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    Asking for salary history provides an easy way to sort applicants into an employer's desired price range and helps the employer calculate the lowest offer that will still attract a candidate. But an increasing number of U.S. states and cities agree there ought to be a law against it. Massachusetts, Philadelphia, New York City and Puerto Rico have banned salary history questions on applications and in interviews.

    Why? Because when it comes to a candidate's suitability for a job, salary history is a subjective (主观的) and often misleading indicator — and it may most affect ＂the people who have already been illegally treated,＂ says Katie Donovan, a salary negotiation coach and one of the authors of the Massachusetts law.

    Candidates who start their careers underpaid because of the gender (性别) or race wage gap, a bad economy or a cheap boss finds that this lowball (虚报低价) figure continues to weigh them down throughout their career. At the same time, senior victims of layoffs have difficulty being hired because employers assume they're not interested in senior victims.

    In an interview, you can avoid talking about salary history questions by turning the discussion to what you're looking to make.

    Donovan recommends a method similar to what you're already doing: Enter $0.00, or some other number that is clearly intended not to cheat, but to oppose.

    Of course, there's always a risk doing so because it will cost you opportunities. But Ronda Wakefield, owner of NW MT HR Solutions, says that when she receives an application with an obviously false salary history, she'll still follow up if the candidate interests her. ＂I personally don't want to miss out on a great candidate because they didn't want to answer the question directly,＂ she says.

When I was in my third year at university, my roommates were American footballers, so I decided to join them. I remember seeing them in front of me wearing pads (防护垫), and thinking they were going to kill me. I got tackled (阻截) so hard that I was frightened. But then I realized it was just physical contact. I've been addicted since.

The fundamental aim of the game is to score by running with the ball into, or receiving the ball inside the opposition's end zone. Every player on the field has a set responsibility. I'm a running back. My job is using my speed, strength and skill to carry the ball and keep running until either I score or I get put down. And it does hurt.

I've broken two fingers and hurt my shoulder, but the worst was when I trapped the ligaments (韧带) in the back of my leg. I had to take a year out. But none of that put me off- all I could think was how I was going to come back stronger. Besides training with the team, I now have my gym routine to get fitter, faster and stronger.

Although people think American football is aggressive, there's much more to it. Every team has its own playbook, outlining everyone's role in different scenes. My playbook was 73 pages long. Words can't describe how it feels when it all comes together on the field.

American football has changed my life for the better. I've learned time management, how to take responsibility for my action, and how much I treasure being part of a team. Within the four lines of the field, it is physical. Emotions run high. If you're on the opposing team, you are my enemy. But once the game is done, we're like a big family.

    What is success?I am not going to try to define success.I think a precise definition is impossible!Is it winning a Gold Medal at the Olympic Games or winning Wimbledon,or being awarded a Nobel Prize?What else?I believe personal success could be anything at all—it does not have to involve public recognition.Who is more successful?A millionaire who is unhappy,or an unnoticed person,who has led a simple,quiet,sincere and happy life?The simplest definition of success,I think,is "to set out to do something and to succeed in doing it".

    The first step on the road to success starts with belief.Believe you can succeed and you will.Achieving success in whatever endeavor（努力）you choose may be the goal of life;because it gives you freedom from worry.Could that be?

Success means different things to every one of us.Some people believe it is measured in financial terms,others believe it is helping others rather than helping themselves.However,most people are motivated to a great extent by public recognition.How many people are really happy?How many people are really doing what they want to with their lives?Incidentally,the ability to imagine makes us different from animals.

    Most important of all,I believe success is a matter of personal growth.If every day you are developing or growing just a millimeter,I believe one is successful.Just being a slightly better person each day for me is success. I've got a very long way to go then!

    Finally,always remember success is a process and is not simply a matter of arriving at a destination.It's the journey that really matters.Success is what you become in the often very difficult and dangerous journey down the river of life.

    20 years ago, a couple of ecologists, Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs, convinced Del Oro, a large orange juice producer, to donate part of their forestland to a national park in exchange for the right to dump (倾倒) massive amounts of orange peels on a 3-hectare piece of land within the national park, at no cost. Dealing with tons of waste peels usually involved burning them or paying to have them dumped at a landfill, so the proposal was very attractive.

