In modern society there is a great deal of argument about competition. Some value it highly, believing that it is responsible for social progress and prosperity （繁荣）. Others say that competition is bad; that it sets one person against another; that it leads to unfriendly relationship between people.

    I have taught many children who held the belief that their self-worth relied on how well they performed at tennis and other skills. For them, playing well and winning are often life-and-death affairs. In their single-minded pursuit（追求）of success, the development of many other human qualities is sadly forgotten.

    However, while some seem to be lost in the desire to succeed, others take an opposite attitude. In a culture In modern society there is a great deal of argument which only values the winner and pays no attention to the ordinary players, they strongly blame competition. Among the most vocal are youngsters who have suffer under competitive pressures from their parents or society. Teaching these young people, I often observe in them a desire to fail. They seem to seek failure by not trying to win or achieve success. By not trying, they always have an excuse: “I may have lost, but it doesn't matter because I really didn't try.” What is not usually admitted by them is the belief that if they had really tried and lost, that would mean a lot. Such a loss would be a measure of their worth. Clearly, this belief is the same as that of true competitors who try to prove themselves. Both are based on the mistaken belief that one's self-respect relies on how well one performs in comparison with others. Both are afraid of not being valued. Only when this basic and often troublesome fear begins to disappear(缓解) can we discover a new meaning in competition.

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    Peter Thiel,the billionaire co-founder of PayPal,plans to live to be 120.Compared with some other tech billionaires,he doesn't seem particularly ambitious.Dmitry Itskov,the “godfather” of the Russian Internet,says his goal is to live to 10.000;and Sergey Brin,co-founder of Google,hopes to someday "cure death.

    They aren't being ridiculous.Their search is based on real science that could fundamentally change what we know about life and about death.It's hard to believe,though,since the human search for immortality is both ancient and filled with disastrous failures.Around 200 B.C.,the first emperor of China,Qin Shi Huang,accidentally killed himself trying to live forever;he poisoned himself by eating mercury（水银）pills.Centuries later, the search for eternal life wasn't much safer: In J492,Pope Innocent VIII died after blood transfusions from three healthy boys whose youth he believed he could absorb.

    But historical examples haven't discouraged some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley.Thiel,for example,has given $3.5 million to the Methuselah Foundation.Aubrey de Grey,Methuselah's co-founder,says SENS,the nonprofit's main research is devoted to finding drugs that cure several types of age-related damage:"Loss of cells, excessive（过多的）cell division,inadequate cell death,garbage inside the cell,garbage outside the cell,...The idea is that the human body,being a machine,has a structure that determines all aspects of its function,so if we can restore that structure—at the molecular（分子的）and cellular（细胞的）level—then we will restore function too,so we will have comprehensively renewed the body."

    But SENS,which has an annual operating budget of $5 million,is small,compared with the Brin-led Project Calico,Google's attempt to “cure death,”which is planning to pump billions into a partnership with medicine giant AbbVie.Google is secretive,but it's said to be building a drug to copy a gene associated with exceptional life span.

    Then there's the Glenn Foundation for Medical Research,started by Paul F.Glenn in 1965.Since 2007,the foundation has distributed annual "Glenn Awards,"$60,000 to independent researchers doing promising work on aging.The Glenn Foundation also works closely with the Ellison Medical Foundation,a far younger institution (founded in 1997).Ellison's passion project gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to scholars seeking research on aging.Their decision to fund independent research may be paying off.Research projects funded by Ellison and Glenn appear to be developing into a testable means to stave off old age—for lab mice.The question is: Can those lab results be repeated in humans?

    A newspaper reporter's job can be very interesting. He meets all types of people and lives quite a busy life. He is on the rush for news all the time, then after several years he may get a desk job, and life becomes a bit more settled. Let's look at his work a little more closely. In a day he may have to interview the prime minister of a foreign country, and the next day he may be writing about a football match. Sometimes he may be so busy that he has hardly any time to sleep. And at other times he may go on for days looking out for news materials yet return empty-handed.

    In the beginning, a reporter has to cover a very wide field. After the early years he becomes more specialized in his work. For example, he may finally be asked to write only on court cases or politics or sports. Some reporters may become so specialized that they are asked only to write on a special thing: horse racing, for example. In most newspaper houses there is at least one special racing correspondent. Some newspapers have book reviews. Their job is delightful. They read the latest book and then write reviews on the ones they like. Then there are those who write on films, so they get to see them even before they are shown in the cinema. How lucky, you would say!

