Age has its privileges in America, and one of the more prominent of them is the senior citizen discount. Anyone who has reached a certain age — in some cases as low as 55 — is automatically entitled to dazzling array of price reductions at nearly every level of commercial life. Eligibility is determined not by one's need but by the date on one's birth certificate. Practically unheard of a generation ago, the discounts have become a routine part of many businesses — as common as color televisions in motel rooms and free coffee on airliners.

    People with gray hair often are given the discounts without even asking for them; yet, millions of Americans above age 60 are healthy and solvent(有支付能力的). Businesses that would never dare offer discounts to college students or anyone under 30 freely offer them to older Americans. The practice is acceptable because of the widespread belief that “elderly” and “needy” are synonymous (同义的). Perhaps that once was true, but today elderly Americans as a group have a lower poverty rate than the rest of the population. To be sure, there is economic diversity within the elderly, and many older Americans are poor. But most of them aren't.

    It is impossible to determine the impact of the discounts on individual companies. For many firms, they are a stimulus to revenue. But in other cases the discounts are given at the expense, directly or indirectly, of younger Americans. Moreover, they are a direct irritant in what some politicians and scholars see as a coming conflict between the generations.

    Generational tensions are being fueled by continuing debate over Social Security benefits, which mostly involve a transfer of resources from the young to the old. Employment is another sore point. Buoyed (支持) by laws and court decisions, more and more older Americans are declining the retirement dinner in favor of staying on the job — thereby lessening employment and promotion opportunities for younger workers.

    Far from a kind of charity they once were, senior citizen discounts have become a formidable economic privilege to a group with millions of members who don't need them.

    It no longer makes sense to treat the elderly as a single group whose economic needs deserve priority over those of others. Senior citizen discounts only enhance the myth that older people can't take care of themselves and need special treatment; and they threaten the creation of a new myth, that the elderly are ungrateful and taking for themselves at the expense of children and other age groups. Senior citizen discounts are the essence of the very thing older Americans are fighting against — discrimination by age.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} We've all heard about the power of our attitude, and that it's our attitude that determines how much we succeed in life.

    ⒈Identify and understand what you want to change. The first step towards change is clearly understanding what needs to be changed.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} When it comes to changing your attitude, you need to do an honest and in-depth self-evaluation so you could point out exactly which of your traits need to be improved or totally changed.

    ⒉{#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    We all need to know that what we're trying to accomplish can in fact be achieved; that we can be more optimistic, more social or more patient. Find someone who has the kind of attitude that you want to have, and let his or her life give you inspiration and encouragement to move beyond your temporary failures in your journey towards becoming a better person.

    ⒊Think about how your attitude change will affect your life. To be able to overcome all the difficulties that lie ahead of you in your journey towards self betterment, you need to figure out exactly what this supposed change could bring to your life. Will changing your attitude mean a happier family or social life? Will a change in your attitude mean a more successful career or business? Fix your mind on the things that would come as a result of your attitude change and you will have a greater chance of reaching your goal.

    ⒋Choose the right company. As they say, “Bad company corrupts good character.” You don't expect yourself to be able to change if you go on surrounding yourself with people who possess all the negative traits that you want to change. Consider befriending new people, especially those who are optimistic and have a healthy attitude towards life.{#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    ⒌{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Often, the greatest obstacle between us and our goals is ourselves or our inability to trust in what we are able to do. If you don't believe in yourself or believe that you or your life can change, it just won't happen—you will either never start, or give up quickly so you won't have even given yourself the opportunity to succeed.

A. Believe that you are able to change.

B. Look for a role model.

C. You will see that your effort to change will be easier with these kinds of people as friends.

D. Setting clear goals is the key to success in any endeavor.

E. Our personalities and attitudes are developed through our relationships and experiences.

F. It is right to try hard to have a strong mind.

G. Our attitude towards life determines life's attitude towards us.

    Living with other people can be difficult, especially when each person has their own ideas about how they want to live. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. Taking a few simple steps will help you share your living space harmoniously.

    Discuss your expectations ahead of time.

    {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. This applies to finances, food, possessions, use of common areas, loud activities or parties, quiet hours, and so on.

    Divide responsibilities.

    Make a plan to divide up responsibilities and chores（家常杂务）between you and your roommate. For example, if your roommate is a good cook and you are not, {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. It may also be a good idea to set up a chores schedule, where you will take turns cleaning the bathroom, raking out the trash and so on.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}.

    Not everyone has the same ideas about day to day living as you do. Take your roommate's feelings into consideration. For instance, if you are dying to throw a party on Thursday night but your roommate has a final early the next morning, agree to postpone the party till Friday evening, instead.

    Communicate effectively.

