Throwing away unwanted food has become a big issue in the world. While some of us throw away unwanted items, people in other parts of the world face food shortages and are starving. It's a shocking fact that a third of the world's food is wasted each year, which is enough to feed a billion hungry people.
You may think supermarkets are the main contributors to this mountain of food. After all, they do desert stuff that is past its sell-by-date and they often refuse to sell fruits or vegetables that are in the wrong shape or look damaged. They've also been criticized for encouraging customers to buy more than they need through promotions such as “buy one and get one free”.
But the biggest culprit for creating food waste is us human beings. In Europe, an incredible 53% of food waste comes from households, which results in 88 million tons of food waste a year. So instead of filling our bellies, our food is filling up landfill sites.
In Denmark, a woman called Selina Juul has been working hard to solve this problem. She moved from Russia many years ago and was amazed to see the abundance of food available in the supermarkets. But despite so much availability, she found that people were buying more than they needed and throwing too much away.
She convinced some supermarkets to stop selling their items in bulk (大量) so that people bought only what they needed. She produced a leftover cookbook and set up an education program in schools, which has helped create a significant 25% reduction in food waste.
Clearly, we need to think twice when we buy something in supermarkets or online, and when we're at home we should make the most of the food we have — using recipes that use up our leftovers or even sharing our remaining food with our friends and neighbors.
Does handwriting matter? Not very much, according to many educators. However, scientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting is not important. New evidence suggests that the link between handwriting and educational development is deep.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they are also better able to create ideas and remember information. In other words, it's not only what we write that matters — but how.
A study led by Karin James, a psychologist at Indiana University, gave support to that view. A group of children, who had not learned to read and write, were offered a letter or a shape on a card and asked to copy it in one of three ways: draw the image on a page but with a dotted outline（虚线）, draw it on a piece of blank white paper, or type it on a computer. Then the researchers put the children in a brain scanner and showed them the image again.
It was found that when children had drawn a letter freehand without a dotted outline or a computer, the activity in three areas of the brain were increased. These three areas work actively in adults when they read and write. By contrast, children who chose the other two ways showed no such effect. Dr. James attributes the differences to the process of free handwriting: Not only must we first plan and take action in a way but we are also likely to produce a result that is variable. Those are not necessary when we have an outline.
It's time for educators to change their mind and pay more attention to children's handwriting.
There are a lot of names for people who travel the world—backpackers, tourists, explorers, travelers. Labels（标签）are everywhere but seem especially popular among travelers trying to differentiate（区别） their style of travel. For many travelers, these labels make them feel better over another.
Andrew Zimmern from Bizarre Foods once said, "Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things,
meet new people, and look beyond what's right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in. " The idea here is that travelers are better at exploring the world than tourists. They dig deep into the culture, drink it up, and get to know a place while a tourist takes pictures and declares to have "done Paris. "But that's wrong. we are all tourists.
On the road, backpackers love to talk about how real their travels are and how unreal tourists are. "Look at those tourists over there, " they say. They scoff at others who travel too quickly or to places that they think are not well worth visiting. Nevertheless, they do so while eating hamburgers and drinking beers with other travelers.
The only way to really get to know a place deeply is to live there. If you want to live like a local, find an apartment, get a job, go to work, and do the same things as you did back home.
We are all only passing through a culture, getting a small taste before moving on to the next place. Even if we stay weeks or months, we're just getting in touch with the surface. As a matter of fact, we are all really just tourists, or explorers, or travelers. Call yourself whatever you want — it's all the same as we're all trying to do the same thing — see the world.
So don't label anyone and don't let anyone label you. We're all tourists. We're all travelers. What we are all doing is more important than what we call ourselves. Let's just enjoy the fact that we are simply people on the road.
When you set a foot outside of your door to drop trash, go to a social event or go for a walk, thoughts like “I hope I don't see anyone I know” or “please don't talk to me” may run through your mind. I've also said such things to myself. Sometimes the last thing you want to do is to talk with someone, especially someone new.
Why do we go out of our ways to avoid people? Do we think meeting new people is a waste of time? Or are we just lazy, thinking that meeting someone new really is a trouble?
Communication is the key to life. We have been told that many times. Take the past generations, like our parents, for example. They seem to take full advantage of that whole “communication” idea because they grew up talking face to face while Generation-Y grew up staring at screens. We spend hours of our days sitting on Facebook. We send messages to our friends and think about all of the things we want to say to certain people that we don't have the courage to actually do in reality.
Nowadays, we are so caught up in our little circle of friends—our comfort zone. We love it that they laugh at our jokes, understand our feelings and can read our minds. Most importantly, they know when we want to be alone. They just get us.
Holding a conversation with someone new means agreeing with things that you don't actually believe and being someone you think they want you to be—it is, as I said before, a trouble. It takes up so much energy, and at some point or another, it is too tiring.
