Truman headed home from school, with the homework in mind, a report on beehives (蜂巢). Truman's class had studied bees for three days, so he was ready. But, as his teacher Mrs. Lawrence had explained, to earn an A +，he needed a “new angle”.

    Truman pushed open the front door to find his four-year-old brother, Bryan, sitting on the living room rag, hard at work. Paper towel tubes were all over the floor.

    Bryan quickly stood up. “Truman, help me build a city!”

    “I'd like to,” Truman replied, “but I have to do a report on beehives and ...”

    “Can I help you?” Bryan begged.

    “I don't think so, Bry. Sorry.''

    “I know where there's a beehive.” Bryan smiled.

    “Where?”

    “In the wood pile by the garage.''

    The boys marched to the firewood. Bending down, Bryan pointed out the hive deep inside the pile. Truman carefully removed the hive out.

    “You got it!” Bryan shouted.

    Back in the living room, Truman paced around, turning the fragile hive under his nose. Each cell was a perfect hexagon(六边形). How did the bees fit the cells together so neatly? And how did they make each cell six-sided? Could they count? Lost in thought, his foot came down on something ...

    “Truman! You're mining my city!”

    “Get your stupid tubes out of here，Bryan! I'm trying to…”

    The towel tubes on the floor suddenly reminded him of something. The beehive!

    Looking closer, he noticed the tubes were arranged with one in the middle, surrounded by six others, just like the cells of the hive.

    Just to be sure, he tried five and then seven tubes surrounding the center tubes, but neither way fit. Six was the only number that worked.

    “Bees don't count to six,” he said aloud. “The cells have to be six-sided.

    Truman ran to Bryan and threw his arms around his brother. Bryan, you did it! Now I can build a model beehive with your tubes! I mean — if it's O. K. with you.”

    Two of the saddest words in the English language are "if only". I live my life with the goal of never having to say those words, because they convey regret, lost opportunities, mistakes, and disappointment.

    My father is famous in our family for saying, "Take the extra minute to do it right." I always try to live by the "extra minute" rule. When my children were young and likely to cause accidents, I always thought about what I could do to avoid an "if only" moment, whether it was something minor like moving a cup full of hot coffee away from the edge of a counter, or something that required a little more work such as taping padding (衬垫) onto the sharp comers of a glass coffee table.

    I don't only avoid those "if only" moments when it comes to safety. It's equally important to avoid "if only" in our personal relationships. We all know people who lost a loved one and regretted that they had foregone an opportunity to say "I love you" or "I forgive you." When my father announced he was going to the eye doctor across from my office on Good Friday, I told him that it was a holiday for my company and I wouldn't be here. But then I thought about the fact that he's 84 years old and I realized that I shouldn't give up an opportunity to see him. I called him and told him I had decided to go to work on my day off after all.

    I know there will still be occasions when I have to say "if only" about something, but my life is definitely better because of my policy of doing everything possible to avoid that eventuality. And even though it takes an extra minute to do something right, or it occasionally takes an hour or two in my busy schedule to make a personal connection, I know that I'm doing the right thing. I'm buying myself peace of mind and that's the best kind of insurance for my emotional well-being.

    Maybe ten-year-old Elizabeth put it best when she said to her father. “But, Dad, you can't be healthy if you're dead.”

    Dad, in a hurry to get home before dark so he could go for a run, had forgotten to wear his safety belt — a mistake 11.5% of the US population make every day, according to a survey in 2015.

    The percentage doesn't seem so bad, but the big question is why still so many people ignore it when every day there are reports about car accidents and casualties (a death toll of 37461 in 2016).

    There have been many myths about safety belts ever since their first appearance in cars some forty years ago. The following are three of the most common.

    Myth Number One: It's best to be “thrown clear”of a serious accident.

    Truth: Sorry, but any accident serious enough to “throw you clear”is also going to be serious enough to give you a very bad landing. And chances are you'll have traveled through a windshield (挡风玻璃) or door to do it. Studies show that chances of dying after a car accident are twenty-five times greater in cases where people are “thrown clear.”