    A year after the contract was signed, Del Oro dumped around 12,000 tons of sticky orange waste in the land. However, another juice company and rival of Del Oro challenged the deal in court, arguing that their competitor was “polluting the national park”. They ended up winning, and the deal between Del Oro and the national park fell through. The 3-hectare piece of land virtually covered with fruit waste was completely forgotten.

    Then, in 2013, Timothy Treuer, a scientist at Princeton University visited that piece of land 15 years earlier. What he found shocked him. “It was completely overgrown with trees and vines,” Timothy Treuer recently said, “the difference between fertilized and unfertilized areas was visually surprised us a lot! We needed to come up with some really good standards to evaluate exactly what was happening there.”

    To confirm that the fruit waste was responsible for the revival of plant life, Treuer and his team spent months picking up samples, analyzing and comparing them. They found “dramatic differences between the areas covered in orange peels and those that were not. The area fertilized by orange waste had richer soil, greater tree-species richness and greater forest coverage. In a sense, it's not just a win-win between the company and the local park—it's a win for everyone.”

    The effect the orange peels had on the land is probably not that surprising to people familiar with composting (堆肥), but what is shocking is that a judge actually called this particular example polluting the national park and stopped it from going forward. Now that Timothy Treuer's study has received worldwide attention, this type of polluting is being seriously considered as a way of bringing tropical forests back to life.

    Most people who fly on passenger planes in the United States do not lose their luggage. Even if the luggage is lost, usually it is only delayed. Most “lost” luggage is found in a few days. Airlines search for the owners of unclaimed(未认领的) bags for up to three months. But when the owners cannot be found or the bags are not claimed, they are sold to a store in the small city of Scottsboro, in the southern state of Alabama.

    About one-half of one percent of all luggage passing through US airports is unclaimed. Many of the missing bags, and what is in them, are sold at the Unclaimed Baggage Center. Seven thousand items arrive at the store every day. Tom Barnes, who was shopping at the store said, “I can go into any of the large shopping centers, like the international malls. I can walk through there for an hour and come out with three items. But I come into this store, and then I come out with my car full of stuff.”

    Brenda Cantrell, who works at the store, said, “The Unclaimed Baggage Center is the only store in America that buys and resells unclaimed baggage from the airline industry. You would be surprised at all the jackets, eyeglasses, neck pillows, blankets, laptops, Kindles, iPads, and you know, all kinds of expensive electronics.”

    The store says it once sold a container for flowers for $80 that was found to be worth $18,000. And it says a painting it sold for $25 was later found to be worth $25,000.

    The store buys the luggage from the airlines. It does not examine the things inside them before buying them. Only about half of the items in the bags are suitable for sale at the store.

    Some people say it is not fair to the owners of the lost passage to sell their goods. Customer Daniel Martin is not one of them, saying, “I feel the airport may try to find the people that lose the things. If they've tried and they can't get a hold of them, it's better than throwing them away or just letting them rot in a warehouse somewhere.”

    On a Friday night, a poor young artist stood at the gate of the New York railway station, playing his violin. The music was so great that many people stopped to put some money into the hat of the young man.

    The next day, the young artist came to the same place, and put his hat on the ground gracefully. Different from the day before, he took out a large piece of paper and laid it under his hat. Then he began to play the violin. It sounded more pleasant than ever.

    Soon he was surrounded with people who were attracted by the words on that paper. It said, “Last night, a gentleman named George Sang put an important thing into my hat by mistake. Please come to claim(认领) it soon.”

    After about half an hour, a middle-aged man rushed through the crowd to the violinist and said, “Yes, it's you. I knew that you were an honest man and would certainly come here.” The young violinist asked calmly, “Are you Mr. George Sang?” The man nodded. The violinist asked, “Did you lose something?” “It's a lottery ticket(彩票),” said the man. The violinist took out a lottery ticket on which George Sang's name was seen. “Is it?” he asked. George nodded and took the lottery ticket and kissed it, then danced with the violinist.

    The violinist was a student at an arts college and had planned to attend advanced studies in Vienna. Later his classmate asked the violinist, “At that time you needed money to pay the tuition(学费) and you had to play the violin in the railway station every day to make money. Why didn't you keep the lottery ticket for yourself?” The violinist said, “Although I don't have much money, I live happily. But if I lose honesty I won't be happy forever.”

    Through our lives, we can gain a lot and lose so much. But being honest should always be with us.