Overcoming Obstacles: How Your Biggest Failure Can Lead to Your Success

    There's been a lot written on the theme of failure and how essential it is to success. In a world where {#blank#}1{#/blank#} is given for people's accomplishments, failing feels dangerous. The fear of failure can stop people taking risks that might lead to success.

    Heidi Grant Halvorson, a psychologist, points out much of success is {#blank#}2{#/blank#} not on talent but on learning from your mistakes.

About half of the people in the world hold that ability in an area — be it creative or social skill — is natural. The other half believes, instead, that someone might have a preference or something — say painting or speaking foreign languages — but this ability can be improved through {#blank#}3{#/blank#} practice or training.

It's almost impossible to think rationally (理性地) while shouting at yourself, “I'm a failure”. But when you {#blank#}4{#/blank#} your thinking, you will probably see what you can control — your behavior, your planning, your reactions — and change them.

The primary {#blank#}5{#/blank#} between successful people and unsuccessful people is that the successful people fail more. If you see failure as a monster approaching you, take another look.

Success is as scary as failure. Researchers report that satisfaction grows on challenges. Think about it — a computer game you can always win is boring; one you can win {#blank#}6{#/blank#}, and with considerable effort, is fun. In pursuit of success, failure exposes areas that you need to {#blank#}7{#/blank#}. So the failure serves as a brick wall to test how you apply yourself to {#blank#}8{#/blank#} your objectives and how much you want them.

    There is a way to distinguish whether a failure {#blank#}9{#/blank#} you to double down or walk away, says Halvorson. If, when things get rough, you remain fascinated by your goal, you should keep going. If what you're doing is costing you too much time and energy or it's not bringing you joy, you should give a second thought to the {#blank#}10{#/blank#} of your goal and even set a new one.

Is climate change consuming your favorite foods?

    Coffee: Whether or not you try to limit yourself to one cup of coffee a day, the effects of climate change on the world's coffee-growing regions may leave you little choice. {#blank#}1{#/blank#} America, Africa, Asia and Hawaii are all being threatened by rising air temperatures and unstable rainfall patterns, which invite disease and {#blank#}2{#/blank#} species to live on the coffee plant and ripening beans. The result? Significant cuts in coffee yield and less coffee in your cup. It is estimated that, if current climate patterns continue, half of the areas {#blank#}3{#/blank#} suitable for coffee production won't be by the year 2050.

    Tea: When it comes to tea, warmer climates and erratic precipitation aren't only {#blank#}4{#/blank#} the world's tea-growing regions, they're also messing with its distinct flavor. For example, in India, researchers have already discovered that the Indian Monsoon has brought more intense rainfall, making tea flavor weaker. Recent research coming out of the University of Southampton suggests that tea-producing areas in some places, {#blank#}5{#/blank#} East Africa, could decline by as much as 55 percent by 2050 as precipitation and temperatures change. Tea pickers are also feeling the {#blank#}6{#/blank#} of climate change. During harvest season, increased air temperatures are creating an increased risk of heatstroke for field workers.

    Seafood: Climate change is affecting the world's aquaculture as much as its agriculture. As air temperatures rise, oceans and waterways absorb some of the heat and {#blank#}7{#/blank#} warming of their own. The result is a decline in fish population, including in lobsters (who are cold-blooded creatures), and salmon (whose eggs find it hard to survive in higher water temps). Warmer waters also {#blank#}8{#/blank#} toxic marine bacteria, like Vibrio, to grow and cause illness in humans whenever ingested with raw seafood, like oysters or sashimi.

    And that {#blank#}9{#/blank#} "crack" you get when eating crab and lobster? It could be silenced as shellfish struggle to build their calcium(碳) carbonate shells, a result of ocean acidification (absorb carbon dioxide from the air). According to a study, scientists predicted that if over-fishing and rising temperature trends continued at their present rate, the world's seafood {#blank#}10{#/blank#} would run out by the year 2050.

