Stop wasting your time thinking of reasons for your failures and shortcomings.  Instead, realize that the seeds of success were planted within you when you were born. Only you have the power to make those seeds grow.

    The seeds, and the power to grow them, are contained in the most awesome machine ever created: the human mind. Success is a choice and not a chance. You were born a winner. You were born rich. You can be a success if only you make the right choice.

    You cannot be successful without first developing your self-esteem (自信心). Your level of self-esteem is always based on the degree of control that you are able to exercise over yourself, and thus over your life. People with low self-esteem are people who do not believe that they have any power，or responsibility for their lives. They are always victims. They are leaves tossed (摇摆) by the winds of chance blown about with any sudden change in the weather.

    You can exercise control over your life only to the degree that you believe you are responsible for everything that happens in your life.  Failures think that everything happens by accident and chance. Successful people realize that they are responsible.

    Everything happens as a result of something.  If we can identify the cause，we can control the effect. We are responsible for what we choose to think and believe. One generally rises to the level that one expects. We are responsible for setting our expectations. Our success is dependent upon our level of confidence.

    If you associate with positive-thinking people，you are definitely going to achieve success. On the contrary，the opposite happens. We are responsible for finding，planting，and nurturing (培育) the seeds that contain future victory, born from setbacks (挫折).

    In short, in all areas of your life，whether they are financial, physical, emotional, or spiritual, you are responsible. Once you recognize this, accept it, and firmly believe it. You are on the road to success.

    Telepathy (心灵感应) is the ability to communicate without the use of the five senses. It's an instinct (本能) which can be woken up in times of emergency or need. When we feel that something is happening or about to happen by instinct, we're using resources within the unconscious mind. When the resources of two persons' unconscious minds link together into the same frequency (频率), we call it telepathy.

    We can either send or receive telepathy. If you know who is calling before you answer the ringing phone，you are probably a good receiver. If you think of a person and he/she calls you，you are most likely to be better at sending.

    You can easily put your ability to the test. Thinking of somebody and wish him or her to contact you. Be patient. The other person may not be a good receiver，but they should contact you much earlier than would normally be expected. Or whenever the phone rings，try ‘feeling' who is contacting you. Don't guess, but try to feel it with your mind. However，if neither of these works for you，that doesn't mean that you have no ability of telepathy. As mentioned earlier, telepathy is most likely to turn up in case of emergency.

    Telepathy dreams often contain telepathic messages. Two people may both dream of the other and find that their dreams have a clear connection. These people are probably linking to each other's unconscious mind.

    Telepathy & relationship. The more people spend time together, the more likely they are to be able to link up to the other's mind, especially when separated. There are two reasons for this. One is that they understand the other's mind through time spent together; the other is that there is usually a strong desire to communicate. A mother will often sense that her child is in danger. This is due to the child's eagerly wanting his or her mother, knowing that this is the person who would always want to be there for them, and the mother's deep desire to protect her child from harm.

    When it was announced that Patrick Modiano had won the Nobel Prize in Literature on Oct.9, the Swedish Academy had not yet managed to reach the writer himself to tell him the news. as the Telegraph put it, “It was a curious case of missing personhood in an author whose career had been spent in searching others, within the confines (界限) of a single city.”

    Though the 69-year-old French author has had a successful writing career, only six of his books have been translated into English. One reason for this might be that “Modiano's storylines are as slim as the books themselves”, said the BBC.

    While most of Modiano's works don't run for hundreds of pages, they explore serious subjects. The author's signature themes are Germany's occupation during World War II and the evolution of Paris over the past century.

    Modiano's life has been greatly affected by Nazi Germany's occupation during the war, and his family's connections to it. According to New York-based newspaper Forward, his father survived the war dishonorably. When Paris's Jews were rounded up for deportation(驱逐)to concentration camps, the businessman did not join them but spent the time making money from deals with Nazis on the black market.

    “The novelist has a duty to record the traces of the people who were made to disappear,” French writer Clemence Boulouque, also an expert in Jewish Studies, told The New York magazine.

    In his more than three dozen novels, Modiano has returned again and to the same themes: Jewishness, the Nazi occupation, and loss of identity.

    Paris is another recurring(重复的)theme in Modiano's works .Most of his novels are set in the city , from the rich parts of downtown Paris to more remote suburbs where the characters try to live anonymous protect lives.

