Why is setting goals important? {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Instead of just letting life happen to you, goals allow you to make your life happen. Successful people imagine how their life should be and set lots of goals.

    By setting goals you are taking control of your life. It's like having a map to show you where you want to go. Think of it this way. There are two drivers. One has a destination in mind which can be found on a map. She can drive straight there surely without any wasted time of wrong turns. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} She starts off at the same time from the same place as the first driver, but she drives aimlessly around, never getting anywhere, just using up gas. Which driver do you want to be?

    Winners in life set goals and follow them through. They decide what they want in life and then get there by making plans and setting goals. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} Goals aren't difficult to set and they aren't difficult to reach.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You are the one who must decide what to achieve and in what direction to aim your life.

    Research tells us that when we write a goal down we are more likely to achieve it. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Like a contract(合同) with yourself, they are harder to neglect or forget. Also when you write your goals in a particular way, you are able to make yourself continuously aware of situations that will bring you nearer to your goal.

    I think a close friend is someone you get on well with, who helps you when you have problems, who gives you advice, and who always has time for you. I didn't use to have many close friends when I was at school because I was very shy, but now I have several. They are all women. I think it's difficult to have a close friend of the opposite sex（异性）.

—Marie

    I think a close friend is someone who you've known for a long time, and who you still get on with. They have similar hobbies to you so you can do things together. I've got three close friends who I was at middle school with and we often go out together （without our parents of course）. We often go camping, play football, or walk outside in the open air.

—David

    I'm not sure how to answer the question because I don't really have any close friends. I know a lot of people but mainly through work, and the social occasions（场合） when we meet are business dinners, things like that. I think if you come from a really close family, friends are a bit unnecessary. I like spending my free time with my family.

—Richard

    For me close friends are the people you spend your free time with. I go out at weekends with a group of people, and they are all my close friends. They're also people who live near me. I don't think you can have close friends at a distance because you need to be able to see each other often. But I don't think you need to be doing the same things. I mean I'm at school but none of my friends are.

—Anna

    I have three kids and a great husband and I'm enjoying a career that I find challenging and fun. To the outside world, this feels like" Success." But there is still a voice in my heart asking if this is who I truly am. Only in silence do I hear the self and wonder who that person might be.

    So I booked a trip to find out. I travelled, for the first time, without my husband or kids. I went to Iceland with a friend, who shares an appreciation for wilderness and silence.

    For six days, we were immersed(沉浸)in wild, raw scenery and real weather—a11 kinds of weather. Climbing a mountain against rain and returning to a tent for a simple meal reminds you how little you actually need. And how strong it feels to be uncomfortable sometimes.

    I found silence in Iceland, and time to consider the me outside of career and the me out—side of kids as I shared stories with strangers.

    When I stopped talking and just 1istened, I became more generous. I 1earned that choosing to be generous can create more space, more food and more warmth.

But I didn't really gain any better appreciation of what I want from life or my job. I suspect the anxiety that drove me to seek silence in Iceland was losing sight of my ability to choose gratitude and joy, and to be present in the challenges I set in my career and my family.

    I came home to noise, rush and love; with no less confusion on who I want to be. I know the answer isn't waiting out there on the top of a mountain in Iceland. The answer is in front of me with every step on my own life's path, and in every choice I make.

    "Smile!" I shouted, holding a yellow sign up on a busy street in Seattle. We were three thousand miles away from home on a Random Acts of Kindness and Volunteerism Road Trip. We had two aims. One was to try out our new "Smile!" signs and see how much kindness and joy we could spread in Pike Place Market. The other was to raise $80 by doing street performances, enough for gas to Portland and a small hotel room.

    We weren't sure how people would react (回应) to our signs. I nervously raised up our signs and shouted, "Hi, there!" to a young couple. They looked over and felt confused. Then they read our signs and broke into a smile. Before long, some tourists wanted to take a photo with us and some strangers stopped to ask us about our signs.

