Once there is a boy in London. His name is Jimmy. He starts painting when he is three years old, and when he is five years old, he is already very good at it. He paints many beautiful and interesting pictures, and a lot of people buy his pictures. They say, “This boy is going to be famous when he's a little older, and then we're going to sell these pictures for a lot of money.”

    Jimmy's pictures are different from others' because he never paints on the whole of the paper. He only paints on half of it, and the other half is always empty.

    “That's very clever,” people say. “No other painters have ever done that!”

    One day someone asks Jimmy, “Please tell me, Jimmy, why do you only paint on the bottom (底) half of the paper, but not on the top half?”

    “Because I'm small,” Jimmy says, “and my brushes can't reach very high.”

    It was 8:30 and I was lying in the sun, listening to my CD.

    Then my mum came out. She wanted me to go out with her. She told me about this place called Give Kids the World. It's a special place for families to spend a vacation when a child had a life-threatening（致命的）illness. There were several jobs she did there, like gift giving and ice-cream serving. Mum said I would enjoy it, but I thought this was a boring job.

    Mum told me we were going to take a toy and an ice-cream to every child in the village. We got to the first house and I knocked on the door and shouted, "Gift Giving", and a woman answered it. Sitting in the middle of the bedroom was a boy in a wheel chair. I gave him the gifts, and his face lighted up with happiness. I walked out and thought," That must be boring, unable to jump around."

    As I came into the second house with gifts, it seemed a little strange that the child didn't see me. His mum said something was much wrong with his eyes, so I needed to go and stand in front of him.  When I did that, he became very excited and made a sign for "thanks", though his legs couldn't move at all.

    When we went back home, Mum told me these kids might not live to see tomorrow. Suddenly, I understood I should be more thankful that I don't have these illnesses. I no longer wanted to be at home listening to my CDs. I would rather be doing this, maybe making a difference in these kids' lives.

    He was 11 years old and went fishing every chance he got at his family's small house on an island in the middle of a New Hampshire lake.

    On the day before the bass(鲈鱼)season opened, he and his father were fishing early in the evening, catching sunfish and bass with worms. Before long, when his pole doubled over, he knew something huge was on the other end. His father watched with admiration as the boy skillfully worked the fish alongside the bank and he very successfully lifted the tired fish from the water. It was the largest one he had ever seen, but it was a bass.

    The boy and his father looked at the handsome fish, the fish jumped up and down in the moonlight. The father looked at his watch. It was 10 P.M.—two hours before the season opened. He looked at the fish, then at the boy. "You will have to put it back, my son," he said. "I have never seen such a big fish before." cried the boy. "There will be other fish," said his father. "The boy looked around the lake. No other fishermen or boats were anywhere around in the moonlight. He looked again at his father. Even though no one had seen them, nor could anyone ever know what time he caught the fish, the boy could tell by his father's voice that the decision was not be changed. He slowly worked the hook out of the lip of the huge bass and lowered it into the black water.

    That was 34 years ago. And he has never again caught such a beautiful fish as the one he landed that night long ago. But he does see the fish again and again—every time he comes up against a question of ethics(伦理). For, as his father taught him, ethics are simple matters of right and wrong. It is only the practice of ethics that is difficult.

    We would if we were taught to put the fish back when we were young. For we would have learned the truth. The decision to do right lives fresh in our memory. It is a story we will proudly tell our friends and grandchildren.

    Once there was a man traveling in a faraway village. As he was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped. He found that these huge elephants were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains(锁链), no cages. It was clear that the elephants could, at any time, break away from their ropes but for some reason, they did not.

    He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and didn't try to get away." Well,' the trainer said," when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it's enough to hold them. As they grow up, they still believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can hold them, so they never try to break free."

    How could it be? These animals could at any time break free from their ropes. But because they were always stuck right where they were, they believed they couldn't.

    Just like the elephants, how many of us go through life believing that we cannot do something, just because we failed at it once before?

           We should never give up the struggle(斗争) in life.