Then, please put them in the bottle of your life first. It is better to be busy with dreams than to lose your dreams by being busy!
In the international marathon invitational tournament, the little-known Japanese player yamada has unexpectedly won the world championship. When the reporter asked him why he had achieved such a remarkable feat, he said: "wisdom has triumphed over our opponents."
This a yamada explained in his autobiography that he's "wisdom" : every time before the game, I have to drive circuitry of the game, read it carefully and draw more prominent signs of along the way, such as the first signs of a bank; The second sign is a big tree; The third sign is a red house, which is always drawn to the end of the race. After the game started, I raced to the first goal with the speed of 100 meters, and after reaching the first goal, I rushed to the second goal at the same speed. Forty miles of the race, I broke down into a few small goals to easily run out. At first, I did not understand this truth, I put my forty kilometers and aiming at the end of the line of the flag, the result when I ran to 10 kilometers of exhausted, I was in front of the distant journey scares.
In real life, we are do things by halves, why, often not because of difficult, but think success is too far away from us, to be exact, we don't give up because of failure, but because of who I am tired and lost.
Sitting on a grassy grave, beneath one of the windows of the church, was a little girl.
With her head bent back she was gazing up at the sky and singing, while one of her little hands was pointing to a tiny cloud that hovered like a golden feather above her head.
The sun, which had suddenly become very bright, shining on her glossy hair, gave it a metallic luster, and it was difficult to say what was the color, dark bronze or black.
So completely absorbed was she in watching the cloud to which her strange song or incantation seemed
addressed, that she did not observe me when I rose and went towards her.
Over her head, high up in the blue, a lark that was soaring towards the same gauzy cloud was singing, as if in rivalry.
As I slowly approached the child, I could see by her forehead, which in the sunshine seemed like a globe of pearl, and especially by her complexion, that she uncommonly lovely.
Her eyes, which at one moment seemed blue-gray, at another violet, were shaded by long black lashes, curving backward in a most peculiar way, and these matched in hue her eyebrows, and the tresses that were tossed about her tender throat were quivering in the sunlight.
All this I did not take in at once; for at first I could see nothing but those quivering, glittering, changeful eyes turned up into my face.
Gradually the other features, especially the sensitive full-lipped mouth, grew upon me as I stood silently gazing. Here seemed to me a more perfect beauty than had ever come to me in my loveliest dreams of beauty.
Yet it was not her beauty so much as the look she gave me that fascinated me, melted me.
A great life doesn’t happen by accident. A great life is the result of allocating your time, energy, thoughts, and hard work towards what you want your life to be.Stop setting yourself up for stress and failure, and start setting up your life to support success and ease.
A great life is the result of using the 24/7 you get in a creative and thoughtful way, instead of just what comes next. Customize these “secrets” to fit your own needs and style, and start creating your own great life today!
1. S—Simplify.
A great life is the result of simplifying your life. When you focus on simplifying your life, you free up energy and time for the work that you enjoy and the purpose for which you are here. In order to create a great life, you will have to make room for it in yours first.
2. E—Effort.
A great life is the result of your best effort. Creating a great life requires that you make some adjustments. It means looking for new ways to spend your energy that coincide with your particular definition of a great life. Life will reward your best effort.
3. C—Create Priorities.
A great life is the result of creating priorities. It’s easy to spend your days just responding to the next thing that gets your attention, instead of intentionally using the time, energy and money you have in a way that’s important to you. Make sure you are honoring your priorities.
A sitcom or situation comedy is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a format in which there are one or more humorous story lines centred on a common environment, such as a family home or workplace.The situation comedy format seems to have originated in the old time radio era of the United States, but today they are produced around the globe.
Many countries, such as Britain, have embraced the form and so sitcoms have become among the most popular programmes on the schedule.history,The situation comedy format originated on radio in the 1920s. The first situation comedy is often said to be Sam and Henry which debuted on the Chicago, Illinois clear-channel station WGN in 1926, and was partially inspired by the notion of bringing the mix of humor and continuity found in comic strips to the young medium of radio. The first network situation comedy was Amos & Andy which debuted on CBS in 1928, and was one of the most popular sitcoms through the 1930s.Situation comedies have been a part of the landscape of broadcast television since its early days.
The first was probably Mary Kay and Johnny, a fifteen minute sitcom which debuted on the DuMont Television Network in November of 1947.This type of entertainment seemed to originate in the United States, which continues to be a leading producer of the genre, but soon spread to other nations.Characteristics Traditionally, situation comedies were largely self-contained, in that the characters themselves remained largely static and events in the sitcom resolved themselves by the conclusion of the show. One example of this is the animated situation comedy The Simpsons, where the characteristics of animation has rendered the characters unchanging in appearance forever?although the characters in the show have sometimes made knowing references to this. Other sitcoms, though, use greater or lesser elements of ongoing storylines: Friends, a hugely popular US sitcom of the 1990s, contains soap opera elements such as regularly resorting to an end-of-season cliffhanger, and has gradually developed the relationships of the characters. Other sitcoms have veered into social commentary. Examples of these are sitcoms by Norman Lear including All in the Family and Maude in the US, and the controversial Till Death Us Do Part in Britain.
Most contemporary situation comedies are filmed with a multicamera setup in front of a live audience, then edited and broadcast days or weeks later. This practice has not always been universal, however, especially prior to the 1970s when it became more common. Some comedies, such as M*A*S*H, were not filmed before a studio audience.