但是，人們總是很輕易地就失去了信心，尤其是陷于新舊交替的當(dāng)口時(shí)更是如此。

這時(shí)，我們必須想想鳳凰――在逝去的灰燼中一次次地重生。要知道，你已經(jīng)度過生命中最艱難的那一刻，這一想法會(huì)帶給你安慰和勇氣。

古人將每一次的危機(jī)都視作神賜：一種解放、重生。只要是能夠幫助他們從黑暗走向光明的事物，就都是有益的。

甚至還有人認(rèn)為，異常的苦難并不是對那些犯下滔天大罪的人的懲罰，而是上天給他所寵愛的少數(shù)人的一種恩賜，是對他們的考驗(yàn)。

回首過去，你應(yīng)該也會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，過去那些最痛苦的經(jīng)歷的確為你以后的生活撒下了美好的種子。

仔細(xì)品味一下過去歲月中的那些陰影吧，它們增加了生命的深度和意義；而同時(shí)，你也要向前方展望，展望那令人炫目的未知的世界。

你將會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)生命沒有結(jié)局，只有開始。

Have you heard about the birth myth  It is supposed to hold the key, not so much to who you are, as to who you think you are.

The birth myth is the story you’ve been told about circumstances surrounding your birth.

It stands to reason that it makes a difference if you were born after three days of protracted labour, so agonising that your mother vowed never to bear another child, and never did…

Or if you were the long-awaited heir hailed as a gift from heaven, whose birth was celebrated in floods of champagne;or the unwanted fruit of a shameful illicit liaison, born after a failed termination, to your mother’s bitter grief.

Or perhaps you were the seventh out of ten, who slipped into the world almost unnoticed  So insignificant, even your family can’t recall much about it.

Or a weakling saved against the odds amidst much tears and anguish: a triumph of life over affliction 

Often it is nothing but a myth; sometimes quite unfounded. But it still reveals a lot about your own perceptions.

Now you know what the birth myth is. The question is ? what is yours 

August, 1948. A hospital in Gothenburg, Sweden. A young doctor, himself a patient, in a bare room, nearing the end of a losing battle against leukaemia.

Next to him, his wife: younger still, looking like a school-girl, except for the fact that she is nine months pregnant. They are waiting, as they have been waiting these last seven months, for life, for death. Which will arrive first  Will he ever see this child, their third 

The following day, she doesn’t arrive as usual. Instead there is a telephone call from his colleague in the maternity unit. “Congr-atulations! You have a daughter.”

Nobody knew where he found the strength to get up from his death-bed. He surprised them all as he entered the room, where his wife was nursing the new-born.

He took the baby in his arms, and for a short while they were together, the three of them, united by a sheer, ephemeral joy.

“Will you call her Ann ” he said, handing her back. “Ann Margareta Maria.” He knew he would never see his daughter again. This was the moment he’d been holding on for.

The baptism took place the day after his funeral. They gave her the names he had requested.

Such was my entry to life, the heritage I carry. He was my father. And I was his last-born child.

I found my neighbour in tears by her cattle-shed. She looked tired and dishevelled, her clothes were stained with mud and blood.

“We lost the calf,” she wept in answer to my question. “A fine bull calf. Everything was perfect. The little hooves, tail, ears; teeth and all.”

Are calves born with teeth  I asked myself but I didn’t say so. I sympathised with her sadness, having once shed a few tears myself over a Charolais calf still-born for no better reason than the vet being out of reach. I remember the sight of the strong muscular body in its golden hide. The uncomprehending look of the mother as she licked him, expecting life.