Every day, millions of shoppers hit the stores in full force—both online and on foot— searching for the perfect gift. Aside from purchasing holiday gifts, most people regularly buy presents for other occasions throughout the year, including weddings, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, and baby showers. This frequent experience of gift-giving can cause ambivalent feelings in gift-givers. Many enjoy the opportunity to buy presents because gift-giving offers a powerful means to build stronger bonds with one’s closest persons. At the same time, many fear the thought of buying gifts; they worry that their purchases will disappoint rather than delight the intended receivers.

What is surprising is that gift-givers have considerable experience acting as both gift-givers and gift-recipients, but nevertheless tend to overspend each time they set out to purchase a meaningful gift. In the present research, we propose a unique psychological explanation for this overspending problem — i.e., that gift-givers equate how much they spend with how much receivers will appreciate the gift (the more expensive the gift, the stronger a gift-recipient’s feelings of appreciation). Although a link between gift price and feelings of appreciation might seem intuitive (凭直觉得到的) to gift-givers, such an assumption may be unfounded. Indeed, we propose that gift- receivers will seldom tend to base their feelings of appreciation on the significance weight of a gift than givers assume.

Why do gift-givers assume that gift price is closely linked to gift-recipients’ feelings of appreciation? Perhaps givers believe that bigger (i.e., more expensive) gifts convey stronger signals of thoughtfulness and consideration. According to Camerer (1988) and others, gift-giving represents a symbolic ritual(礼节), by which gift-givers attempt to signal their positive attitudes toward the intended receiver and their willingness to invest resources in a future relationship. In this sense, gift-givers may be motivated to spend more money on a gift in order to send a “stronger signal” to their intended receiver. As for gift-receivers, they may not consider smaller and larger gifts as representing smaller and larger signals of thoughtfulness and consideration.

In practical terms, people spend hundreds of dollars each year on gifts, but somehow never learn to measure their gift expenses according to personal insight.

 Remembering names is an important social skill. Here are some ways to master it.

●Recite and repeat in conversation.

   When you hear a person’s name, repeat it. Immediately say it to yourself several times without moving your lips. You could also repeat the name in a way that does not sound forced or artificial.

●Ask the other person to recite and repeat.

  You can let other people help you remember their names. After you’ve been introduced to someone, ask that person to spell the name and pronounce it correctly for you. Most people will be pleased by the effort you’re making to learn their names.

●Admit you don’t know.

  Admitting that you can’t remember someone’s name can actually make people relaxed. Most of them will feel sympathy if you say. “I’m working to remember names better. Yours is right on the tip of my tongue. What is it again?”

●Use associations.

   Link each person you meet with one thing you find interesting or unusual. For example, you could make a mental note: “Vicki Cheng－tall, black hair.” To reinforceyour associations, write them on a small card as soon as possible.

●Limit the number of new names you learn at one time.

   When meeting a group of people, concentrate on remembering just two or three names. Free yourself from remembering every one. Few of the people in mass introductions expect you to remember their names. Another way is to limit yourself to learning first names. Last names can come later.

●Go early.

Consider going early to conferences, parties and classes. Sometime just a few people show up on time. There’re fewer names for you to remember. And as more people arrive, you can hear them being introduced to others --- an automatic review for you.

Almost every day we come across situations in which we have to make decisions one way or another. Choice, we are given to believe, is a right. But for a good many people in the world. In rich and poor countries, choice is a luxury, something wonderful but hard to get, not a right. And for those who think they are exercising their right to make choices, the whole system is merely an illusion, a false idea created by companies and advertiser, hoping to sell their products.

    The endless choice gives birth to anxiety in people’s lives. Buying something as basic as a coffee pot is not exactly simple. Easy access to a wide range of everyday goods leads to a sense of powerlessness in many people, ending in the shopper giving up and walking away, or just buying an unsuitable item that is not really wanted. Recent studies in England have shown that many electrical goods bought in almost every family are not really needed. More difficult decision-making is then either avoided or trusted into the hands of the professionals, lifestyle instructors, or advisors.

    It is not just the availability of the goods that is the problem, but the speed with which new types of products come on the market. Advances in design and production help quicken the process Products also need to have a short lifespan so that the public can be persuaded to replace them within a short time. The typical example is computers, which are almost out-of-date once they are bought. This indeed makes selection a problem. Gone are the days when one could just walk with case into a shop and buy one thing; no choice, no anxiety.

