编者按:
从不同角度看待事物,你就能更轻松地抓住生活的精髓;而当你仅从一个角度片面地观察世界时,就很可能会变得愤世嫉俗。
Walk clean around the hill
NOW THAT I can look back across the years from the so-called vantage point of experience in two World Wars,travel throughout a large part of the world, and contact with many of the outstanding personalities of our time,it gives me a great deal of real reassurance each day to know that way down deep I learned some fundamental values when I was a boy in a small town in Nebraska.
I have found one thing to be so very true - the virtues I learned as a boy are still fundamental virtues.My point of view has changed,of course,over the years, and so has that of my friends,but so much of all this change of viewpoint is like a small boy gazing at a hill on the plains of Nebraska.The hill remains the same. The small boy only sees it from another angle as he grows up.
I have always tried to walk completely around every hill I have found in existence since, so that I could get a view from every angle. This,I think,reveals the difference between honsty and cynicism.When you see the hill from every angle, you have a much better chance at keeping life in focus.When you only see it from one angle you run the very great danger of becoming cynical.
Two of the fundamental virtues that have benn such a great comfort to me in my life, from the days of my boyhood in Wahoo,Nebraska, until now are loyalty and charity. There are other fundamentals I learned as a boy, but principally loyalty and charity.
Loyalty is not only just a term - it has been a way of life for me. I mean not only loyalty to my friends and family, but to the honest values on which our country was founded.And to me, this guidepost of loyalty of necessity means loyalty to one's own self.
When I was growing up, I rebelled against so many things, and fought against so many of the basic ideas of life - but I found ofter so much rebellion and walking completely around that hill on the Nebraska plains, in my mind's eye,that these virtues had not been tested over the centuries in vain.
Charity is another rule that has been of great comfort to me in so many trying situatuons. Charity is something you must learn.I have been very lucky in life because I have been in a position to give charity,and one should never expect and other reward from charity that the satisfaction it gives.
In taking part in any charity you must give from your heart.Any other type of giving is a terrible cheat on life itself.
Charity and loyalty are two things that have touched my life very deeply. They have been a source of tremendous satisfaction to me every day I have lives. This rule of loyalty has caused me to check back on the course of my activities at the close of rach day, to be sure I haven't knowingly hurt anyone in my day's activities.
I have tried to repair any hurts I have caused before the day's end. This undoubtedly is very selfish of me because I have learned that this rechecking of each day gives me a good night's sleep.
In walking around the hill on the plain each day of my life,the virtues I see - whether I am in London, Paris, Rome,Cairo,Now York,Hollwood or Wahoo,Nebraska - are always the same.
I am grateful for those old-fashioned virtues that I learned as a boy in Nebraska.And I hope I will have enough humility always to be thankful I was born in a country that give me this chance at life.