Why I've taken a break from holidays

    It is now close to four years since I last took a holiday. This is because I have come to the conclusion, over the course of my adult life, that I am not very good at it. You might think this sounds like saying you're not very good at drinking tea or listening to music. What could possibly be difficult about the natural act of putting your working life on hold for a couple of weeks and going somewhere warm to do nothing?

    I was a model holidaymaker as a kid. However, the problems started during my twenties. A trip to the south of France was ended after just two days, mainly because I had an urge to check my e-mails. Similarly, my honeymoon was cut short by 48 hours—not because my wife and I weren't enjoying ourselves, but because we were missing our cats.

    So what is my problem? On the surface, I'm probably a bit of a homebody. And I just find the pressure of being on holiday too severe: it always feels like having a gun held to my head and being forced to have fun. Somehow, packing a list of possessions and meeting a scheduled flight has none of the excitement of suddenly deciding to take a day off and driving somewhere for the fun of it.

    Thankfully, I'm not alone. This summer, most of my friends have decided not to have a break. And a recent survey (调查) proved the downside of holidays, with the results showing that nearly two thirds of people found that the calming effects of a holiday wore off within 24 hours, as stress levels returned to normal. And this year The Idler magazine published its Book of Awful Holidays. Here you will find a list of the five most ecologically-damaging vacations it's possible to take, along with 50 painful holiday experiences voted for on The Idler website.

    What interests me is what the concept of a “holiday” says about our lives. For me, the point of living is to have a life you enjoy for 52 weeks a year. The more I like my life and the better I structure it, the less I want to go away. Maybe I'm an unusual person for not liking holidays, but I just feel the time when I'm not working is too valuable to waste on them.

    Next time a customer comes to your office, offer him a cup of coffee. And when you're doing your holiday shopping online, make sure you're holding a large glass of iced tea. The physical sensation（感觉）of warmth encourages emotional warmth, while a cold drink in hand prevents you from making unwise decisions—those are the practical lesson being drawn from recent research by psychologist John A. Bargh.

    Psychologists have known that one person's perception（感知）of another's “warmth” is a powerful determiner in social relationships. Judging someone to be either “warm” or “cold” is a primary consideration, even trumping evidence that a “cold” person may be more capable. Much of this is rooted in very early childhood experiences, Bargh argues, when babies' conceptual sense of the world around them is shaped by physical sensations, particularly warmth and coldness. Classic studies by Harry Harlow, published in 1958, showed monkeys preferred to stay close to a cloth “mother” rather than one made of wire, even when the wire “mother” carried a food bottle. Harlow's work and later studies have led psychologists to stress the need for warm physical contact from caregivers to help young children grow into healthy adults with normal social skills.

    Feelings of “warmth” and “coldness” in social judgments appear to be universal. Although no worldwide study has been done, Bargh says that describing people as “warm” or “cold” is common to many cultures, and studies have found those perceptions influence judgment in dozens of countries.

    To test the relationship between physical and psychological warmth, Bargh conducted an experiment which involved 41 college students. A research assistant who was unaware of the study's hypotheses（假设）, handed the students either a hot cup of coffee, or a cold drink, to hold while the researcher filled out a short information form: The drink was then handed back. After that, the students were asked to rate the personality of “Person A” based on a particular description. Those who had briefly held the warm drink regarded Person A as warmer than those who had held the iced drink.

    “We are grounded in our physical experiences even when we think abstractly,” says Bargh.

    The Silk Road is a name given to the many trade routes that connected Europe and the Mediterranean（地中海）with the Asian world. The route is over 6,500 km long and got its name because the early Chinese traded silk along it. Although silk was the main trading item, there were many other goods that travelled along the Silk Road between Eastern Asia and Europe. In the course of time, medicine, perfumes, spices and livestock（家畜）found their way between continents.

    The Chinese learned to make silk thousands of years ago. For a long time they were the only ones who knew how to make this precious material. Only the emperor, his family and his highest advisers were allowed to wear clothes made of silk. For a long time the Chinese guarded this secret very carefully. The ancient Romans were the first Europeans who became aware of this wonderful material. Trading started, often with Indians as middlemen（中间人）who traded silk with the Chinese in exchange for gold and silver which they got from the Romans.

    Travelling along the route was dangerous. The hot desert, high mountains and sandstorms made traveling a rough business. Most of the goods along the Silk Road were carried by caravans（商队）. Traders sometimes brought goods from one destination on the silk Road to another, from where the goods would be transported by someone else. Over the centuries people settled along the ancient route and many cities emerged. Later on there were fewer hardships to overcome, but by no means was it easy.

