Jack threw some papers on my desk and looked at me angrily. “What's wrong?” I asked. “Next time you want to change anything, ask me first,” he shouted and left.

    “How dare he treat me like that?” I thought. I had just changed one long sentence, and correct grammar—something I thought I was paid to do. In fact I had been warned. On the first day one of  my workmates took me aside and reminded me of his temper. As the weeks went by, I came to look down on Jack.

    One day Jack's other papers left me in tears so I stormed into his office angrily. “What?” he asked.

    Suddenly I knew what I must do. After all, he earned it. “Jack, the way you've been treating me is wrong. I've never had anyone speak to me that way. As a professional, it's wrong for me to allow it to continue,” I said. Jack smiled nervously, “Susan, I make you a promise that I will be a friend. I will treat you as you should be treated, with respect and kindness,” he said. With these words, I left.

    Jack avoided me the rest of the week, and never questioned my work again. I brought cookies to the office one day and left some on his desk. Another day I left a note: “Hope your day is going great.” Over the next few weeks, Jack reappeared , but there were no more Jack's papers. One year later I discovered I had breast cancer, and was scared. The statistics (统计数字) were not great for my long-term survival.

    On the last day of my hospital stay, Jack came and silently handed me a bundle with several bulbs inside. “Tulips (郁金香) ,” he said. I smiled, not understanding. He cleared his throat. “If you plant them when you get home, they'll come up next spring. I think you will be there to see them when they come up.” Tears clouded my eyes and I whispered: “Thank you.”Jack held my hands firmly, saying, “You are welcome. You can't see it now, but next spring you will see the colors I picked out for you.”

    I have seen those red and white striped（有条纹的） tulips push through the soil every spring for over ten years now. This past September the doctor declared me cured. At a moment when I was praying for just the right word, a man with very few words said all the right things. After all, that's what friends do.

    When asked about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer the older we get.

For kids, happiness has a magical quality. Their delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫无掩饰的).

    In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most attractive boy at the school party.

    In adulthood the things that bring deep joy—love, marriage, birth—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults, happiness is complicated (复杂的).

    My definition of happiness is “the capacity for enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, and even good health.

    I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunch-box and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids and my husband come home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.

    Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don't think that my grandmother, who raised 14 children, had much of either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this what satisfied her.

    We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we've got to have. We're so self-conscious about our “right” to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

    Happiness isn't about what happens to—it's about how we see what happens to us. It's the skillful way of finding a positive for every negative. It's not wishing for what we don't have , but enjoying what we do possess.

    It's 5:00 in the morning when the alarm(闹钟)rings in my ears. I roll out of bed and walk blindly through the dark into the bathroom. I turn on the light and put on my glasses. The house is still as I walk downstairs while my husband and three kids sleep peacefully. Usually I go for a long run, but today I choose my favorite exercise DVD, Insanity. Sweat pours down my face and into my eyes. My heart races as I force my body to finish each movement. As I near the end of the exercise, I feel extremely tired, but a smile is on my face. It's not a smile because the DVD is over, but a smile of success from pushing my body to its extreme limit.

    Some people enjoy shopping, smoking, food, work, or even chocolate. But I need exercise to get through each day. Some shake heads when they see me run through the town. Others get hurt when I refuse to try just one bite of their grandmother's chocolate cake. They raise their eyebrows, surprised by my ＂no thank you＂, or by my choice to have a salad. Over the years, I have learned it's okay to just say ＂no＂. I shouldn't feel sorry for refusing food that I don't want to eat.

    So what drives me to roll out of bed at 5:00 a.m.? What gives me the reason to just say no to ice cream? Commitment. A commitment to change my life with a way that reduces daily anxiety, increases self-confidence and energy, extends life and above all improves my body shape. This is the point where a smile appears on my face as I look at myself in the mirror or try on my favorite pair of jeans that now fit just right. It's through commitment and sweat that I can make a difference within myself inside and out.

    Spring is a wonderful season to celebrate rebirth and new life. The long, cold winter is over. The weather is warmer and sunnier. The trees again have leaves and the flowers are blooming. The season represents hope, joy and beauty. At this time, many people think of this classical music piece—Spring, which shows happiness. Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi wrote it in the seventeen hundreds.

    However, not all songs about spring are happy. This song written and sung by K.D. Lang is about dreaming of spring in cold dark places. She recorded I Dream of Spring in 2008.

    Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote It Might as Well Be Spring for the movie State Fair in 1945.Frank Sinatra sings it. It is a feeling of restlessness or excitement brought on by the coming of spring. Richard Rodgers also wrote Spring Is Here, this time with Lorenz Hart. Ella Fitzgerald sings this song about feeling lonely during this season.

    Frank Loesser wrote the sad song, Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year. Why has the season been delayed? Because the singer's lover has left her. Sarah Vaughn released(发行) her version of the song in 1953.

    By now you may be thinking, "Enough with the sad songs, already！"OK ,then how about a cowboy song? Gene Autry was one of the America's most famous singing cowboys. He recorded When It's Spring time in the Rockies in 1937.

    And finally, we'll leave you with a sunny song called Up Jumped Spring. Freddie Hubbard wrote this jazz song in 1977 and Billy Taylor Trio performs it.

    July is a month of fun-filled activities for kids and teens as long as you know where to find them. When you want some fun activities for July, consider these ideas happening in this month.

    When the tornado(龙卷风) passed, Lewis returned to her house after that awful night, and the Bible was the first thing she looked for. She had bought it 35 years earlier, at the start of her marriage. Like many folks, she'd used it to preserve the family's history: decades-old photos, newspaper obituaries(讣告) of loved ones, a handkerchief from her great-grandmother, even a piece of a scarf her uncle had brought back from the Korean War.

    The Bible was not where she'd last seen it, on top of an antique dresser in her bedroom. The only thing left was the solid pieces of marble that had been on the top of the furniture. After an hour of searching, one of the volunteers ran up to her and found the Bible while clearing through ruins. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. It had flown about ten feet from the dresser. Surprisingly, while many books had been destroyed beyond recognition, the Bible was still intact, even though it had sat in the rain for days. "It was a miracle," says Lewis.

    A few of the Bible's treasures did go missing. Yet ever so slowly, they, too, began reappearing in Lewis's life. Days after the Bible was found, volunteers discovered one of the newspaper obituaries outside the home. Two weeks later, a neighbor found another newspaper clipping(剪辑) by her house. "It was a shock," says Lewis.

    Now the Bible already has its well-deserved place of honor, on the dresser. She knows that while every good book tells stories of disastrous weather and unlikely survival, this one actually lived it.