For as long as I can remember, I've always wanted a personal motto. I wanted a saying that I could really try to live my life by. I mean all the humorous book and storybook heroes always have a personal principle they follow. Good manners! Courage! Keenness! But a part of me could never get myself to create my own motto because I never knew where to start and I never thought I could give one.

    “With great power comes great responsibility.” is a quote by the great writer and philosopher, Voltaire. More familiar, it makes an appearance in the modern day movie performance of the superhero Spider-Man. This saying provides a sense of responsibility for those with actually limitless power.

    “Be good to others and others will be good to you.” is another well-known proverb that has roots in almost all of the major religions. Although it is less practiced today than it is lectured, it is a powerful and good motto to live by. Kindness, in this sense, is the final power in judging every action.

    My personal motto today has an idea – being efficient. Through my limited knowledge, I have come to find that this is simply the best way for me to give insight about who I am and what I believe in.

 Efficiency is a quality that everyone desires for, right? Who doesn't want to be able to not only work fast but to achieve great results? To some, it may appear to be a frightening journey. But to me, it means that I have a lifelong journey to improve the methods and ideas with which I come near my tasks.

    Regardless of what motto you want to live by, I believe that everyone should have one, or two or more. These are all symbols of a perfect story of us, in our own view. And it immediately provides insight to the type of person we were, we are and what we strive to be. We are never meant to be perfect, but it is important to try and live by a belief that will help us reach our potential. All you have to do is know what your excitement is and live by it.

    Have you ever picked a job based on the fact that you were good at it but later found it made you feel very uncomfortable over time? When you select your career, there's whole lot more to it than assessing your skills and matching them with a particular position. If you ignore your personality, it will hurt you long-term regardless of your skills or the job's pay. There are several areas of your personality that you need to consider to help you find a good job. Here are a few of those main areas:

1) Do you prefer working alone or with other people?

    There are isolating(使孤立) jobs that will drive an outgoing person crazy and also interactive jobs that will make a shy person uneasy. Most people are not extremes in either direction but do have a tendency that they prefer. There are also positions that are sometimes a combination of the two, which may be best for someone in the middle who adapts easily to either situation.

2) How do you handle change?

    Most jobs these days have some elements of change to them, but some are more than others. If you need stability in your life, you may need a job where the changes don't happen so often. Other people would be bored of the same daily routine.

3) Do you enjoy working with computers?

    I do see this as a kind of personality characteristic. There are people who are happy to spend more than 40 hours a week on a computer, while there are others who need a lot of human interaction throughout the day. Again, these are extremes and you'll likely find a lot of positions somewhere in the middle as well.

4) What type of work environment do you enjoy?

    This can range from being in a large building with a lot of people you won't know immediately to a smaller setting where you'll get to know almost all the people there fairly quickly.

5) How do you like to get paid?

    Some people are motivated by the pay they get, while others feel too stressed to be like that. The variety of payment designs in the sales industry is a typical example for this.

    Anyway, these are a great starting point for you. I've seen it over and over again with people that they make more money over time when they do something they love. It may take you a little longer, but making a move to do what you have a passion for can change the course of your life for the better.

    There has been an outpouring of love for a 23-year-old disabled woman whose dog was killed in front of her while a groomer(美容师) tried to trim(修剪) its claws.

    Calls and e-mails came from as far away as the Upper Peninsula and Arizona as well as Oakland and Macomb counties, offering Laurie Crouch, who uses a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis(硬化症), everything from dogs to money, such as that from Jason Daly of Roseville who said, “ I would like to buy her a new dog.”

    A story about the death of Crouch's pet, Gooch, was printed on the front page of Macomb Daily. Crouch said a man sat on the dog to trim its nails. Gooch died after one claw was trimmed.

    Crouch yelled at the groomer to stop when she saw Gooch was struggling to breathe, but she said she was ignored. “If I could have walked, I would have put my hands on her and pulled her off my dog and physically stopped her, but I can't do that.” Gooch was not a trained service animal, but naturally helped Crouch by picking up things for her.