    Religion, languages and diseases also spread along the Silk Road. Buddhism, which originated in India, spread to China along this route. European traders probably brought the plague from Asia to Europe along the ancient road.

    In the early Middle Ages, traffic along the route decreased because of the decline of the Roman Empire. Trading along the Silk Road became stronger again between the 13th and 14th centuries, when the Mongols controlled central Asia. During the Age of Exploration the Silk Road lost its importance because new sea routes to Asia were discovered.

    Although his 1-year-old smart-phone still works perfectly, Li Jijia already feels the need to replace it.

    “There are many better ones available now. It's time to upgrade(更新）my phone.”

    Li's impatience is shared by many. Shortly after the season when new products are released（发布，发售）, many consumers feel the urge to upgrade their electronic equipment, even though the ones they have still work just fine.

    As consumers' minds are occupied by Apple's newly released products and debate whether the Google tablet is better than the new Amazon Kindle, it might be time to take a step back and ask: “Do we really need the latest upgrades?”

    According to Donald Norman, an American author, “planned obsolescence (淘汰）” is the trick behind the upgrading culture of today's consumer electronics industry.

    Electronics producers strategically release new upgrades periodically, both for hardware and software, so that customers on every level feel the need to buy the newest version.

“This is an old-time trick—they're not inventing anything new,” Norman said. “This is a wasteful system through which companies--many of them producing personal electronics-- release poor-quality products simply because they know that, in six months or a year, they'll put out a new one.”

    But the new psychology of consumers is part of this system, as Norman admitted, “We now want something new, something pretty, the next shiny thing.” In its most recent year, Apple's profit margin(利润) was more than 21 percent. At Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest PC maker, it was only 7 percent.

    Apple's annual upgrades of its products create sales of millions of units as owners of one year's MacBook or iPhone line up to buy the newest version, even when the changes are slight.

    As to Li Jijia, the need for upgrading his smart-phone comes mainly from friends and classmates. When they are switching to the latest equipment, he worries about feeling left out.

    “Some games require better hardware to run,” said Li. “If you don't join in, you lose part of the connection to your friends.”

    In this day and age, you can practically do anything with the help of the Internet. While chatting with a stranger may seem new and exciting, make sure that you stay safe while still having fun.

    While there are some unpleasant people in the world, let's remember that most people are friendly! If you find someone who likes the same restaurant as you or who is also crazy about Gilmore Girls, then feel free to talk the night away! Just keep the conversation light and talk about your common interests. If a topic that doesn't fit well with you is brought up, keep in mind that you are always in control. Under no circumstances should you be forced to talk or think about anything inappropriate. Ignore your manners at this time!

    Do stay open-minded. Sometimes chatting with strangers can turn into a close bond—or just another person you can turn to for a laugh. But when you are typing away in your computer, it's easy for you to get carried away and to tell your new friends all about yourself. Keep the personal details secret, and instead talk about fun hobbies or the latest episode (一集) of The Good Wife.

    Always listen to your instincts (直觉). If something inside of you is telling you something isn't right, it probably isn't. Pay attention to how your body responds to certain people online. Remember, you never really know who you are talking to just by looking at a computer screen name, so downloading anything is absolutely no.

    See? Talking to strangers online doesn't always have to be appalling experience. By following these do's and don'ts, chatting with someone you don't know can be cool and pleasant, and can make sure that you stay safe in the world of the Internet.

    Researchers have discovered the first Earth-sized planet. It was first marked by scientists' using NASA's Kepler telescope (望远镜), so it's called Kepler﹣186f. It lies about 500 light years from Earth and goes around its star. The planet is the right distance from its star for water: not too close or not too far. Water is one important condition that scientists guess is necessary for life. So it could have water and possible life. It's called a true Earth cousin.

    "This planet is an Earth cousin, not an Earth twin," said Barclay, who is among a team of scientists reporting on the discovery in the magazine Science this week.

    "It's very exciting to find a planet similar to the Earth," Barclay said. "It's not easy work because things change as we get more measurements."

    Scientists don't know anything about the air of Kepler-186f, but it will be a task for future telescopes which can study for chemicals that have something to do with life.

    "It's possible for life to live in this planet, but that doesn't mean there is life in it," Barclay said.

    So far, scientists have found nearly 1,800 planets in the universe.

    "The past year has seen a lot of progress in the search for Earthlike planets. Kepler﹣186f is very important because it is the first planet that is the same temperature and is almost the same size as Earth," scientist David Charbonneau wrote in an email.