Touring Cenotes

    My parents and I traveled to Mexico to visit my grandparents last summer, and we visited the cenotes (say-NO-tays), the natural swimming holes located on the Yucatán Peninsula. The term "swimming hole" might make you think that cenotes are just average, but cenotes are truly {#blank#}1{#/blank#}. I had the most exciting experience of my life exploring these wonders of nature.

    Thousands of years old, the cenotes formed and created sinkholes underneath. Though the ancient Mayans (玛雅人) used the cenotes as water {#blank#}2{#/blank#}, people can now swim, dive, take photographs, and admire local trees and {#blank#}3{#/blank#} life, all through water as clear as liquid diamond.

    In Cenote Azul, my parents, my grandparents, and I swam through water that seemed too blue to be real. I {#blank#}4{#/blank#} countless younger kids diving into the water from a small cliff, but I dared not to jump at first. I finally worked up the courage, and my {#blank#}5{#/blank#} try instantly put all my worries to rest.

    A few days later, we went to Cenote Ponderosa. We stayed in the sun-covered pond, where we {#blank#}6{#/blank#} floated while others did diving and took underwater photographs. Being surrounded by a valley of trees made everything else in the world seem to disappear.

    Grutas de Loltún were definitely the most magnificent of all the cenotes, even though there was no swimming involved. Grutas are caves, and the Grutas de Loltún are among the biggest caves on the entire Peninsula. Our guide, Carolina, walked us through several caves, where we saw many drawings thousands of years old on the cave walls! Just one brief look at those drawings made me feel like I had stepped back in time to a(n) {#blank#}7{#/blank#} era of history. Our group thought Carolina was joking when she claimed she could make the stalagmites(石笋) sing for us, but when she {#blank#}8{#/blank#} them, we heard what sounded like the words "Lol" and "Tun"—the name of the caves! I cannot imagine that a(n) {#blank#}9{#/blank#} played at a concert at Carnegie Hall would have been any better.

    Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula is filled with beauty, but the cenotes are a one-of-a-kind opportunity to commune with nature in a way that is impossible anywhere else on Earth, and I would not {#blank#}10{#/blank#} to do it all again.

Measles (麻疹) breaks out in the Northwest

    The U.S. is experiencing outbreaks of measles, a disease it had declared eliminated years ago, largely due to a drop in vaccination (接种疫苗) rates in some communities.

    An outbreak in Washington state has sickened 23 people this month, mostly children under 10. Local health officials in Clark County, declared a public-health {#blank#}1{#/blank#} on Friday. They also urged residents to track {#blank#}2{#/blank#} symptoms and call ahead before heading to medical centers.

    State officials announced the {#blank#}3{#/blank#} of measles from the U.S. in 2000, thanks to a widespread vaccination program. But travelers entering the country with measles, as well as dropping vaccination rates in some states in recent years, has led to a rise in infection. Last year, there were a total of 17 outbreaks, {#blank#}4{#/blank#} as three or more cases linked together, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. New York and New Jersey {#blank#}5{#/blank#} for roughly half of the 2018 cases. The Clark County outbreak began early last week with three confirmed cases and has since grown to 23 confirmed and two more {#blank#}6{#/blank#}. Of those cases, 20 were unvaccinated and the others are unconfirmed.

    Measles is highly {#blank#}7{#/blank#}; the virus spreads through the air by coughing or sneezing, the CDC says. Early {#blank#}8{#/blank#} include a high fever, cough, runny nose and red, watery eyes, followed by tiny, white spots inside the mouth and the red, bumpy rash (疹子) that people {#blank#}9{#/blank#} associate with the infection. Children younger than 5 or adults older than 20 are more likely to suffer from complications, according to the CDC.

    In order to prevent the further spread of the outbreak, local health officials are posting times and places where residents may have been exposed. They are urging residents who haven't been vaccinated to {#blank#}10{#/blank#} whether they have been exposed and to take appropriate action.