    A reporter's job can also be very dangerous. A number of them have died rushing from one assignment to another, and if there is a flood or a riot(暴) they may get hurt or even be killed. Three years ago there was a reporter whose camera was smashed by a group of men, because they were angry with him for taking their picture. Dangerous or not, one thing is certain, and that is, their job is never dull!

    Do you know of anyone who uses the truth to deceive(欺骗)?When someone tells you something that is true, but leaves out important information that should be included, he can give you a false(假的) picture.

    For example, someone might say, ''I just won a hundred dollars on the lottery(彩票). It was great. I took that dollar ticket back to the store and turned it in for one hundred dollars!"

    This guy's a winner, right? Maybe, maybe not. We then discover that he bought $200 worth of tickets, and only one was a winner. He's really a big loser!

    He didn't say anything that was false, but he left out important information on purpose. That's called a half-truth. Half truths are not technically lies, but they are just as dishonest.

    Some politicians often use this trick. Let's say that during Governor Smith's last term, her state lost one million jobs and gained three million jobs. Then she seeks another term. One of her opponents says, “During Governor Smith's term， the state lost one million jobs!” That's true. However, an honest statement would have been, “During Governor Smith's term, the state had a net gain of two million jobs.”

    Advertisers will sometimes use half-truths. It's against the law to make false statements so they try to mislead you with the truth. An advertisement might say, “Nine out of ten doctors advised their patients to take Yucky Pills to cure toothache.”' It fails to mention that they only asked ten doctors and nine of them work for the Yucky Company.

    This kind of deception happens too often. It's a sad fact of life: Lies are lies, and sometimes the truth can lie as well.

    If you feel sick or uncomfortable, you might seek out a doctor. But what to do if you don't quite know where you fit into this world and you're tired of carrying that burden alone?

    I answered strangers' questions on life puzzles at the entrance to the New York City subway at 57th and 8th. A group of strangers had stopped by because they were carrying around some deep, meaningful questions that had long gone unanswered, like "why can't I be happier in my life?"

    And then I spotted her, who would be my toughest questioner of the day. She was about 6 years old and held her mother's hand as she craned (伸长脖子) her neck to stare at us. Her mother stopped, but the girl hesitated. "It's OK," I offered. "Do you have a question?" The girl smiled at her mother, then let go of her hand to walk over towards us. She looked me dead in the eye and said: "How do I know I'm real?"

    Suddenly I was back in graduate school. Should I talk about the French philosopher Rene Descartes to prove our existence, with the phrase "I think, therefore I am?" Or, mention English philosopher G. E. Moore and his famous "here is one hand, here is the other," to prove the existence of the external world? But then the answer came to me. I remembered that the most important part of philosophy was feeding our sense of wonder. "Close your eyes," I said. She did. "Well, did you disappear?" She smiled and shook her head, then opened her eyes. "Congratulations, you're real."

    She grinned (露齿而笑) broadly and walked over to her mother, who looked back at us and smiled.

    An elderly carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to leave the house building business and enjoy his late life.

    The employer was sorry to see his good worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor. The carpenter said yes, but in time it was easy to see that his heart was not in his work. He did his job carelessly and used inferior materials. It was an unfortunate way to end his career.

    When the carpenter finished his work, the employer came to examine the house and handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you."

    What a shock! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently. Now he had to live in the home he had built none too well.

    So it is with us. We build our lives in a distracted way, reacting rather than acting, willing to put up less than the best. At important points we do not give the job our best effort. Then with a shock we look at the situation we have created and find that we are now living in the house we have built. If we had realized, we would have done it differently.

    Think of yourself as the carpenter. Think about your house. Each day you hammer a nail, place a board, or build a wall. Build wisely. It is the only life you will ever build. Even if you live it for only one day more, that day deserves to be lived well. The plaque (匾牌) on the wall says, "Life is a do-it-yourself project."

    Who could say it more clearly? Your life today is the result of your attitudes and choices in the past. Your life tomorrow will be the result of your attitudes and the choices you make today.