Before the law sits a gatekeeper. Tothis gatekeeper comes a man from the country who asks to gain entry into thelaw. But the gatekeeper says that he cannot grant him entry at the moment. Theman thinks about it and then asks if he will be allowed to come in sometimelater on. "It is possible," says the gatekeeper, "but notnow." The gate to the law stands open, as always, and the gatekeeper walksto the side, so the man bends over in order to see through the gate into theinside. When the gatekeeper notices that, he laughs and says: "If it tempts you so much, try going insidein spite of my prohibition. But take note. I am powerful. And I am only themost lowly gatekeeper. But from room to room stand gatekeepers, each morepowerful than the other. I cannot endure even one  glimpse of the third."

The man from the country has notexpected such difficulties: the law should always be accessible for everyone,he thinks, but as he now looks more closely at the gatekeeper in his fur coat,at his large pointed nose and his long, thin, black Tartar's beard, he decidesthat it would be better to wait until he gets permission to go inside. Thegatekeeper gives him a stool and allows him to sit down at the side in front ofthe gate. There he sits for days and years. He makes many attempts to be letin, and he wears the gatekeeper out with his requests. The gatekeeper ofteninterrogates him briefly, questioning him about his homeland and many otherthings, but they are indifferent questions, the kind great men put, and at theend he always tells him once more that he cannot let him inside yet. The man,who has equipped himself with many things for his journey, spends everything,no matter how valuable, to win over the gatekeeper. The latter takes it allbut, as he does so, says, "I am taking this only so that you do not thinkyou have failed to do anything." ②

During the many years the man observesthe gatekeeper almost continuously. He forgets the other gatekeepers, and thisfirst one seems to him the only barrier for entry into the law. He curses theunlucky circumstance, in the first years thoughtlessly and out loud; later, ashe grows old, he only mumbles to himself. He becomes childish and, since in thelong years studying the gatekeeper he has also come to know the fléas ( PZ) inhis fur collar, he even asks the fleas to help him persuade the gatekeeper.Finally his eyesight grows weak, and he does not know whether things are reallydarker around him or whether his eyes are merely deceiving him. But herecognizes now in the darkness a ray of light which breaks out of the gatewayto the law. Now he no longer has much time to live.

Before his death he gathers in his headall his experiences of the entire time up into one question which he has notyet put to the gatekeeper. He waves to him, since he can no longer lift up hisstiffening body. The gatekeeper has to bend way down to him, for the greatdifference has changed things considerably to the disadvantage of the man. ③ "You are insatiable (不知足的)."^t"Everyone strives after the law," says the man, "so how isit that in these many years no one except me has requested entry?" Thegatekeeper sees that the man is already dying and, in order to reach hisdiminishing sense of hearing, he shouts at him, "Here no one else can gainentry, since this entrance was assigned only to you. I'm going now to close it."④

    For those who make journeys across the world, the speed of travel today has turned the countries into a series of villages．Distances between them appear no greater to a modern traveler than those which once faced men as they walked from village to village. Jet planes fly people from one end of the earth to the other, allowing them a freedom of movement undreamt of a hundred years ago.

    Yet some people wonder if the revolution in travel has gone too far. A price has been paid, they say, for the conquest (征服) of time and distance. Travel is something to be enjoyed, not endured (忍受).  The boat offers leisure and time enough to appreciate the ever-changing sights and sounds of a journey. A journey by train also has a special charm about it. Lakes and forests and wild, open plains sweeping past your carriage window create a grand view in which time and distance mean nothing. On board a plane, however, there is just the blank blue of the sky filling the narrow window of the airplane. The soft lighting, in-flight films and gentle music make up the only world you know, and the hours progress slowly.

    Then there is the time spent being “processed” at a modern airport. People are conveyed like robots along walkways; baggage is weighed, tickets produced, examined and produced yet again before the passengers move to another waiting area. Journeys by rail and sea take longer, yes, but the hours devoted to being “processed” at departure and arrival in airports are luckily absent. No wonder, then, that the modern high-speed trains are winning back passengers from the airlines.

    Man, however, is now a world traveler and cannot turn his back on the airplane. The working lives of too many people depend upon it; whole new industries have been built around its design and operation. The holiday maker, too, with limited time to spend, patiently endures the busy airports and limited space of the flight to gain those extra hours and even days, relaxing in the sun. speed controls people's lives; time saved, in work or play, is the important thing—or so we are told. Perhaps those first horsemen, riding free across the wild, open plains, were enjoying a better world than the one we know today. They could travel at will, and the clock was not their master.

