While residents of wealthy nations tend to have greater life satisfaction, new research shows that those living in poorer nations report having greater meaning in life.

    These findings, published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological science, suggest that meaning in life may be higher in poorer nations as a result of greater religiosity (笃信宗教). As countries become richer, religion becomes less central to people's lives and they lose a sense of meaning in life.

    “Thus far, the wealth of nations has been almost always associated with longevity, health, happiness or life satisfaction,” explains psychological scientist Shigehiro Oishi of the University of Virginia. “Given that meaning in life is an important aspect of overall well-being, we wanted to look more carefully at differential patterns, correlates (相关物), and predictors for meaning in life.”

    Oishi and colleague Ed Diener of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated life satisfaction, meaning, and well-being by examining data from the 2007 Gallup World Poll, a large-scale survey of over 140,000 participants from 132 countries. In addition to answering a basic life satisfaction question, participants were asked: “Do you feel your life has an important purpose or meaning?” and “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”

    The data revealed some unexpected trends: “Among Americans, those who are high in life satisfaction are also high in meaning in life,” says Oishi. “But when we looked at the societal level of analysis, we found a completely different pattern of the association between meaning in life and life satisfaction.”

    When looking across many countries, Oishi and Diener found that people in wealthier nations were more educated, had fewer children, and expressed more individualistic attitudes compared to those in poorer countries — all factors that were associated with higher life satisfaction but a significantly lower sense of meaning in life.”

    The data suggest that religiosity may play an important role: Residents of wealthier nations, where religiosity is lower, reported less meaning in life and had higher suicide rates than poorer countries.

    According to the researchers, religion may provide meaning to life to the extent that it helps people to overcome personal difficulty and cope with the struggles of working to survive in poor economic conditions:

    “Religion gives a system that connects daily experiences with the coherent whole (连贯的整体) and a general structure to one's life … and plays a critical role in constructing meaning out of extreme hardship,” the researchers write.

    Oishi and Diener hope to reproduce these findings using more comprehensive measures of meaning and religiosity, and are interested in following countries over time to track whether economic prosperity gives rise to less religiosity and less meaning in life.

    One day when I was 12, my mother gave me an order: I was to walk to the public library, and borrow at least one book for the summer. This was one more weapon for her to defeat my strange problem—inability to read.

    In the library, I found my way into the “Children's Room.” I sat down on the floor and pulled a few books off the shelf at random. The cover of a book caught my eye. It presented a picture of a beagle. I had recently had a beagle, the first and only animal companion I ever had as a child. He was my secret sharer, but one morning, he was gone, given away to someone who had the space and the money to care for him. I never forgot my beagle.

    There on the book's cover was a beagle which looked identical (相同的) to my dog. I ran my fingers over the picture of the dog on the cover. My eyes ran across the title, Amos, the Beagle with a Plan. Unknowingly, I had read the title. Without opening the book, I borrowed it from the library for the summer.

    Under the shade of a bush, I started to read about Amos. I read very, very slowly with difficulty. Though pages were turned slowly, I got the main idea of the story about a dog who, like mine, had been separated from his family and who finally found his way back home. The dog was my dog, and I was the little boy in the book. At the end of the story, my mind continued the final scene of reunion, on and on, until my own lost dog and I were, in my mind, running together.

    My mother's call returned me to the real world. I suddenly realized something: I had read a book, and I had loved reading that book. Everyone knew I could not read. But I had read it. Books could be incredibly wonderful and I was going to read them.

    I never told my mother about my “miraculous” (奇迹般的) experience that summer, but she saw a slow but remarkable improvement in my classroom performance during the next year. And years later, she was proud that her son had read thousands of books, was awarded a PhD in literature, and authored his own books, articles, poetry and fiction. The power of the words was held.

    The lives of the Ancient Greeks revolved(运转) around Eris, a concept by which they defined the universe. They believed that the world existed in a condition of opposites. If there was good, then there was evil； if there was love, then there was hatred; joy, then sorrow; war, then peace; and so on. The Greeks believed that good Eris occurred when one held a balanced outlook on life and coped with problems as they arose. It was a kind of ease of living that came from trying to bring together the great opposing forces in nature. Bad Eris was evident in the violent conditions that ruled men's lives. Although these things were found in nature and sometimes could not be controlled, it was believed that bad Eris occurred when one ignored a problem, letting it grow larger until it destroyed not only that person, but his family as well. The Ancient Greeks saw Eris as a goddess: Eris, the Goddess of Discord, better known as Trouble.