    Myth Number Two: Safety belts “trap” people in cars that are burning or sinking in water.

    Truth: Sorry again. but studies show that people knocked unconscious (昏迷) due to not wearing safety belts have a greater chance of dying in these accidents People wearing safety belts are usually protected to the point of having a clear head to free themselves from such dangerous situations, not to be trapped in them.

    Myth Number Three: Safety belts aren't needed at speeds of less than 30 miles an hour (mph).

    Truth: When two cars traveling at 30 mpb hit each other, an unbelted driver would meet the windshield with a force equal to diving headfirst into the ground from a height of 10 meters.

    A while back I caught a news report on something called ―couch surfing‖ and the network of trusting souls who make this phenomenon possible. They offer to put up travelers free of charge and help them on their ways. At first, it sounded unbelievable. I mean, inviting strangers into one's home for one or two nights? Give me a break.

    However, I was intrigued. I decided to investigate. The only way to truly learn about this phenomenon was to dive in. So I planned a trip to Finland, a country I've always wanted to explore. I would couch surf at every stop there.

    If ever any anxiety existed when stepping into the unknown, it disappeared when my first host met me at the train station. Ari looked like my idea of a typical Finn: tall and blue-eyed. Finns were also supposed to be famously reserved (寡言少语的). Ari was anything but. He was a live wire, giving me an enthusiastic welcome and hiking with me to his apartment, where he showed me the sleeper sofa, served me tea, and engaged me in warm conversations. He also handed me a key to come and go as I pleased.

    If this was what couch surfing was all about－trust and friendship－then I had gotten off to a good start. As I boarded my next train to continue my journey, I began to think about this couch-surfing idea. What urged these people to open their homes to strangers? I concluded that there was a desire to lend a hand to like-minded folks who might enrich their own lives.

    Seven cities in 14 days. Seven hosts. Seven new friends. If couch surfing taught me anything, it's this: Most people are good and generous. Where will couch surfing take me next? Who knows? But I can't wait to find out.

    Like their ancient toga-wearing counterparts, modern philosophers continue to disagree on the nature of freewill. Do we really have any control over the choices we make and the things we desire, and if so, to what degree?

    Theories of freewill vary, but the ancient words of Plato still line up with our modern perceptions(概念) of temptation and willpower. The respected Greek philosopher argued that the human experience is one of constant struggle between the intellect and the body, between rationality and desire. Along these lines, true freedom is only achievable when willpower unchains us from bodily, emotional, instinctual slavery.

    You can find similar thoughts throughout world religions, most of which offer a particular and often difficult path to rise above our darker natures.

    And science? Well, science mostly agrees with all of this. Willpower is all about overcoming your natural desires to eat cupcakes, skip your morning workout, play games on mobile phone, hit the snooze alarm and check your e-mail during a funeral.

    Your willpower, however, is limited. If life were a video game, you'd see a glowing "willpower" or "ego"(自我) meter at the top of the screen next to your "life" meter. Successfully resist one temptation, and the meter drains a little. The next temptation drains the "willpower" meter even more, until there's nothing left at all.

    Our modern scientific understanding of willpower in large part stems from a 1996 research experiment involving chocolate and radishes(小红萝卜). Psychologist Roy Baumeister led a study in which 67 test subjects were presented with tempting chocolate chip cookies and other chocolate-flavored treats before a persistence-testing puzzle. Here's the catch: The researchers asked some of the participants to withdraw from sweets and snack on radishes instead.

    Baumeister's results told a fascinating story. The test subjects who resisted the sweet stuff in favor of radishes performed poorly on the persistence test. They simply didn't have the willpower left to resist slacking off(松懈).

    The research inspired more than a thousand additional studies discussing everything from the influence of positive messages to the ego-sapping power of daily decisions.

    Studies also show that cognitive capacity also affects our ability to hold out against temptation. Cognitive capacity is essentially your working memory, which you employ when resisting a temptation… or holding a string of numbers in your head. A 1999 study from the University of Iowa professor Baba Shiv found that people tasked with remembering a two-digit number held out better than people remembering a seven-digit number when tempted with chocolate cake.

    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.