"Calendar Girl" is a book that I read last year, and I recently came across it and read it again, with memories of past feelings and a deeper understanding of life attitudes.
The book was written by the British writer Eva. In Woods's book, the author integrates two very different lifestyles and attitudes into the same time and space, telling the reader how to make life shine differently. This article will analyze the life inspiration brought by the "New Voice in Women's Literature" from three perspectives.
By chance, Polly, a brain tumor patient, and Anne, whose mother was seriously ill and hospitalized, lived a depressed life, met. It may seem that the two men's plight is worrying, but their state is completely different: Polly, who is told that he can only live for another 100 days, happily does what he wants to do every day, and even gives a name to his brain tumor; and Anne, like most people who have been hit by life, is haggard and spiritless, complaining about her life and work every day, feeling that she has lost the motivation to live.
The encounter between the two made Anne's life change dramatically: under Polly's "entanglement", Anne was finally willing to listen patiently to Polly's speech and agreed to try a challenge - the Happy 100-Day Plan.
As the name suggests, the plan is to try to do something that makes you happy every day for a hundred days. No matter how big or small, as long as you feel happy.
Polly's life seems a little incomprehensible to the average person: she always does what she wants, never caring about other people's eyes, so Anne who is with her is always embarrassed. But later, under the infection of Polly, Anne also began to unconsciously join the crazy plan.
Anne felt a long-lost sense of relief after taking her first steps, and even her colleagues felt her change. We can think about why Anne felt the bleakness of life. Seriously ill people who no longer know their mothers, a cramped and stuffy work environment, a boss they don't like, and a rental house that can never be clean because of the people they share...
There are so many things that make Anne unhappy, think about whether there are many annoying things in our own lives? Stress at school, work, family, memories of the past, and worries about the future can all be factors in our bad mood. The fast pace of the modern city is often overwhelming, and our happiness is being invisibly "deprived".
We may feel that it is this era and that others have brought us unhappiness, but if we meditate quietly, we will find that it is precisely because we will not consciously relieve the boredom in our hearts that we will gradually tie them into more and more solid knots. "We must also tie the bell to the bell", we inadvertently add troubles to our lives, and naturally we can also create happiness for our own lives. Of course, the purpose of our happiness is not only to stay in the mood, but to make our lives new and colorful through this emotion.
You may wonder: can pleasant emotions affect your entire life? Psychology divides emotions into mood, passion, and stress according to the speed, intensity, and duration of emotional occurrence. The pleasant emotions we speak of belong to the state of mind. A state of mind is a weak, calm, long-lasting, diffuse emotional state. That is to say, when we have this pleasant state of mind, we often look at everything around us in the same emotional state, so that all our activities are stained with a certain emotional color, affecting our behavior.
It can be seen that pleasant emotions not only make us feel satisfied, but also make our lives full of happiness. Like Polly and later Annie, they created a little happiness for themselves through their own actions, and it was this happiness that made the last 100 days of Polly's life still beautiful, and made Anne's life full later.
Although we are willing to make happiness in our lives, there are some difficulties that we still can't stop. Polly is so optimistic and loves life, but she still can't stop the brain tumor from growing in her body, let alone prevent death.
What attracted me to the book was its realism: the story was not a good ending to a reunion. Polly can't overcome the disease, just like the dilemma we can't avoid in life. When difficulties are visible and knowable, people often have two manifestations: one is to face positively, and the other is to wait passively.
Naturally, Polly chose to face it positively. She spent the remaining 100 days of her life experiencing many things she had always wanted to try, and she did not choose to give up under the invasion of brain tumors. And infected Anne with her spirit, changed Anne's life, and made a period of time that should have been bleak have its meaning. Polly's optimistic, kind, and meaningful personality reminds me of a warm film released in France in 2001, Angel Amelie.
The protagonist of the film, Emily, is born with an illness, which makes her childhood different from other children. The encounter of childhood and the death of her mother did not make her lose hope of living, but made her decide to help more people in need.
She lives in this world like an angel, and in the face of the storm brought by life, she does not complain blindly, but chooses to "dance in the rain". Life is her stage, she uses her actions to give life a different meaning, and blooms dazzling brilliance on the stage of life.
Although it is not up to us to choose whether the wind and rain will come, we can decide whether to let it be whipped or enjoyed, and Anne's transformation also tells us this truth.
I believe that everyone has heard a saying: to make every day of your life the last day. This sentence always feels a little sad in my understanding. Of course, this will make us give up some distractions and cherish the life in front of us more, but it is inevitable that there will be some melancholy. And Polly's story tells us another lesson: Every day is the beginning of life.
People always like days full of hope, and the word "new" is always given all kinds of beautiful meanings. Starting over represents a new life, a new hope.
Every day of Polly is new, every day of Anne before nothing has changed is connected with the past, and the state of life is obvious through comparison.
Don't be the one who makes you unhappy, there are enough others who make you unhappy. Remember, today will always be the first day of the rest of your life.
The famous Russian writer Pushkin has a world-famous poem - "If Life Deceives You". This poem also expresses a positive and optimistic attitude towards life, which is an inspiration for people's lives.
At the time of writing this poem, Pushkin was in seclusion. But he still did not lose hope and wrote this powerful verse:
The heart is always yearning for the future; Now it's often melancholy. Everything is instantaneous, everything will pass; And what has passed will become a kind nostalgia.
"Everything will pass" is comforting, but it is also righteous. The human heart should always yearn for the future, because life does not allow us to go backwards. Life should be cherished by us, but the pursuit of hope is an important prerequisite for cherishing life. I firmly believe that every day is new, and hope will inadvertently creep in.
"Calendar Girl" is a book that teaches us how to face life better, and the author uses the contrast between the two living conditions and the transformation of one of them under the influence of the other to illustrate the meaning of life - we should not lose hope in life at any time, and we ourselves can give life the most happiness.
Each of us will have all kinds of pressures, and complaints are inevitable. It's just that we have to give ourselves a chance to breathe, and we can't let the happiness in our hearts be squeezed away by the pressure we create. Happiness is everyone's right, it is never far away from us, as long as we are willing to keep it, it will be our motivation to try to live and move forward.
May our lives be filled with joy, and may every day be a new and hopeful day.