The life expectancy is the length of time that a person is normally likely to live. As it increases nowadays, the average person lives beyond the age of retirement. As a result, the elderly make up an ever-increasing percentage of society, which makes it more important to make effort to improve the lives of senior citizens.

    First of all, one way would be to make sure that the elderly have enough money on which to live. Obviously, when a person stops working, they still require a source of income to cover their basic needs such as food, accommodation and heating. A clear solution to the problem is for the government to make sure that the state pension(养老金) is enough for these needs.

    Measures should also be taken to overcome the health problems the elderly face. The government should also provide access to the best health care available, which may necessitate paying for residential homes where the elderly can have round-the-clock nursing, or, at least, providing medication free of charge to all people over a certain age.

    If we try to address the problem of social isolation (社交孤立), the lives of old people could be improved. If we organize trips for the elderly to community centers, visits from social workers, their problem of loneliness can be reduced a lot which marks the lives of so many old people living alone and far from their families.

    The last helpful suggestion is to change the attitude of the community towards its older members, who are all too often seen as a burden on society. We need to be taught from an early age to respect the views of old people, and appreciate their broader experience of life. This would help society as a whole, and encourage appreciation of the role that old people can still play today.

    The 65-year-old Steve Goodwin was found suffering from early Alzheimer's (阿尔楚海默症). He was losing his memory.

    A software engineer by profession, Steve was a keen lover of the piano, and the only musician in his family. Music was his true passion, though he had never performed outside the family.

    Melissa, his daughter, felt it more than worthwhile to save his music, to which she fell asleep catch night when she was young. She thought about hiring a professional pianist to work with her father.

    Naomi, Melissa's best friend and a talented pianist, got to know about this and showed willingness to help.

    "Why do this?" Steve wondered.

    "Because she cares." Melissa said.

    Steve nodded, tears in eye.

    Naomi drove to the Goodwin home. She told Steve she'd love to hear him play. Steve moved to the piano and sat at the bench, hands trembling as he gently placed his fingers on the keys.

    Naomi put a small recorder near the piano, Starts and stops and mistakes. Long pauses, heart sinking. But Steve pressed on, playing for the first time in his life for a stranger.

    "It was beautiful." Naomi said after listening to the recording. "The music was worth saving."

    Her responsibility, her privilege, would be to rescue it. The music was sill in Steve Goodwin. It was bidden in rooms with doors about to be locked.

    Naomi and Steve met every other week and spent hours together. He'd move his fingers clumsily on the piano, and then she'd take his place. He struggled to explain what he heard in his head. He stood by the piano, eyes closed, listening for the first time to his own work being played by someone else.

    Steve and Naomi spoke in musical code lines, beats, intervals, moving from the root to end a song in a new key. Steve heard it. All of it. He just couldn't play it.

    Working with Naomi did wonders for Steve. It had excited within him the belief he could write one last song. One day, Naomi received an email. Attached was a recording, a recording of loss and love, of the fight. Steve called it "Melancholy Flower".

    Naomi heard multiple stops and starts, Steve struggling, searching while his wife Joni called him "honey" and encouraged him. The task was so hard, and Steve, angry and upset, said he was quitting. Joni praised him, telling her husband this could be his signature piece.

    Naomi managed to figure out 16 of Steve's favorite, and most personal songs. With Naomi's help, the Goodwin family found a sound engineer to record Naomi playing Steve's songs. Joni thought that would be the end. But it wasn't.

    In the months leading up to the 2016 Oregon Repertory Singers Christmas concert, Naomi told the director she had a special one in mind: "Melancholy Flower"

    She told the director about her project with Steve. The director agreed to add it to the playing list. But Naomi would have to ask Steve's permission. He considered it an honor.

    After the concert, Naomi told the family that Steve's music was beautiful and professional. It needed to be shared in public.

    The family rented a former church in downtown Portland and scheduled a concert. By the day of the show, more than 300 people had said they would attend.

    By then, Steve was having a hard time remembering the names of some of his friends. He knew the path his life was now taking. He told his family he was at peace.

    Steve arrived and sat in the front row, surrounded by his family. The house lights faded. Naomi took the stage. Her fingers. His heart.

    Age has never been a problem for 16­year­old Thessalonika Arzu­Embry. After all, she's already got her master's degree.

