Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, "Barbara, be enthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience."

 How right they were. Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work into opportunity and strangers into friends.

 "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is the paste that helps you hang in there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice that whispers, "I can do it!" when others shout, "No, you can't."

 It took years and years for the early work of Barbara McClintock, a geneticist who won the 1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn't let up on her experiments. Work was such a deep pleasure for her that she never thought of stopping.

 We are all born with wide-eyed, enthusiastic wonder as anyone knows who has ever seen an infant's delight at the jingle of keys or the scurrying of a beetle.

 It is this childlike wonder that gives enthusiastic people such a youthful air, whatever their age.

 At 90, cellist Pablo Casals would start his day by playing Bach. As the music flowed through his fingers, his stooped shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. Music, for Casals, was an elixir that made life a never ending adventure. As author and poet Samuel Ullman once wrote, "Years wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul."

 How do you rediscover the enthusiasm of your childhood? The answer, I believe, lies in the word itself. "Enthusiasm" comes from the Greek and means "God within." And what is God within is but an abiding sense of love -- proper love of self (self-acceptance) and, from that, love of others.

 Enthusiastic people also love what they do, regardless of money or title or power. If we cannot do what we love as a full-time career, we can as a part-time avocation, like the head of state who paints, the nun who runs marathons, the executive who handcrafts furniture.

 Elizabeth Layton of Wellsville, Kan, was 68 before she began to draw. This activity ended bouts of depression that had plagued her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led one critic to say, "I am tempted to call Layton a genius." Elizabeth has rediscovered her enthusiasm.

 We can't afford to waste tears on "might-have-beens." We need to turn the tears into sweat as we go after "what-can-be."

 We need to live each moment wholeheartedly, with all our senses -- finding pleasure in the fragrance of a back-yard garden, the crayoned picture of a six-year-old, the enchanting beauty of a rainbow. It is such enthusiastic love of life that puts a sparkle in our eyes, a lilt in our steps and smoothes the wrinkles from our souls.
多年以前，当我开始寻找我的第一个份工作的时候，我的聪明的指导老师就一再敦促我：" Barbara，记住，一定要充满激情、一定要热情！  你再多的经验也没有激情带给你的多！

 这是多么地正确！ 充满激情的人总能把令人乏味的事情变成一场冒险般的乐事！把额外的工作变成机会、使陌生人变成朋友。

 "再伟大的事情没有激情什么也做不成！"  Ralph Waldo Emerson写到。当事情变得棘手时，浆糊般的韧劲帮助你坚持着。当其他人在你面前大声说到，" 不，你做不到！"时，是来自内心的声音低声地告诉你：" 我能做到！ "

 这是赢得1983诺贝尔医学奖的一个遗传学家Barbara McClintock的早期所从事的工作，为了使大家普遍能够接受这个观点，这已经花费了她很多年了。至今她依然没放松她的实验。这份工作对她来讲是她从未想过停止的，这份工作带给她的是一种深层次的快乐。

 我们出生时都是睁大眼睛，充满激情地注视着这个满是奇迹的世界，任何人都曾经从婴儿看到钥匙的丁当声中和一只甲壳虫的轻快而迅捷的步履中感受到婴儿的那份天真无邪的快乐。

 无论他们的年龄多大，正是这孩子似的好奇给了充满激情的人们年轻的感觉。

 上世纪九十年代，大提琴演奏家Pablo Casals通过演奏Bach作品开始了他的音乐生涯。当音乐流过他的手指时，他曲背的肩将会变直，快乐会重新浮现在他的眼里。音乐，对于他来说，是使他的生命成为一个没有结局的冒险之旅的万能药。作为作者和诗人的Samuel Ullman曾经写到：" 岁月会慢慢吹皱你的皮肤，可放弃激情就会吹皱你的灵魂。 "

 我们又能怎样重新发现我们孩提时的那份激情呢？答案我相信就在这个单词本身，“热情”这个词来自希腊语，其意思就是“上帝在心中。”什么是“上帝在心中”其实就是一种持久的爱的感觉。恰如其分的自尊自爱、自我认同、自我接受，而且以此出发，惠及众人的一种爱。

 热心的人同样热爱他们所做的，而不管金钱、头衔或者权威。  如果我们不能全职全心地去做我们所热爱的事情的话， 我们可以把自己的喜好像那些刷油漆的国家首脑、跑马拉松的那些修女、用手工造家俱的那些公司经历们一样，作为我们的业余爱好！

 在Wellsville Kan的Elizabeth Layton已经68岁了，她开始决定学画画了，这个决定终于结束了如瘟疫般地困扰了至少30年的画画的这份爱好，而且她的绘画作品让一个评论家都忍不住叹道：“我只想说的是，Elizabeth Layton是一个天才啊！” Elizabeth终于重新找到了她的激情！

 我们负担不起在那些“本来应该发生的事”上去流泪！我们没有时间再去后悔了，我们需要做的就是把眼泪转化成汗水，去追求我们能够成为什么！

 我们需要全心全意活在此时此刻，带着我们全部的感觉……在一个后院花园里的芳香里、一个6 岁孩子的腊笔画里、一道彩虹那迷人的美丽中去发现快乐。  正是这种生活中充满激情的爱，才会使我们的双眼闪烁着光芒，使我们脚步轻松欢快！抚平我们心灵中的那些皱纹。