心灵鸡汤五十篇 ———年轻人要读的 50 篇文章 2008 年1 月 1. Life Struggle----生命的拼搏 对强者而言,磨难犹如刀剑,使他愈见锋芒,诚如孟子所言:“天将降大任于斯人也,必先苦其心志,劳其筋骨……”不经过磨难的生活,日子未免过得乏味;不经过磨难的命运,人生便显得苍白。就生命而言,总是从平坦中获得的效益少,从磨难中获得的教益深。 Once upon a time in a land far far away, there was a wonderful old man who loved everything. Animals, spiders, insects... One day while walking through the woods the nice old man found a cocoon of a butterfly. He took it home. A few days later, a small opening appeared; he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no farther. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were Nature's way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exact...