But meeting new people is important. Life is too short, so meet all the people you can meet, make the effort to go out and laugh. Remember, every “hello” leads to a smile—and a smile is worth a lot.
The first time I came to Beijing, I barely spoke a word of Chinese and had no idea about what it would mean to live in a new country.
I went on adventures in supermarkets, thinking: "What is this place, with hundreds of noodle types but only two brands of steak? "I walked around to get a better sense of the city. I would start a morning near Houhai, which was amazing with commercial walkways. From there, I would wander into hutongs, the narrow paths that wind their way from one end of old Beijing to the other. The elderly women, known as damas, sat on chairs outside their doorsteps. Occasionally, a man on a bicycle would pass by. To any newcomer, Beijing seemed like a ever-growing city contrasted with its calm surroundings and a pace of life seemingly unchanged for decades.
However, everything in Beijing has in fact changed. The 0lympics started the construction of more subway lines, a new airport, many high-speed railway routes, and many other projects. In the years since, Beijing has continued to transform at an amazing speed. I had no idea that the 2018 Beijing I was seeing was just a snapshot(快照) of the city's fast-paced turnover.
When l returned three years later for another research project, I found that my picture was entirely outdated, although the relaxed damas still sat on their chairs. Bike-sharing companies had come and gone. The folks who had previously been roasting lamb meat in food stands on the streets were distributing the groceries for an online shopping platform company. 'The group of old men who swam in Houhai was only half in number. Some believe that because they have wandered its darkest hutongs and been to its grandest palaces, they have a chance of knowing Beijing, but locals only laugh at the attempt.
In 1926, US automaker Henry Ford shortened its employees' workweek from six eight-hour days to five, with no pay cuts. It's something workers and labor unions had been calling for. Ford wasn't responding to worker demands: he was being a businessman. He expected increased productivity and knew workers with more time and money would buy and use the products they were making. It was a way of encouraging consumerism and productivity to increase profits, and it succeeded.
Since standardization of the 40-hour workweek in the mid-20th century, everything has changed but the hours. If anything, many people are working even longer hours, especially in North America. This has a severe influence on human health and well-being, as well as the environment. Until the Second World War, it was common for one person in a family, usually the oldest male, to work full-time. Now, women make up 42 percent of the world's full-time workforce. Technology has made a lot of work unnecessary, with computers and robots doing many tasks previously performed by humans.
Well into the 21st century, we continue to work the same long hours as 20th century laborers, using up ever more of Earth's supply to produce more goods that we must keep working to buy, use and replace in a seemingly endless cycle of hard work and consumption. It's time to pause and consider better ways to live like shifting from fossil-fueled lifestyles with which our consumer-based workweeks are connected.
The UK think tank, New Economics (经济学)Foundation, argues that a standard 21-hour workweek would address a number of interconnected problems: "overwork，unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life".
Economic systems that require constant growth on a finite(有限的)planet don't make sense. It's time for a change in our economic thinking.
I live in Hollywood. You may think people in such an attractive, fun-filled place are happier than others. If so, you have some mistaken ideas about the nature of happiness.
Many intelligent people still equate happiness with fun. The truth is that fun and happiness have little or nothing in common. Fun is what we experience during an act. Happiness is what we experience after an act. It is a deeper, more long-lasting emotion. Going to an amusement park or ball game, watching a movie or television, are fun activities that help us relax, temporarily forget our problems and maybe even laugh. But they do not bring happiness, because their positive effects end when the fun ends.
I have often thought that if Hollywood stars have a role to play, it is to teach us that happiness has nothing to do with fun. These rich, beautiful individuals have constant access to exciting parties, fancy cars, expensive homes, everything that spells "happiness". But in memoir(回忆录)after memoir, celebrities reveal the unhappiness hidden beneath all their fun: depression, alcoholism, drug addiction, broken marriages, troubled children, and long-time loneliness.
The way people hold on to the belief that a fun-filled, pain-free life equates happiness actually decreases their chances of ever attaining real happiness. If fun and pleasure are equated with happiness, then pain must be equated with unhappiness. But, in fact, the opposite is true: More times than not, things that lead to happiness involve some pain.
As a result, many people avoid the very efforts that are the source of true happiness. They fear the pain inevitably brought by such things as marriage, raising children, professional achievement, religious commitment, charitable work and self-improvement.
People are being lured (引诱) onto Facebook with the promise of a fun and free service without realizing they're paying for it by giving up large amounts of personal information. Facebook then attempts to make money by selling their data to advertisers that want to send targeted messages.
Most Facebook users don't realize this is happening. Even if they know what the company is up to, they still have no idea what they're paying for Facebook, because people don't really know what their personal details are worth.
