He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, Is this jar full? 站在那些高智商高学历的学生前面，他说：“我们来做个小测验”，拿出一个一加仑的广口瓶放在他面前的桌上。随后，他取出一堆拳头大小的石块，仔细地一块放进玻璃瓶。直到石块高出瓶口，再也放不下了，他问道：“瓶子满了？”Everyone in the class yelled, Yes. The time management expert replied, Really? He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.
He then asked the group once more, Is this jar full?
所有学生应道：“满了！”。时间管理专家反问：“真的？”他伸手从桌下拿出一桶砾石，倒了一些进去，并敲击玻璃瓶壁使砾石填满下面石块的间隙。“现在瓶子满了吗？”他第二次问道。
By this time the class was on to him. Probably not, one of them answered. Good! he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, Is this jar full?
但这一次学生有些明白了，“可能还没有”，一位学生应道。“很好！”专家说。他伸手从桌下拿出一桶沙子，开始慢慢倒进玻璃瓶。沙子填满了石块和砾石的所有间隙。他又一次问学生：“瓶子满了吗？”
loved ones, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these big rocks in first or youll never get them in at all.
“不！”时间管理专家说，“那不是它真正的意思，这个例子告诉我们：如果你不是先放大石块，那你就再也不能把它放进瓶子了。那么，什么是你生命中的大石头呢？也许是你的道德感、你的梦想？还有你的---切切记得先去处理这些大石块，否则，一辈子你都不能做！”
My Forever Valentine
The traditional holidays in our house when I was a child were spent timing elaborate meals around football games. My father tried to make pleasant chitchat and eat as much as he could during halftime. At Christmas he found time to have a cup or two of holiday cheer and do his holly-shaped bow tie1. But he didn't truly shine until Valentine's Day.
I don't know whether it was because work at the office slowed during February or because the
football season was over. But Valentine's Day was the time my father chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly2thought of him as my “Valentine Man.”My first recollection3of the magic4he could bring to Valentine's Day came when I was six. For several days I had been cutting out valentines for my classmates. Each of us was to decorate a “mailbox ”and put it on our desk for others to give us cards. That box and its contents ushered in5a succession6of bittersweet7memories of my entrance into a world of popularity8contests marked by the number of cards received, the teasing about boyfriends/girlfriendsand the tender care I gave to the card from the cutest boy in class.
That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and a gift-wrapped package at my chair. The card was signed “Love, Dad”, and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to represent my birthstone9, a ruby10. There is little difference
between red glass and rubies to a child of six, and I remember wearing that ring with a pride that all the cards in the world could not surpass11.
As I grew older, the gifts gave way to heart shaped boxes filled with my favorite chocolates and always included a special card signed “Love, Dad”.In those years my “thank-yous”became more of a perfunctory12response.The cards seemed less important, and I took for granted the valentine that would always be there. Long past the days of having a “mailbox”on my desk, I had placed my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from “significant others”, and “Love, Dad”just didn't seem quite enough.
If my father knew then that he had been replaced, he never let it show. If he sensed any disappointment over valentines that didn't arrive for me, he just tried that much harder to create a positive atmosphere, giving me an extra hug and doing what he could to make my day a little
brighter.
My mailbox eventually had a rural address, and the job of hand delivering candy and cards was relegated13to the U.S.Postal Service. Never in ten years was my father's package late--nor was it on the Valentine's Day eight years ago when I reached into the mailbox to find a card addressed to me in my mother's handwriting.
It was the kind of card that comes in an inexpensive assortment14box sold by a child going door-to-door to try to earn money for a school project. It was the kind of card that you used to get from a grandmother or an aging aunt or, in this case, a dying father. It was the kind of card that put a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes because you knew the person no longer was able to go out and buy a real valentine. It was a card that signaled15this would be the last you receive from him.
The card had a photograph of tulips16on the outside, and on the inside my mother had printed “Happy Valentine's Day”. Beneath it, scrawled17in barely legible18handwriting, was “Love, Dad”.
His final card remains on my bulletin board today. It's a reminder of how special fathers can be and how important it had been to me over the years to know that I had a father who continued a tradition of love with a generosity of spirit, simple acts of understanding and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.
Those things never die, nor does the memory of a man who never stopped being my valentine
Remark:
1.bow tie 蝶形领结
2.fondly adv.充满感情地，深情地
3.recollection n.回忆
4.magic n.魅力，魔力，施魔法
5.usher vt.(与in 搭配)展示，预报…的来到
n.(前后相接的)一系列6.succession
7.bittersweet adj.又苦又乐的
8.popularity n.得人心，声望
9.birthstone n.诞生石(象征出生月份表示吉祥的宝石，从1月至12月通常分别为，石榴石、紫晶、血纹绿宝石、金刚石、绿宝石、珍珠、红宝石、缠丝玛瑙、蓝宝石、蛋白石、黄玉、绿松石)
10.ruby n.红宝石，红宝石制品
11.surpass vt.胜过
12.perfunctory adj.敷衍的
13.relegate vt.交付，托付
14.assortment n.分类
15.signal vt.表明，标志着
16.tulip n.[植]郁金香
17.scrawl vi.涂写
18.legible adj.清楚的
He also produced about a dozen fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar. When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, Is this jar full? 站在那些高智商高学历的学生前面，他说：“我们来做个小测验”，拿出一个一加仑的广口瓶放在他面前的桌上。随后，他取出一堆拳头大小的石块，仔细地一块放进玻璃瓶。直到石块高出瓶口，再也放不下了，他问道：“瓶子满了？”Everyone in the class yelled, Yes. The time management expert replied, Really? He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. He dumped some gravel in and shook the jar, causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks.