    “This case is absolute animal abuse(虐待),” Larry Obrecht, division manager of the Oakland County Animal Shelter in Auburn Hills, said.

    People who read the story contacted Oakland Press to offer help. A message, from Rebecca Amett of Giggles N Wiggles Puppy Rescue, in Roseville, said, “We have puppies to donate … and want to help the young woman who lost her service dog.”

    “When Gooch was with me, I was happy,” Crouch said, “I think I can be happy again but no animal can replace Gooch. There's never going to be another Gooch out there but I think I will find a dog that can bring me joy again.”

    Frank Woolworth was born in Rodman, New York, in 1852. His family were very poor farmers, and there was never enough to eat. Frank decided he did not want to be a farmer. So he took a short business course, and went to work as a salesman in a large city.

    Woolworth realized he had a natural skill for showing goods to attract people's interest, but he soon learned something more important. One day his boss told him to sell some odds and ends (小商品) for as much as he could get. Frank put all these things on one table with a sign which said FIVE CENTS EACH. People fought and pushed to buy the things and the table was soon cleared.

    Soon afterwards, Woolworth opened his own store, selling goods at five and ten cents. But he had another lesson to learn before he became successful. That is, if you want to make money by selling low-price goods, you have to buy them in large quantities(大量) directly from the factories. Once, for example, Woolworth went to Germany and placed an order for knives. The order was so large that the factory had to keep running 24 hours a day for a whole year. In this way, the price of the knives was cut down by half.

    By 1919, Woolworth had over 1000 stores in the US and Canada, and opened his first store in London. He made a lot of money and his name became famous throughout the world. He always ran his business according to strict rules, of which the most important was: “ THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT.”

    Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England in 1821, and moved to New York City when she was ten years old. One day she decided that she wanted to become a doctor. That was nearly impossible for a woman in the middle of the nineteenth century. After writing many letters asking for admission(录取) to medical schools, she was finally accepted by a doctor in Philadelphia. She was so determined that she taught school and gave music lessons to get money for the cost of schooling.

    In 1849, after graduation from medical school. She decided to further her education in Paris. She wanted to be a surgeon(外科医师) , but a serious eye problem forced her to give up the idea.

    Upon returning to the United States, she found it difficult to start her own practice because she was a woman. By 1857 Elizabeth and her sister, also a doctor, along with another woman doctor, managed to open a new hospital, the first for women and children Besides being the first woman physician and founding her own hospital , she also set up the first medical school for women.

    On a recent night, while I was busy thinking about important social issues, like what to do over the week﹣end and who to do it with, I overheard my parents talking about my future. My dad was upset not the usual stuff that he and Mom and, I guess, a lot of parents worry about like which college I' m going to, how far away it is from home. Instead, he was upset about the world his generation is turning over to mine, a world he fears has a dark and difficult future if it has a future at all.

    "There will be a disease that kills millions, a disastrous energy crisis, a horrible worldwide depression and a nuclear explosion set off in anger."

    As I lay on the living room couch, listening to their conversation, starting to worry about the future my father was describing, I found myself looking at some old family photos.  There was a picture of my grandfather who was a member of the class of 1942, the war class. Next to his picture were photos of my great﹣grandparents. Seeing those pictures made me feel a lot better. I believe tomorrow will be better than today — that the world my generation grows into is going to get better, not worse. Those pictures helped me understand why.

    I considered some of the awful things my grandparents and great﹣grandparents had seen in their lifetimes: two world wars, killer flu, segregation（隔离） , a nuclear bomb.  But they saw other things, too, better things: the end of two world wars, passage of the civil rights laws.

    I believe that my generation will see better things, too that we will witness the time when AIDS is cured and cancer is defeated. I will see things as incredible to me today as the internet to my father when he was 16.