The biggest problem, however, is that the company keeps changing the rules. Early on, you could keep everything private. That was the great thing about Facebook—you could create your own little private network. Last year, the company changed its privacy rules so that many things—your city, your photo, your friends' names—were set, by default (默认) , to be shared with everyone on the Internet.
According to Facebook's vice-president Elliot Schrage, the company is simply making changes to improve its service, and if people don't share information, they have a "less satisfying experience."
Some critics think this is more about Facebook looking to make more money. Its original business model, which involved selling ads and putting them at the side of the page, totally failed. Who wants to look at ads when they're online connecting with their friends?
The privacy issue has already landed Facebook in hot water in Washington. In April, Senator (议员) Charles Schumer called on Facebook to change its privacy policy. He also urged the Federal Trade Commission to set guidelines for social-networking sites. "I think the senators rightly communicated that we had not been clear about what the new products were and how people could choose to use them or not to use them," Schrage admits.
I suspect that whatever Facebook has done so far to invade our privacy, it's only the beginning, which is why I'm considering deactivating (撤销) my account. Facebook is a handy site, but I'm upset by the idea that my information is in the hands of people I don't know. That is too high a price to pay.
I once complained to my friend Mike," I often cycle two miles from my house to the town center but unfortunately there is a big hill on the route." He replied," You mean fortunately." He explained that I should be glad of the extra exercise that the hill provided.
My attitude to the hill has now changed. I used to complain as I approached it but now I tell myself the following. This hill will exercise my heart and lungs. It will help me to lose weight and get fit. It will mean that I live longer. This hill is my friend. Finally I comfort myself with the thought of all those silly people who pay money to go to a gym and sit on stationary exercise bicycles when I can get the same value for free. I have a smile of satisfaction as I reach the top of the hill.
Problems are there to be faced and overcome. We cannot achieve anything with an easy life. Helen Keller was the first deaf and blind person to gain a university degree. Her activism and writing proved inspirational. She wrote," The character cannot be developed with ease. Only through experiences of suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved."
One of the main determinants of success in life is our attitude towards adversity. From time to time we all face hardships, problems, accidents and difficulties. Some are of our making but many are no fault of our own. While we cannot choose adversity, we can choose our attitude towards it.
Douglas Bader was 21 when in 1931 he had both legs cut off following a flying accident. He was determined to fly again and went on to become one of the leading flying aviators in the Battle of Britain with 22 aerial victories over the Germans. He was an inspiration to others during the war. He said," Don't listen to anyone who tells you that you can't do this or that. That's nonsense. Make up your mind, and you'll never use crutches or a stick, and then have a go at everything. Go to school, and join in all the games you can. Go anywhere you want to. But never, never let them persuade you that things are too difficult or impossible."
The biographies of great people are full of examples of how they took steps to overcome the difficulties they faced. The common threat is that they did not become depressed. They chose their attitude. They chose to be positive. They took on the challenge. They won. Nevertheless, there is still the problem of how you change your attitude towards adversity.
After years of observing human nature, I have decided that two qualities make the difference between men of great achievement and men of average performance, curiosity and discontent. I have never known an outstanding man who lacked either. And I have never known an average man who had both. The two belong together.
Together, these deep human urges (驱策力) count for much more than ambition. Galileo was not merely ambitious when he dropped objects of varying weights from the Leaning Tower at Pisa and timed their fall to the ground. Like Galileo, all the great names in history were curious and asked in discontent, "Why? Why? Why?"
Fortunately, curiosity and discontent don't have to be learned. We are born with them and need only recapture them.
"The great man," said Mencius (孟子), "is he who does not lose his child's heart. "Yet most of us do lose it. We stop asking questions. We stop challenging custom. We just follow the crowd. And the crowd desires only the calm and restful average. It encourages us to occupy our own little corner, to avoid foolish leaps into the dark, to be satisfied.
Most of us meet new people, and new ideas, with hesitation. But once having met and liked them, we think how terrible it would have been, had we missed the chance. We will probably have to force ourselves to waken our curiosity and discontent and keep them awake.
How should you start? Modestly, so as not to become discouraged. I think of one friend who couldn't arrange flowers to satisfy herself. She was curious about how the experts did it. Now she is one of the experts, writing books on flower arrangement.
One way to begin is to answer your own excuses. You haven't any special ability? Most people don't; there are only a few geniuses. You haven't any time? That's good, because it's always the people with no time who get things done. Harriet Stowe, mother of six, wrote parts of Uncle Tom's Cabin while cooking. You're too old? Remember that Thomas Costain was 57 when he published his first novel, and that Grandma Moses showed her first pictures when she was 78.
However you start, remember there is no better time to start than right now, for you'll never be more alive than you are at this moment.