    Communication is key in making the relationship work. If a problem comes up, it's better to talk about it right away than to ignore it. For example, say “Chris, it upsets me when I wake up to find all the milk gone. If you use the last of something, can you please add it to the list?” If you simply cannot communicate openly and there is tension all the time,{#blank#}5{#/blank#}.

    Worry problems are everywhere in our daily life. How to solve them? The answer is that we must equip ourselves to handle different kinds of worries by learning the three basic steps of problem analysis. The three steps are：

    Get the facts

    Why is it so important to get the facts? Unless you have the facts, you can't possibly attempt to solve your problem intelligently. Without the facts, all you can do is wondering around in confusion. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} When you are worried, your emotions are riding high. But here are two ideas that can help you see the facts in a clear and objective way.

    When trying to get the facts, you can pretend that you are collecting this information not for yourself but for some other person. This will help you to take a cold and fair view of the evidence. You can also pretend that you are a lawyer preparing to agree.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} You will generally find the truth lies somewhere in between.

    Analyze the facts

    {#blank#}3{#/blank#} And write out all the various steps you could take and then the probable consequences (后果) of each step. For example, what am I worrying about? What can I do about it? Here is what I'm going to do about it. After carefully weighing all the facts, you can calmly come to a decision.

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Unless you take your action, all you face—finding and analysing—is a waste of energy. How can you break the worry habit before it breaks you? Move worry out of your mind by keeping busy.{#blank#}5{#/blank#} Accept what can't be avoided. If you know a situation is beyond your power, say to yourself: "It is so; it can't be otherwise." Don't permit little things to ruin your happiness. Try to develop a mental attitude that will bring you peace and happiness.

A. Act on that decision.

B. It is not an easy job to get facts.

C. Decide how much anxiety a thing may be worth.

D. Plenty of action is one of the best ways to cure worry.

E. There comes a time when you must decide and never look back.

F. Try to get all the facts both on your side and the other side of the case.

G. Whenever you are worried, write down the questions that make you worry.

    It's not easy to talk with teens about their relationship with screens.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Open with a discussion of young children's tech use

    Rather than asking teens to put down iPads, introduce a discussion on babies' tech use. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}When I had my eighth graders read an article about banning iPads for children under two, the class were interested.

    Admit your tech problems

    One of my students wrote that she would like to prevent the whole family from using tech facilities. Clearly, someone in her home was having some tech use problems. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}We can't tell kids to put down their devices if we continue to use them.

Keep a balanced opinion

    We adults wouldn't be able to live in today's society without screens, so we shouldn't expect teenagers to do so either. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}It's improved our lives in many ways. Before we start talking about its challenges, we need to realize its opportunities, too.

    Deal with the topic like you would nutrition (营养)

    If children weren't making good food choices, we would never take their lunches away and make them stay hungry. We would teach them how to eat healthy and help them learn to set new habits: {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Instead of taking their devices away, we should help them keep a balance with technology.

A. The same should go for technology.

B. Technology isn't a bad habit to be got out of.

C. This will invite teens to talk about the subject.

D. Teens need face-to-face communication with adults.

E. One of teens' fears is that we'll take their devices away.

F. So we need to be open about our own tech habits as well.

G. Here are a few ways that will make the discussion easier and more productive.

Just as team members today have assigned doing roles, there should also be thinking roles. By knowing how other members of your learn and organization think—and by others knowing how you think—everyone can be more productive. So how should you evaluate how you and your team think? After a lot of trial-and-error, we developed a three-step method that delivers practical and meaningful results.

    Focus. Do you tend to pay the most attention to ideas, process, action, or relationships? For example, in the morning do you think about the problems you need to solve, the plans you need to make, the actions you need to take, or the people you need to see? This isn't about picking one to the exclusion(排除)of the other. It's about where your focus naturally lands.

    Orientation(方向). A good way to identify your orientation is thinking about what tends to bother you in meetings. Are you more likely to complain about getting dragged into the weeds or about things being too general and not specific enough? These dimensions are complementary(补充的)to personality, skills, and traditional roles.

Combination. By combing these two dimensions you can know about the thinking style at work in whatever context or setting you chose. When you know your thinking style, you know what naturally energizes you, why certain type of problems are challenging or boring, and what you can do to improve in areas that are important to reaching your goals. Once you know your style, it helps to share it with others, and have others share theirs with you. In this way, your thinking style becomes a useful tool—a kind of social currency—for the team. Imaging you put together a team to work on a new initiative(行动). Wouldn't you like to know who is energized by big-picture strategy discussions and who finds them frustrating? Who likes to work on the details of the execution? And who is energized by managing the team dynamics?

    The landscape of business is changing rapidly, and we have to find new and better ways to connect and communicate. We all want to work better together, the challenge is actually making it happen. Understanding collaboration(合作)through the way of thinking rather than doing is a practical and powerful step forward.