[美文欣賞]

Learning:A Lifelong Career

As food is to the body, so is learning to the mind. Our bodies grow and muscles develop with the intake of adequate nutritious food. Likewise, we should keep learning day by day to maintain our keen mental power and expand our intellectual capacity. Constant learning supplies us with inexhaustible fuel for driving us to sharpen our power of reasoning, analysis, and judgment. Learning incessantly is the surest way to keep pace with the times in the information age, and reliable warrant of success in times of uncertainty.

Once learning stops, vegetation sets in. It is a common fallacy to regard school as the only workshop for the acquisition of knowledge. On the contrary, learning should be a never-ending process, from the cradle to the grave. With the world changing so fast, to cease learning for just a few days will make a person lag behind. What's worse, the animal instinct dormant deep in our sub-conscious will come to life.weakening our will to pursue our noble ideas, undermining our determination to sweep away obstacles to our success and strangling our desire for the refinement of our character. Lack of learning will inevitably lead to the stagnation of the mind, or even worse, its fossilization. Therefore, to stay mentally young, we have to take learning as a lifelong career.

[參考譯文]

學習：一生的事業

學習之于心靈，就像食物之于身體一樣。攝取了適量的營養食物，我們的身體得以生長而肌肉得以發達。 同樣地，我們應該日復一日不斷地學習以保持我們心智的敏銳，并擴充我們的智力容量。不斷的學習提供我們用之不盡的燃料，來驅使我們磨礪我們的推理、分析和判斷的能力。持續的學習是在信息時代中跟時代井駕齊驅的最穩當的方法，也是在變動的時代中成功的可靠保證。

一旦學習停止，單調貧乏的生活就開始了。視學校為汲取知識的惟一場所是種常見的謬誤。相反地，從生到死,學習應該是一種無終止的歷程。 由于世界變化得如此迅速，只要學習停頓數日就能使人落后。更糟的是，蟄伏在我們潛意識深處的獸性本能就會復活，削弱我們追求高尚理想的意志，弱化我們掃除成功障礙的決心，而且扼殺我們凈化我們人格的欲望。缺少學習將不可避免地導致心靈的停滯，甚至更糟，使其僵化。因此，為了保持心態年輕，我們必須將學習當作一生的事業。