    One myth that expresses this concept of bad Eris deals with the marriage of King Peleus and the river goddess Thetis. Zeus, the supreme ruler, learns that Thetis would bear a child strong enough to destroy its father. Not wanting to father his own ruin, Zeus convinces Thetis to marry a human, a mortal(凡人) whose child could never challenge the gods. He promises her, among other things, the greatest wedding in all of Heaven and Earth and allows the couple to invite whomever they please. This is one of the first mixed marriages of Greek Mythology and the lesson learned from it still applies today. They do invite everyone . . . except Eris, the Goddess of Discord. In other words, instead of facing the problems brought on by a mixed marriage, they turn their backs on them. They refused to deal directly with their problems and the result is tragic. In her fury(狂怒), Eris arrives, ruins the wedding, causes a jealous argument between the three major goddesses over a golden apple, and sets in place the conditions that lead to the Trojan War. The war would take place 20 years in the future, but it would result in the death of the only child of the bride and groom, Achilles. Eris would destroy the parents' hopes for their future, leaving the couple with no legal heirs (继承人) to the throne.

    Hence, when we are told, “If you don't invite trouble, trouble comes,” it means that if we don't deal with our problems, our problems will deal with us .with a revenge! It is easy to see why the Greeks considered many of their myths learning myths, for this one teaches us the best way to defeat that which can destroy us.

    When I heard the piano, I walked to Mrs. Windsor's house and waited outside as I always did. That meant she was working with another student, and I was not supposed to bother them by ringing the bell. I stood against the wall and daydreamed what I'd rather be doing. "Almost anything", I sighed dejectedly. I had been tutored enough to read, understand, and even write some musical compositions, but I just didn't have a gift for it. It didn't come to me naturally. I thought back to happier times when I was writing stories and acting them out with my friends, cutting up old clothes to make dresses that performers wear in plays, and building scenery out of old things we found. But Mrs. Windsor had offered to give me the lessons for free, so I felt my duty to try.

    The door opened and Wendy Barton came out. I walked in, sat down on the piano bench and began to sort through my sheet music.

    "Hello," I heard a voice behind me say softly. I turned around to see a little girl standing behind me, eating an apple. But before I could make any response, Mrs. Windsor walked into the room in her usual urgent manner and announced, "Jennifer, this is my niece, Pasha. Pasha, this is Jennifer. Pasha will be giving you your lesson today. I'm up to my ears in something else!" she then exited to the kitchen.

Pasha set her apple down on the side table and slid beside me on the piano bench.

    "What piece do you like best?" she asked.

    "What do you mean?" I asked. "They're all the same to me. I don't know.

    "You mean you don't have a favorite?"

    "No, not really."

    Pasha looked at me, rather puzzled, then opened my sheet music to the beginning page and asked me to play. I arranged my fingers on the keys and studied the notes on the page for a moment. Then I frowned and concentrated to make the notes on the page match the finger movements. I have to admit I was a rather mechanical pianist.

    After about a page or two, Pasha gently put her hand on top of mine as if to calm my fingers. There was a long pause. "What are you hearing in the music?" I looked at her rather strangely and admitted I didn't know what she meant.

    "Like a story. What story is being playing out within the music?"

    "I guess I've never thought about it before. I don't know."

    "Here, let me try and you listen," Pasha advised.

    She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting her fingers dance lightly over the keys. Then, she began to play. "See, it begins here beside some kind of river. Hear the water flowing beside you?"

    Her fingers rose and fell gently on the keys. "Now the princess appears and she's picking flowers from the water's edge." A carefree, happy piece of music filled the air in time to Pasha's dancing fingers. "Oh, but she slips!" The music changed. "And our princess is being carried off by the fast-flowing stream. Quickly, the princess's horse sees her plight (困境)," Pasha continued, "and races to the river's edge where he swims out to let her catch hold of him. They make it to the bank and she hugs her faithful horse and swears she will never again wear princess skirts that weigh her down." Pasha finished with a big smile and then looked at me.

"Aren't you the girl who tells the stories?" she asked.

    "I guess. I do tell a lot of stories."

    "Oh, yes! All the kids talk about them. I've heard about you. Well, all you have to do is learn to hear the stories in the music. That's all there is to it."

    "I've never thought it that way."