       Home to me means a sense of familiarity and nostalgia（怀旧）. It’s fun to come home. It looks the same. It smells the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you. Home is where we can remember pain, love and some other experiences: We parted here; My parents met here; I won three championships here.

       If I close my eyes, I can still have a clear picture in mind of my first home. I walk in the door and see a brown sofa surrounding a low glass-top wooden table. To the right of the living room is my first bedroom. It’s empty, but it’s where my earliest memories are.

       There is the dining room table where I celebrated birthdays and where I cried on Halloween---when I didn’t want to wear the skirt my mother made for me. I always liked standing on that table because it made me feel tall and strong. If I sit at this table, I can see my favorite room in the house, my parents’ room. It is simple: a brown wooden dresser lines the right side of the wall next to a television and a couple of photos of my grandparents on each side. Their bed is my safe zone. I can jump on it anytime---waking up my parents if I am scared or if I have an important announcement that cannot wait until the morning.

I’m lucky because I know my first home still exists. It exists in my mind and heart, on a physical property（住宅）on West 64th street on the western edge of Los Angeles. It is proof I lived, I grew, and I learned.

Sometimes when I feel lost, I lie down and shut my eyes, and I go home. I know it’s where I’ll find my family, my dogs, and my belongings. I purposely leave the window open at night because I know I’ll be blamed by Mom. But I don’t mind, because I want to hear her say my name, which reminds me I’m home.

D

                             Disappearing Roots

    I have fond memories of following my mother to the wet market in Ghim Moh area, walking around the jungle of stands, trying not to slip and fall in my slippers and carelessly getting nay feet wet from the water that dropped off from the fish counters and vegetable stands to the stone floor,  listening to her bargain in Teochew to the vegetable seller who in the next minute would start talking

 to another customer in Malaysian.

     The book store in Ghim Moh that my brother James and I visited frequently as kids, closed 4 years ago after over 30 years in business. I used to appreciate the fact that it had changed little over the course of three decades, the shelves still stocking the same types of notebooks that I had bought as a 7-year-old kid.  It was our childhood landmark and it had allowed me to follow my childhood footsteps on its same worn concrete floors.

    I noticed that a big shady tree just outside of the Ghim Moh market had been removed and in its place stood a skinny tree that could not shade the little dog that was sitting under it, desperate for some shade in the hot mid-day sun.

     Yes, in Singapore we have pictures in museums and books reminding us of our local heritage (遗产) Many of our favorite places can only be read about nowadays in books or magazines.

     We are physical beings. We make sense of our world and our relationship to our world through our senses.  Sometimes, it's not enough to just read about it.  We have to feel it,  smell it, touch it so  as to form our own memories of it, our own stories, and in turn share those experiences and stories with other people.

      I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

   Many people who work in London prefer to live outside it, and to go to their offices or schools every day by train, car or bus, even though this means they have to get up early in the morning and reach home late in the evening.
  One advantage of living outside London is that houses are cheaper. Even a small flat in London without a garden costs quite a lot to rent. With the same money, one can get a little house in the country with a garden of one’s own.
   Then, in the country one can rest from the noise and hurry of the town. Even though one has to get up earlier and spend more time in trains and buses, one can sleep better at night and during weekends, and on summer evenings, one can enjoy the fresh, clean air of the country. If one likes gardens, one can spend one’s free time digging, planting, watering, and doing the other jobs which are needed in a garden. Then, when the flowers and vegetables come up, one has the reward of one who has shared the secret of nature.
   Some people, however, take no interest in country things: for them, happiness lies in the town, with its cinemas and theatres, beautiful shops and busy streets, and dance halls and restaurants. Such people would feel that their life was not worth living if they had to live it outside London. An occasional walk in one of the parks and a two-week-visit to the sea every summer is all the country they want: the rest they are quite prepared to leave to those who are glad to get away from London every night.

Dear Max,

    Your mother and I don't yet have the words to describe the hope you give us for the future. We believe all lives have equal value, and that includes the many more people who will live in future generations than live today. Our society has an obligation to invest now to improve the lives of all those coming into this world, not just those already here.

    Our hopes for your generation focus on two ideas: advancing human potential and promoting equality.