He then asked the group once more, Is this jar full?
所有学生应道：“满了！”。时间管理专家反问：“真的？”他伸手从桌下拿出一桶砾石，倒了一些进去，并敲击玻璃瓶壁使砾石填满下面石块的间隙。“现在瓶子满了吗？”他第二次问道。
By this time the class was on to him. Probably not, one of them answered. Good! he replied. He reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in the jar and it went into all of the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, Is this jar full?
但这一次学生有些明白了，“可能还没有”，一位学生应道。“很好！”专家说。他伸手从桌下拿出一桶沙子，开始慢慢倒进玻璃瓶。沙子填满了石块和砾石的所有间隙。他又一次问学生：“瓶子满了吗？”
loved ones, your education, your dreams, a worthy cause, teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put these big rocks in first or youll never get them in at all.
“不！”时间管理专家说，“那不是它真正的意思，这个例子告诉我们：如果你不是先放大石块，那你就再也不能把它放进瓶子了。那么，什么是你生命中的大石头呢？也许是你的道德感、你的梦想？还有你的---切切记得先去处理这些大石块，否则，一辈子你都不能做！”
My Forever Valentine
The traditional holidays in our house when I was a child were spent timing elaborate meals around football games. My father tried to make pleasant chitchat and eat as much as he could during halftime. At Christmas he found time to have a cup or two of holiday cheer and do his holly-shaped bow tie1. But he didn't truly shine until Valentine's Day.
I don't know whether it was because work at the office slowed during February or because the
football season was over. But Valentine's Day was the time my father chose to show his love for the special people in his life. Over the years I fondly2thought of him as my “Valentine Man.”My first recollection3of the magic4he could bring to Valentine's Day came when I was six. For several days I had been cutting out valentines for my classmates. Each of us was to decorate a “mailbox ”and put it on our desk for others to give us cards. That box and its contents ushered in5a succession6of bittersweet7memories of my entrance into a world of popularity8contests marked by the number of cards received, the teasing about boyfriends/girlfriendsand the tender care I gave to the card from the cutest boy in class.
That morning at the breakfast table I found a card and a gift-wrapped package at my chair. The card was signed “Love, Dad”, and the gift was a ring with a small piece of red glass to represent my birthstone9, a ruby10. There is little difference
between red glass and rubies to a child of six, and I remember wearing that ring with a pride that all the cards in the world could not surpass11.
As I grew older, the gifts gave way to heart shaped boxes filled with my favorite chocolates and always included a special card signed “Love, Dad”.In those years my “thank-yous”became more of a perfunctory12response.The cards seemed less important, and I took for granted the valentine that would always be there. Long past the days of having a “mailbox”on my desk, I had placed my hopes and dreams in receiving cards and gifts from “significant others”, and “Love, Dad”just didn't seem quite enough.
If my father knew then that he had been replaced, he never let it show. If he sensed any disappointment over valentines that didn't arrive for me, he just tried that much harder to create a positive atmosphere, giving me an extra hug and doing what he could to make my day a little
brighter.
My mailbox eventually had a rural address, and the job of hand delivering candy and cards was relegated13to the U.S.Postal Service. Never in ten years was my father's package late--nor was it on the Valentine's Day eight years ago when I reached into the mailbox to find a card addressed to me in my mother's handwriting.
It was the kind of card that comes in an inexpensive assortment14box sold by a child going door-to-door to try to earn money for a school project. It was the kind of card that you used to get from a grandmother or an aging aunt or, in this case, a dying father. It was the kind of card that put a lump in your throat and tears in your eyes because you knew the person no longer was able to go out and buy a real valentine. It was a card that signaled15this would be the last you receive from him.
The card had a photograph of tulips16on the outside, and on the inside my mother had printed “Happy Valentine's Day”. Beneath it, scrawled17in barely legible18handwriting, was “Love, Dad”.
His final card remains on my bulletin board today. It's a reminder of how special fathers can be and how important it had been to me over the years to know that I had a father who continued a tradition of love with a generosity of spirit, simple acts of understanding and an ability to express happiness over the people in his life.
Those things never die, nor does the memory of a man who never stopped being my valentine
Remark:
1.bow tie 蝶形领结
2.fondly adv.充满感情地，深情地
3.recollection n.回忆
4.magic n.魅力，魔力，施魔法
5.usher vt.(与in 搭配)展示，预报…的来到
n.(前后相接的)一系列6.succession
7.bittersweet adj.又苦又乐的
8.popularity n.得人心，声望
9.birthstone n.诞生石(象征出生月份表示吉祥的宝石，从1月至12月通常分别为，石榴石、紫晶、血纹绿宝石、金刚石、绿宝石、珍珠、红宝石、缠丝玛瑙、蓝宝石、蛋白石、黄玉、绿松石)
10.ruby n.红宝石，红宝石制品
11.surpass vt.胜过
12.perfunctory adj.敷衍的
13.relegate vt.交付，托付
14.assortment n.分类
15.signal vt.表明，标志着
16.tulip n.[植]郁金香
17.scrawl vi.涂写
18.legible adj.清楚的