勵志美文閱讀：像一棵果樹

Once, while taking my boat down the inland waterway to Florida, I decided to tie up at Georgetown, South Carolina, for the night and visit with an old friend. As we approached the Esso dock, I saw him through my binoculars standing there awaiting us. Tall and straight as an arrow he stood, facing a cold, penetrating wind - truly a picture of a sturdy man, even though in his eighties. Yes, the man was our elder statesman, Bernard Baruch.

He loaded us into his station wagon and we were off to his famous Hobcaw Barony for dinner. We sat and talked in the great living room where many notables and statesmen, including Roosevelt and Churchill, have sat and taken their cues. In his eighty-second year, still a human dynamo, Mr. Baruch talked not of the past but of present problems and the future, deploring our ignorance of history, economics and psychology. His only reference to the past was to tell me, with the wonderful sparkle in his eyes, that he was only able to get eight quail out of the ten shots the day before. What is the secret of this great man's value to the world? The answer is his insatiable desire to keep being productive.

Another friend of mine, the head of one of our largest corporations, a great steel company, is approaching his middle seventies, and he is still a great leader. He, too, never talks of the past. Instead, he tackles the problems of each day in his stride, brims with plans for the future and, incidentally, shoots in the low seventies on any golf course. He is a happy man because he is productive.

有一次，我沿着內河獨自駕船前往佛羅里達州。到達南卡洛來納的喬治敦時，我決定靠岸過夜，順便去拜訪一位老朋友。船一進埃鬆港，我就從望遠鏡中看到他站在那裏等我們。朋友高而挺拔的身影像一支箭一樣，站立在刺骨的寒風中，簡直一幅健壯男子漢的畫面，雖然畫面中人已年過八旬。沒錯，他就是我們的老一輩政治家，伯納德.巴魯克。

伯納德.巴魯克的旅行轎車載着我們，徑直駛向他那著名的霍布考大莊園用餐。我們就座談話的大客廳，曾有包括羅斯福和丘吉爾在內的許多貴客與政治家光臨，與他交談，傾聽他的意見。如今，巴魯克先生雖已82歲，卻依然活力充沛。他對過去緘口不提，只談論現在與將來的問題，併爲我們對歷史學、經濟學和心理學知識的匱乏而深表遺憾。他告訴我，昨天他只用10發子彈就射中了8只鵪鶉，這也是他提到的唯一一件“往事”。說話時，他的雙眼閃爍着令人愉快的光芒。這位偉大的人物對世界充滿價值的奧祕何在?答案就是他對成就一如既往的追求。

我的另一位朋友領導着一家最大的公司——一個大鋼鐵公司。年近75歲的他，依然是位優秀的領導者。他也從不談及往昔，而是遊刃有餘地處理着每天的問題，頭腦中想的滿是對未來的計劃。並且值得一提的是，70多歲的他，還會不時打打高爾夫球。他是個幸福的人，因爲他有所成就。