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    One day in the gym, I asked a coach, "What's the difference between the best athletes and everyone else?" He briefly mentioned the things that you might expect: genetics, luck, talent.

    But then he added something I wasn't expecting. "At some point," he said, "it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day and doing the same practice over and over again."

    Most of the time people talk about getting motivated to work on their goals. As a result, I think many people get depressed when they lose focus or motivation because they think that successful people never lack motivation that they seem to be missing. But that's exactly the opposite of what this coach was saying.

    When I was an athlete, I loved going to practice the week after a big win. Who wouldn't? Your coach is happy, your teammates are excited, and you feel like you can beat anyone. As an entrepreneur, I love working when customers are rolling in and things are going well. Getting results has a way of pushing you forward.

    But what about when you're bored? What about when the work isn't easy? What about when it feels like nobody is paying attention or you're not getting the results you want? It's the ability to work when work isn't easy that makes the difference.

    If you look at the people who are consistently achieving their goals, you start to realize that it's not the events or the results that make them different. It's their commitment to the process. They fall in love with the daily practice.

    So, fall in love with boredom. Fall in love with repetition and practice. Fall in love with the process of what you do and let the results take care of themselves.

    When Joanne Morton and Lydia Shaw came across the Boston Public Market, which features only New England businesspersons, they knew they had to stop in. The women, visiting from southeastern Connecticut, always try to buy local. "We always try to support our local farmers and businessmen," says Ms. Shaw. "We're not into big companies," adds Ms. Morton.

    They aren't alone. A great number of Americans continue to be attracted by "local" food and to buy it, according to recent surveys from the International Food Information Council Foundation, the Pew Research Center, and British polling firm Ipsos. But what does it mean to shop local? For some, local is still a matter of geography. For others, it is about supporting their local economy (经济). And for still others, it is about knowing where their food comes from and how it is made, even if it is coffee shipped from a Costa Rican company. In 2008, Congress passed a bill that gave money to support local food. According to the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act, a product that can be considered local has to travel less than 400 miles.

    But Lydia Zepeda, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has found the largest agreement about what is local is any product that comes from within an hour's drive. "But is that with or without traffic?" She asks. "What if it crosses state lines?" adds John Hayes, a food science professor at Pennsylvania State University. "A customer might like to buy local to help an old town," he says. "Or maybe it's just because local food tastes better." It is for Kaitlin Bohon. "I taste a difference," she says at the Boston Public Market. For Ms. Bohon, buying local is both about supporting New England business and knowing who grew and handled her food.

    Eating red meat is linked to cancer and heart disease, but are the risks big enough to justify giving up juicy burgers and delicious steaks? Probably not, according to researchers who reviewed data from 12 clinical trials involving about 54,000 people. In a series of controversial papers, the researchers argue that the increased health risks tied to red meat are small and uncertain, and that cutting back likely wouldn't be worth it for people who enjoy meat.

    Those conclusions go against established medical advice. They were swiftly attacked by a group of famous U.S. scientists who took the unusual step of trying to stop the papers from being published until their criticisms were addressed.

    The new work does not say red or processed meats like hot dogs and bacon are healthy, or that people should eat more of them. The team's reviews of past studies generally support the ties to cancer, heart disease and other bad health outcomes. But the authors say the evidence is weak, and that there's not much certainty meat is really the cause, since other diet and lifestyle factors could be at play.

    If the latest example of how divisive nutrition research has become, with its uncertainties leaving the door open for conflicting advice. Critics say findings often aren't backed by strong evidence. Defenders counter that nutrition studies can rarely be conclusive because of the difficulty of measuring the effects of any single food, but that methods have improved.

    Based on their analyses, the researchers said people do not have to cut back for health reasons. But they noted that their own advice is weak, and acknowledged that they didn't consider factors such as animal welfare and the environment. Indeed, the case that meat production is bad for animal welfare and the environment is stronger than the case that it's bad for human health, according to an editorial that accompanies the report.

    Not all of the report authors agreed with its conclusions. Three of the 14 researchers said they support reducing red and processed meats. A coauthor of one of the reviews is also among those who called for a publication delay.

    Those who pushed to postpone publication also questioned why certain studies were included in the reviews while others were left out.

    As for his own diet, Dr. Gordon Guyatt, a member of the international research team that conducted the reviews, said he no longer thinks red or processed meats have significant health risks. But he said he still avoids them out of habit, and for animal welfare and environmental reasons.