It never occurred to me when I was little that gardens were anything less than wonderful places. Granddad's garden was on the bank of a river and sloped gently down towards the water. You couldn't reach the river but you could hear the sound of the water and the birds that sang in the trees above.

At home, his son, my father, could be quiet and withdrawn. I wouldn't want to make him sound humorless. He wasn't. Silly things would amuse him. I realize that, deep down, he was probably disappointed that he hadn't made more of his life. He left school without qualifications and became a beginner to a plumber(水管工). Plumbing was not something he was passionate about. It was just what he did. He was never particularly ambitious, though there was a moment when he and Mum thought of emigrating to Canada, but it came to nothing. Where he came into his own was around the house. He had an "eye for the job." Be it bookshelves or a cupboard—what he could achieve was astonishing.

Of the three options, moors (荒野), woods or river—the river was the one that usually got my vote. On a stretch of the river I was allowed to disappear with my imagination into another world. With a fishing net over my shoulder I could set off in shoes that were last year's model. I'd walk along the river bank looking for a suitable spot where I could take off the painful shoes and leave them with my picnic while I adventured out, peering through the water for any fish that I could scoop up with the net and take home.

I wanted to leave school as soon as possible but that seemed an unlikely prospect until one day my father announced, "They've got a post for an gardener in the Parks Department. I thought you might be interested." He might still have preferred it if I became a carpenter. But I like to feel that somewhere inside him was a feeling that things might just turn out for the best. Maybe I'm cheating myself, but I prefer to believe that in his heart, although he hated gardening himself, he'd watched me doing it for long enough and noticed my unfailing passion for all things that grew and flowered and fruited.

You are what you think. Whatever you are doing right now is determined by your thinking. All your emotions and desires are influenced by your thinking. The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking, you have no chance of correcting it if it is poor. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it. What's worse, few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in their lives, so they don't gain significant command of it. As a result, most people are in many ways victims of their thinking.

Consider your success as a student. The single most significant variable in determining your success as a student is the quality of your thinking. Your instructors will play a role in your learning, but even the best teachers cannot get into your head and learn for you. If you lack the intellectual skills necessary for thinking well through course content, you will not be successful in school.

Here is the key question we are putting to you in this book. If the quality of a person's thinking is the single most significant determinant of both happiness and success, why not take the time to learn from the best thinkers?

This book will inform you of the tools that the best thinkers use and will illustrate the activities and practice you can use to begin to emulate them, and take control of your destiny as a thinker. Each chapter focuses on a different aspect of these thinking aids, helping you discover the power of your own mind and of your potential to think systematically about your thinking.

This book, as a whole, introduces you to the tools of mind that will help you reason well through various challenges you face. If you take these ideas seriously and practice using them, you can improve the quality of your thinking and ultimately, the quality of your life.

Kala has deep ties to her Hawaiian roots. Her ancestors navigated (航行) the oceans for centuries using their knowledge of the stars, the sun, the currents and the wind. It's not that she does it in a canoe without technology, but rather uses the natural technology around her. It's called Way finding, and was taught to her by her father.

"My father was my foundation, my rock. "she says of her first voyage with him from Oahu to Lahaina in a traditional canoe. He taught her how to read the stars, the ocean swells and how to use them to hold the course. "Over 200 stars have specific names and purposes when you are Way finding. You have to look at each and determine if they are rising or setting. You know this star and the direction it represents. If you can do that, you can use it as a tool to orient (确定方向). "Kala added.

Kala Tanaka sailed the canoe in the ocean for up to three weeks. During the day, Kala used the sun until it hit a certain height. When she got closer to land, she looked for certain species of land birds and clouds that indicated there was land below. When Kala sailed she felt" I feel very connected to the crew and the canoe. We're a family. "The longer voyage required Kala to spend hours studying the day and the night skies. It was demanding physical work. But it also had its moments of awe. For Kala, the beauty was in tying together the past and the present to enjoy the moment. So when she was not sailing, she was teaching Way finding skills to school-aged children in hopes of preserving the skills her ancestors relied on.

It's easy to be lost in the immediacy of the technology of our day, to be consumed by screens and miss the nature that unfolds around us. But if we will take the time to look up, to see the stars and the sun, the way the clouds move, the miracle of life beneath and above us, we will discover something deep inside us, something that will always lead to happiness.