    The North Chicago­area teen started homeschooling at the age of 4. She began having an influence on others soon after. When she was 6 years old, she was an inspirational speaker at an organization called Tabitha House Community Service, a shelter for people who were forced to leave their homes due to the situations such as earthquake, flood and other natural disasters.

    At the age of 11, she graduated from high school and then earned her bachelor's degree in psychology in 2013. She completed those classes online as she was traveling for church events and leadership meetings.

    She doesn't stop there, though. The teen plans to focus on aviation psychology(航空心理学) for her further study, a decision inspired by her father who is a pilot. She grew up around airplanes and took fights all the time. Her goal is to use it to determine whether pilots are dealing with problems that could have deadly results once the plane takes off­a topic that has been in the news lately. For her, it's a mix of two of her interests.

    In her free time, Thessalonika enjoys playing tennis, swimming and being active in her youth group at church. She also has three self­published books, which are on her site. Jump the Education Barrier is written to help students finish college, and in the future aims to help business owners with trends. Her third book The Genius Race, has a wider appeal. It is designed to help people to be geniuses in various areas of life.

It was the Dragon Boat Festival. Shiny white tents lined the waterfront, {#blank#}1{#/blank#} (provide) shade and refreshments for dragon boat paddlers (桨手) from all over California, {#blank#}2{#/blank#} gathered around the Castaic Lake for a festive competition.

Giggling kids raced cheerfully along the lakeside beach, with  {#blank#}3{#/blank#} (they) parents enjoying the shady picnic areas under the trees along the shore. "It's a great day out," said Paul Lin, co-founder of Castaic's own Dragon Eyes team.

Dragon boat racing has been going on for thousands of years in China, {#blank#}4{#/blank#}  (initial) conducted in honor of the poet Qu Yuan, as a way  {#blank#}5{#/blank#} (honor) his legacy and spirit.

In the race, a drummer  {#blank#}6{#/blank#} (use) a large traditional wooden drum to keep the paddlers on the beat, {#blank#}7{#/blank#}  a steersman in the back keeps them in their lane.

Lin said a friend got him  {#blank#}8{#/blank#} (involve) in dragon boat racing over a decade ago. In 2018, they decided to host their own festival. "There's something really special to be learned from our dragon boat motto: One Boat, One Beat," he said. "Paddlers come from all walks of life and that kind of {#blank#}9{#/blank#} (close) with people is nowhere else to be seen."

"We really want to help expand people's awareness and grow the sport," said Lin. "We're hoping one day it will become  {#blank#}10{#/blank#}  Olympic sport."

We credit Socrates with the insight that "the unexamined life is not worth living," and that to "know thyself" is the path to true wisdom.

But when it comes to introspection (内省), you might easily slip into the "rumination" (沉思) mode. This pattern is likely to cause you to become stuck in the rut of your own thoughts and absorbed in the emotions that might lead you to a wrong way. Research has also shown that people who are likely to ruminate are often at a substantially increased risk of depression.

Instead, scientific research suggests that you should adopt an ancient method favored by the likes of Julius Caesar, known as "illeism" which was coined in 1809 from the Latin "ille" meaning "he". The point of adopting this third person thinking is that such a small change can clear your emotional fog, allowing you to see your biases and helping you know the limits of your understanding of the problem at hand.

A study finds that illeism can also bring long-term benefits to wise reasoning (including elements like taking the perspective of others, recognizing uncertainty, and so on). The finding is the brainchild of Igor Grossmann, a psychologist. According to Grossmann, wise reasoning had long been considered too vague for scientific enquiry. In one of his earlier experiments, he established that as with IQ, the scores of wise reasoning could be achieved and were meaningful.

Grossmann's latest research team asked nearly 300 participants to describe a challenging social situation, and two psychologists graded them on different aspects of wise reasoning. The participants then had to keep a diary for four weeks. Each day, they had to describe a situation they'd just experienced, such as a disagreement with someone. Half were prompted to do so in the first person, while the others were encouraged to describe their situations from a third person perspective. At the end of the study, all participants repeated the wise reasoning test.

While the control group showed no overall change in their wise reasoning scores, those using illeism improved on their perspective taking and capacity to find a compromise.

Grossmann's work continues to prove that the subject of wisdom is worthy of experimental studies, indicating wiser reasoning is within everyone's power.