You know the type: self-possessed（adj.镇静的、冷静的）confident, the kind of person who energizes（v. 使活跃）a room. The kind of person who is alive to everything around them, who makes everyone they focus their attention on feel they could do more, they could be more. A natural-born leader who brings out the best in everyone without any apparent effort. Apparently fearless, they inspire by example, making our deepest concerns seem petty(adj.微小的) in the face of sheer living.
There is, I believe, an art to living. An art of living. Like a great painter, some people approach life as their canvas（n.油画帆布）, pulling together deliberate action and tight attention to detail here with a carefree（adj.随意的、无虑的） sloppiness（n.喷溅） over there, creating a balanced and, in the end, entirely pleasing composition. Like the sculptor, they are always looking for potential form hidden under the seemingly shapeless mass of lived experience. And like a musician, they find ways of merging perfectly their own self-expression（自我表现） with forms that have been handed down to them and to others might seem formulaic（adj,公式化的，刻板的）and routine（adj.常规的，平凡的）.
I don’t know if the sheer talent for living can be learned; it takes more than a few painting classes to develop the kind of spark（n.火花） we find in the work of Picasso, Vermeer, or Chagall. But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn anything from them, just as the beginning artist learns from studying the work of the great masters.
