Years ago, when I started looking for my first job, wise advisers urged, "Barbara, beenthusiastic! Enthusiasm will take you further than any amount of experience."How right theywere. Enthusiastic people can turn a boring drive into an adventure, extra work intoopportunity and strangers into friends.

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm," wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. It is thepaste that helps you hang in there when the going gets tough. It is the inner voice thatwhispers, "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 the1983 Nobel Prize in medicine, to be generally accepted. Yet she didn't let up on herexperiments. 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 aninfant's delight at the jingle of keys or the scurrying of a beetle.It is this childlike wonder thatgives 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 hisfingers, his stooped shoulders would straighten and joy would reappear in his eyes. Music, forCasals, was an elixir that made life a never ending adventure. As author and poet SamuelUllman 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 theword itself. "Enthusiasm" comes from the Greek and means "God within." And what is Godwithin 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 cannotdo what we love as a full-time career, we can as a part-time avocation, like the head of statewho 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 boutsof depression that had plagued her for at least 30 years, and the quality of her work led onecritic to say, "I am tempted to call Layton a genius." Elizabeth has rediscovered herenthusiasm.

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

We need to live each moment wholeheartedly, with all our senses -- finding pleasure in thefragrance of a back-yard garden, the crayoned picture of a six-year-old, the enchanting beautyof a rainbow. It is such enthusiastic love of life that puts a sparkle in our eyes, a lilt in oursteps and smooths the wrinkles from our souls.

多年前， 当我第一次找工作时， 不少明智之士强烈向我建议：“巴巴拉，要有热情!热情比任何经验都更有益。”这话多么正确，热情的人可以把沉闷的车程变成探险， 把加班变成机会， 把生人变成朋友。

“没有热情就不会有任何伟大的成就，” 拉尔夫-沃尔多-爱默生写道当事情进展不顺时，热情是帮助你坚持下去的粘合剂当别人叫喊“你不行”时， 热情是你内心发出的声音：“我能行”。

1983年诺贝尔医学奖的获得者遗传学家巴巴拉-麦克林托克早年的工作直到很多年后才被公众所承认但她并没有放弃实验工作对她来说是一种如此巨大的快乐， 她从未想过要停止它。

我们都生来好奇, 睁大眼睛，满怀热情——每一个看到过婴儿听到钥匙声或看见乱爬的甲虫就兴奋不已的人都会明白这一点。

正是这种孩子气的好奇给了热情的人们(不论年龄大小) 一种青春的气息大提琴家帕布罗-卡萨尔斯在90岁时还坚持以拉巴赫开始他的每一天音乐从他的指间流出， 他弯着的背挺直起来， 欢乐再度溢满他的眼眸音乐对卡萨尔斯来说, 是使人生变成无止境的探索之旅的灵丹妙药就像作家兼诗人塞缪尔-厄尔曼曾写过的：“岁月使皮肤起了皱纹， 但如果失去热情， 便会使灵魂起皱纹”。

怎样才能找回孩提时代的热情呢?我相信答案就在“热情”这个词本身“热情”一词源于希腊语， 原意是“内在的上帝”这里所说的“内在的上帝”不是别的, 而是一种持久不变的爱——恰当的自爱(自我接受)， 并推而及于他人。

热情的人们同样热爱他们所做的事，而不是考虑钱位权如果我们不能把热爱的事作为正式职业， 我们也可把它当作业余消遣：比如有国家元首喜欢画画的， 有修女参加马拉松长跑的， 有行政官员手工制作家具的。

堪萨斯州韦尔斯维尔市的伊丽莎白-莱顿到68岁才开始画画这一爱好消除了曾纠缠她至少达30年之久的忧郁症而她的作品水准之高使得一个评论家说：“我忍不住要称莱顿为天才”伊丽莎白又找回了她的热情。

我们不应该把眼泪浪费在“早该”之类的后悔上我们需要把眼泪化为汗水，去追求“可能”之物。

我们需要以全副身心去度过生命中的每一分钟——在后花园的芬芳中在6岁小孩的蜡笔画中在彩虹醉人的美中找到快乐正是这种对生活的热爱， 让我们双目有神，让我们步履矫健，让我们灵魂的皱纹展平。