    Anne Ghisoli, the director of  Librairie Gallimard, a bookstore in Paris, concluded, “Modiano is a master of writing on memory and occupation, which haunt(萦绕)and inform his works. He is a chronicler(年代记录者)of  Paris ,its streets, and its present.”

    Driverless technology will soon enter another major global industry: shipping. Several companies recently announced plans to start self-sailing ships to improve safety and efficiency（效率）.

    One of them is Norwegian chemical company Yara International. Yara has designed to build an autonomous ship expected to start next year. The ship is fully electric to reduce air pollution. It is designed to carry containers normally transported by truck. This means the ship will also improve road safety by replacing about 40,000 truck trips a year.

    Yara plans to operate the ships by remote control beginning sometime next year. By 2020, the ships should be loading and sailing themselves. Another company focusing on self-sailing ships is the world's largest mining company, Australia's BHP Billiton. The company's Vice President of Freight, Rashpal Bhatti, recently spoke about the technology. He said, “I believe automation（自动化）will be one of the biggest changes for shipping in the future.” Autonomous ships offer important chances to improve safety and provide better efficiency results to the marine supply chain. He added that self-sailing ships could become a reality within the next decade.

    Rolls-Royce, the British automobile and engine manufacturer, is also developing unmanned shipping technologies. Oskar Levander is the company's head of marine operations. He told a conference last year, “This is happening. It's not if, it's when.” Several shipping companies have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to develop self-sailing ships expected to be used by 2025. These ships will be equipped with technology to collect weather and sea data. They will then use the data to plan out the safest, shortest and most fuel-efficient route.

    Are you so sure your mistakes are just mistakes? Or could they be building blocks to a success beyond any you imagined?

    When my friend Dorothy goes home to visit her family each Thanksgiving, her mother serves the traditional “mistake salad”. The dish was born many years ago, Dorothy explains, when mother was using a cookbook to make a salad. In the process, by mistake, mother included half the salad ingredients (原料) from a recipe (食谱) on the left side of the open cookbook, and half the ingredients from a different salad recipe on the opposite page. Everyone enjoyed the salad so much that she continued to serve it every year. So it was really not a mistake at all.

    Then there was the man named Alfred, who invented dynamite (炸药). When Alfred's brother died, the city newspaper mistook his brother for him, saying in the news that the dead's most famous act was the creation of bombs (炸弹). Surprised to consider that his name would forever be connected with destruction, Alfred wanted to leave a more positive impression on people. So he set a prize for people who made contributions to world peace. Now the Nobel Prize, set up by Alfred Nobel, is the most respected prize in the world.

    Everything is part of something bigger, and so are mistakes. In his brilliant book Illusions, Richard Bach explains that every problem comes to you with a gift. If you only fix your attention on what went wrong, you miss the gift. If you are willing to look deeper and ask for the bright, the problem will disappear. You are left only with the learning, and you go forward on your path.

    Mark Twain left school when he was twelve. He had little school education. In spite of this, he became the most famous writer of his time. He made millions of dollars by writing. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens, but he is better known all over the world as Mark Twain, his penname.

    Mark Twain was born in 1835 and he was not a healthy baby. In fact, he was not expected to live through the first winter. But with his mother's care, he managed to survive. As a boy, he caused much trouble for his parents. He used to play jokes on all his friends and neighbors. He didn't like to go to school, and he often ran away from home. He always went in the direction of the nearby Mississippi(密西西比河). He was nearly drowned nine times.

    After his father's death, Mark Twain began to work for a printer, who only provided him with food and clothing. Then, he worked as a printer, a river-boat pilot and later joined the army. But shortly after that he became a miner. During this period, he started to write short stories. Afterwards he became a full time writer.

    In 1870, Mark Twain got married. In the years that followed he wrote many books including Tom Sawyer in 1876, and Huckleberry Finn in 1884, which made him famous, and brought him great fortune.

    Unfortunately, Mark Twain got into debts in bad investments(投资) and he had to write large numbers of stories to pay these debts. In 1904, his wife died, and then three of his children passed away.

    At the age of 70, his hair was completely white. He bought many white suits and neckties. He wore nothing but white from head to foot until his death on April 21, 1910.