    "Let's try another one, shall we?" Pasha smiled and together we played that afternoon, finding the stories in the music and learning that sometimes it takes a friend to pull you out of the river onto dry land again.

    It was the final climb on his search to reach the highest top on all seven continents. When Christopher Kulish finally reached Mount Everest's 29,035-foot peak, he joined an elite group known as the "Seven Summits Club"(七峰俱乐部). But the 62-year-old Colorado attorney died suddenly Monday after returning to the first camp below the mountain's summit. He's the second American to die in the past week after reaching Everest's highest point. His family believes the cause was a heart attack, according to theDenver Post. "He saw his last sunrise from the highest peak on Earth," his brother, Mark Kulish, said in a statement to the Denver Post. "We are heartbroken at this news."

    Last week, 55-year-old Donald Lynn Cash of Utah collapsed and died just after reaching the Everest peak. He too had reached the highest point on all seven continents. Including Christopher and Cash, at least 11 people have died on Mount Everest this year.

    The deaths come among reports of overcrowding on the popular mountain. The Nepali government granted a total of 381 permits to climb Everest this year, a number that doesn't include guides who are on the mountain as well. For some climbers, that traffic has meant longer wait times — some told the Himalayan Times the wait has been over two hours between the last camp and the peak. Mountaineer Vanessa O'Brien, who has also climbed the seven summits, said when there's a crowd, being a more experienced climber won't help you. "It doesn't matter if you're the best racecar driver in the world. If you're stuck in traffic, you're stuck in traffic," she said in an interview.

    And when a climber is stuck in that traffic, "their body is starting to deteriorate(恶化)." O'Brien, who set a record as the fastest woman to reach the highest peak on every continent, also said the descent(下降) is often harder than the climb.

    Climbing expert Alan Arnette said there's no simple explanation for the string of deaths. He said weather that has led to a shorter climbing season is one factor causing overcrowding. He also said the cost to climb Mount Everest has decreased, which means more people are making the journey. He urged the governments in charge of granting(同意)permits to limit how many people can be on the mountain at once.

    Still, Christopher was no beginner. His family said he'd been mountain climbing for five decades. He arrived at the base camp nearly two months before his climb so he could give himself time to adapt to the conditions. When he made his journey, his family said he was climbing with a small group in almost ideal conditions after some of the overcrowding had cleared.

    His brother described being a lawyer as a "day job" for Christopher. Climbing was his love. "He was an inveterate climber of peaks in Colorado, the West and the world over," Mark Kulish said. "He passed away doing what he loved."

Volunteer Day

    What better way is there to enjoy your own hobbies while helping others at the same time? Come to Volunteer Day and choose which activity you'd like to join for the day. See below for a schedule of events on Volunteer Day.

    Volunteer Day schedule:

    7:30a.m.: Meet at the Community (社区) Center for juice and bagels.

    8:00—8:30 a.m.: Choose which activity you'd like to help with for the day.

    8:30 a.m.: Board the bus to your activity site.

    9:00 a.m.—3:30 p.m.: Work as a volunteer.

    3:30 p.m.: Board the bus that will take you back to the Community Center.

    See below for a list of volunteer opportunities for Volunteer Day so you can begin thinking about which activity you might want to join.

    A list of volunteer activities:

    Paint houses: Do you enjoy making art? If so, this volunteer opportunity might be just right for you! Happy Homes is a local organization that provides home repairs for needy people in the form of painting. For elderly or physically disabled people who cannot do repairs to their homes, Happy Homes provides volunteer painters to repaint old homes; outside or in. Happy Homes also provides painters to create beautiful wall paintings inside schools or community centers.

    Plant flowers: Do you enjoy being outside in nature? City Parks Association has many great opportunities for people who love to be outdoors. Help plant flowers and bushes in city parks; help lay paths at Cave Springs Park, or help pick up rubbish around the river banks. These activities are very active, so remember to be prepared with plenty of drinking water!

    Read to children: Do you enjoy working with young children? Do you like books? Love and Learning is an organization that provides volunteers to help children with learning disabilities. Read books out loud to groups of children four to six years old, or read one-on-one with struggling readers seven to eight years old.

    Play with animals: Do you love animals? Lovely Friends is an organization that visits local animal shelters and provides volunteers to spend time with the animals while their cages are being cleaned. Play with puppies, snuggle with cats, or hand-feed rabbits.