Last Sunday afternoon, I was having dinner in a restaurant when my friend Poor came in. Poor is working in a bank and is quite rich, but he is always borrowing money from his friends and never pays it back. Poor saw me and came to sit at my table. He had never borrowed any money from me. When he was eating, I asked him to lend me two dollars. To my surprise, he gave me the money at once.“I have never borrowed any money from you,”Poor said,“So you can pay for my dinner.”

    There once was a man and a woman who had been married for more than 60 years. They talked about everything. They kept no secrets from each other…except that the old woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet and she told her husband never to open it or ask her about it.

    For an these years the husband had never thought about the box, but one day the little old woman got very sick and the doctor said she would never recover.

    In trying to sort out things they had, the little old man took down the shoe box from the top of the closet and took it to his wife's bedside. She agreed it was time that he should know what was in the box.

    When he opened it, he found two beautifully crocheted (钩针编织的) doilies (装饰垫) and some money. He counted the money. It was $25,000 in total. He asked his wife about the unusual contents.

    "When we were married," she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to never argue. She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just keep quiet and crochet a doily."

    The little old man was so moved, and he had to fight back tears. Only two precious doilies were in the box. She had only been angry with him two times in all those years of living and loving. He was filled with joy and happiness.

    "Sweetheart," he said, "that explains the doilies, but what about all this money? Where did it all come from?"

    "Oh," she said, "that's the money I made from selling the doilies."

    Once a young man hoped to study law and he wrote to Lincoln for advice, who lived most of his adult life as a practicing lawyer. Lincoln replied, "If you make up your mind to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already. Always keep in mind that your own decision to succeed is more important than any other thing."

    Lincoln knew this because he had gone through it all. He had never, in his life，had more than a total of one year's schooling. And books? Lincoln once said he had walked to borrow every book fifty miles away from his home. A fire was usually kept going all night in the small house and he read by the light of it.

    He walked twenty or thirty miles to hear a speaker and, returning home, he practiced his talks everywhere—in the fields, in the woods, before the crowds. He joined several societies and practiced speaking on the topics of the day.

    Being short of confidence always troubled him. He was shy before women. Even when he was in love with Mary Todd, he used to sit there, nervous and silent, unable to find words, listening while she did the talking. Yet that was the man who, by practice and home study, made himself into a famous speaker with great eloquence(雄辩).

    When he spoke of his own great painful experiences, he wrote, "If you make up your mind to make a lawyer of yourself, the thing is more than half done already."

    I remember one day in primary school, there were five of us who wanted to sit together and only one four-seated table. I, sadly, was the last to get my lunch, so I had to eat my food all alone at a table. Watching them laugh and have a good time while I was sitting by myself, I cried hard. Now, I am quite sure I overreacted a little bit that day, but my tears (眼泪) just show what everyone feels when he or she is alone at lunch or even in life.

    I had another lonely lunch situation in high school. There was not enough room for me at my usual table, so I had to sit with another group of students I had never talked to in my life. Now, I am not saying I heard some wonderful ideas that day, but I did hear quite new ones on life. It was really one of my most interesting lunchtime experiences.

    The point is, at least I sat with someone that day. I did not have to suffer (忍受)through eating my cold turkey sandwich all alone. No one felt pity for me, and I was not shy about having no friends.

    This lunch table is the same as life. No one wants to go through life on his or her own whether it is at lunch, class, or work, we all want to be included. So the next time you see one quietly sitting alone, you can invite him to sit with you. You could hear some interesting stories, and you could even possibly find a new great friend.