    Today your mother and I are committing to spend our lives doing our small part to help solve these challenges. I will continue to serve as Facebook's CEO for many, many years to come, but these issues are too important to wait until you or we are older to begin this work. By starting at a young age, we hope to see compounding benefits throughout our lives.

    As you begin the next generation of the Chan Zuckerberg family, we also begin the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to join people across the world to advance human potential and promote equality for all children in the next generation. Our initial areas of focus will be personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people and building strong communities. Over short periods of five or ten years, it may not seem like we're making much of a difference. But over the long term, seeds planted now will grow, and one day, you or your children will see what we can only  imagine.

    We will give 99% of our Facebook shares --currently about $45 billion -- during our lives to advance this mission. We know this is a small contribution compared to all the resources and talents of those already working on these issues. But we want to do what we can, working alongside many others.

Though Malala Yousafzai is 17, she does not use Facebook or even a mobile phone so that she can’t lose focus on her studies. She spent her summer vacation flying to Nigeria to campaign for the release(释放) of girls caught by the extremist Islamist group Boko Haram, but also worrying about her grades, which recently took a worrisome dip. She confronted President Obama about American drone policy(无人机政策) in a meeting last year, but finds it difficult to make friends with her fellow students in Birmingham, England.

“I want to have fun, but I don’t quite know how,” she wrote in the edition of her autobiography for young readers.

On Friday, Ms. Yousafzai became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and she was called out of her chemistry class to hear the news.

Ms. Yousafzai began campaigning for girls’ education at the age of 11, three years before she was shot by the Taliban. The prize she received on Friday accepts what she has taken on, but also shows the expectations to her: Can she truly influence the culture of her home country of Pakistan, which she cannot even visit because of threats to her safety, and where many people see her as a tool of the West?

And in an interview last August, Ms. Yousafzai said that she rarely watches television and deleted the Candy Crush game from her iPad to prevent a growing addiction(成瘾). As a child in Pakistan, she had access to only a handful of books, she said, but one was a biography of Dr. King, giving her an early sense of what one activist could accomplish.

In a brief speech in Birmingham on Friday, she called the prize “an encouragement for me to go forward and believe in myself.”

D   

Daydreaming was viewed as a waste of time．Or it was considered an unhealthy escape from real life and its duties．Daydreaming has always had a bad reputation，but now scientific research has showed that daydreaming may actually improve your mental health and creativity．It can even help you achieve your desired goals．

Now some people are taking a fresh look at daydreaming．Some think it may be a very healthy thing to do．Researchers are finding daydreaming，they tell us，is a good means of relaxation．But its benefits go beyond this．A number of psychologists have conducted experiments and have reached some surprising conclusions．   

Dr．Joan T．Freyberg has concluded that daydreaming contributes to intellectual growth．It also improves concentration，attention span，and the ability to get along with others，she says．In an experiment with school children, the same researcher found that daydreaming led the children to pay more attention to details．They had more happy feelings．They worked together better．Another researcher reported that daydreaming seemed to produce improved self-control and creative abilities．

But that’s only part of the story．The most remarkable thing about daydreaming may be its usefulness in shaping our future lives as we want them to be．Industrialist Henry J．Kaiser believed that much of his success was due to the positive use of daydreaming．He maintained that “you can imagine your future．”Florence Nightingale dreamed of becoming a nurse．The young Thomas Edison pictured himself as an inventor. For these famous achievers，it appears that their daydreams came true．

Of course daydreaming is no substitute(代替者)for hard work．You have to work hard to develop skills．Daydreaming alone can’t turn you into your heart’s desire．But in，combination with the more usual methods of self-development，it might make a critical difference．And who knows：You might see your own daydreams come true．

D

       Some of the best research on daily experience is rooted in rates of positive and negative interactions, which has proved that being blindly positive or negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or to simply tune out.

    Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the rate of positive and negative interactions. Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood a couple will divorce to the chances of a work team having high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.

    More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of criticism or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates (激活) conflict and defense mechanisms (机制). You assume situations as being worse than they actually are.

    When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges increase your body’s production of oxytocin, a feel-good hormone that increases your ability to communicate with, cooperate with and trust others. But the effects of a positive occurrence are less dramatic and lasting than they are for a negative one.

    We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh (超过) every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you’re having a conversation, keep this simple short cut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what’s going right.

    Workplaces, for example, often have this backward. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses and “areas for improvement”. They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address weaknesses.