    In fact, we paid so close attention to our "Smile!" project that we forgot the other aim. Before we knew it, the sun was setting, and we had no money for our trip to Portland. We sat down to watch a blind musician play the guitar while thinking about what to do. He was packing up when a passing crowd kicked down his change bowl. He stumbled (绊倒) into the crowd. We rushed to help him, but another man moved more quickly to help him.

    Once the musician had his money safely returned, we ran over to meet the strange helper and said, "We just wanted to praise you for your good deed." He smiled, looking at our signs. "Your trip reminds me of something similar I once did when I was youn," he said. "Look! I'd like to donate (捐赠)." We told him, "No, thanks! We are fine. We've collected plenty of money." We lied. "Please let me donate. It will make me feel like I'm a part of this adventure," he insisted. And then the stranger opened his wallet and pulled out four $20 bills. The money was exactly what we had intended to raise that day. We were astonished. It seemed as if he had known somehow.

    We have encountered a crisis around the corner. You mean global warming? The world economy? No, the decline of reading. People are just not doing it anymore, especially the young. Who's responsible?

Actually, it's more like, what is responsible? The Internet, of course, and everything that comes with it – Facebook, Twitter. You can write your own list.

    There's been a warning about the imminent death of literate civilization for a long time. In the 20th century, first it was the movies, then radio, then television that seemed to spell doom for the written world. None did. Reading survived; in fact it not only survived, it has flourished. The world is more literate than ever before – there are more and more readers, and more and more books.

    The fact that we often get our reading material online today is not something we should worry over. The electronic and digital revolution of the last two decades has arguably shown the way forward for reading and for writing. Take the arrival of e-book readers as an example.

    Devices like Kindle make reading more convenient and are a lot more environmentally friendly than the traditional paper book.

    As technology makes new ways of writing possible, new ways of reading are possible. Interconnectivity allows for the possibility of a reading experience that was barely imaginable before. Where traditional books had to make do with photographs and illustrations, an e-book can provide readers with an unlimited number of links: to texts, pictures, and videos. In the future, the way people write novels, history, and philosophy will resemble nothing seen in the past.

    On the other hand, there is the danger of trivialization. One Twitter group is offering its followers single-sentence-long "digests" of the great novels. War and Peace in a sentence? You must be joking. We should fear the fragmentation of reading. There is the danger that the high-speed connectivity of the Internet will reduce our attention span—that we will be incapable of reading anything of length or which requires deep concentration.

    In such a fast-changing world, in which reality seems to be remade each day, we need the ability to focus and understand what is happening to us. This has always been the function of literature and we should be careful not to let it disappear. Our society needs to be able to imagine the possibility of someone utterly in tune with modern technology but able to make sense of a dynamic, confusing world.

    In the 15th century, Johannes Guttenberg's invention of the printing press in Europe had a huge impact on civilization. Once upon a time the physical book was a challenging thing. We should remember this before we assume that technology is out to destroy traditional culture.

Soccer is played by millions of people all over the world, but there have only been few players who were truly great. How did these players get that way—was it through training and practice, or are great players "born, not made"?

First, these players came from places that have had famous stars in the past—players that a young boy can look up to and try to imitate (模仿). In the history of soccer, only seven countries have ever won the World Cup. There has never been a great national team—or a really great player—from North America or from Asia.

Second, these players have all had years of practice in the game. Pele, who is often named as the greatest soccer of all time, was the son of a soccer player. He began to play soccer with his father when he was only three. Most players begin playing the game at the age of three or four.

Finally, many great players come from the same kind of neighbourhood—a poor, crowded area where a boy's dream is not to be a doctor, lawyer, or businessman, but to become a rich, famous athlete or entertainer (艺人). For example, Liverpool, which produced the Beatles, had one of the best English soccer teams in recent years. Pele practiced in the street with a "ball" made of rags (破布). And George Best learned the tricks that made him famous by bouncing the ball off a wall (对着墙壁踢球) in the slums (贫民窟) of Belfast.

All great players have a lot in common, but that doesn't explain why they are great. Hundreds of boys played in those Brazilian streets, but only one became Pele. The greatest players are born with some unique quality that sets them apart from all the others.