One day. One lifetime. You can do it! From the museum of modern art to the museum of ancient articles, visit our picks for the world's best museums.

National Gallery of Canada (Ottawa)

    This museum has a great collection of art spanning the Middle Ages to the present day, including American, Indian, European, Inuit and Canadian works. It offers a unique, near-complete overview of Canadian art — from early Quebec religious work, through Inuit work from the 1950s, to the contemporaries.

Tokugawa Art Museum (Japan)

    The Tokugawa family reigned over Japan from 1600 to 1868. Under them, the country enjoyed the longest period of peace in its history. This time span is also known as the Edo period, during which the arts flowered in Japan. Artists of this period directly influenced Western masters such as Monet, Gauguin and Whistler and have since gone on to become household names. Other exhibits effectively present, through accurately reproduced environments, aspects of Japanese life at the time.

    Museum of Fine Arts (Boston)

    Highlights of this museum's collection include a 4th-century Christian marble bust (半身像) of St. Paul at prayer, and a painting that questions life and our very existence, Gauguin's “Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?” It's a must — go in the US.

The Egyptian Museum (Cairo)

    As well as gathering together some of the finest archaeological finds from all Egypt, this museum also provides a rare opportunity to simply pop in and within minutes be standing face-to-face with one of the greatest works of mankind, Tutankhamun's golden mask. A portrait of unbelievable quality, craftsmanship and beauty, the highly polished gold face — at once a god, a king and a teenager — shines like water: delicate, yet untouchable all at the same time.

    That cold January night, I was growing sick of my life in San Francisco. There I was, walking home at one in the morning after a tiring practice at the theater. With opening night only a week away, I was still learning my lines. I was having trouble dealing with my part-time job at the bank and my acting at night at the same time. As I walked, I thought seriously about giving up both acting and San Francisco. City life had become too much for me.

    As I walked down empty streets under tall buildings, I felt very small and cold. I began running, both to keep warm and to keep away any possible robbers. Very few people were still out except a few sad-looking homeless people under blankets.

About a block from my apartment, I heard a sound behind me. I turned quickly, half expecting to see someone with a knife or a gun. The street was empty. All I saw was a shining streetlight. Still, the noise had made me nervous, so I started to run faster. Not until I reached my apartment building and unlocked the door did I realize what the noise had been. It had been my wallet falling to the sidewalk.

    Suddenly I wasn't cold or tired anymore. I ran out of the door and back to where I'd heard the noise. Although I searched the sidewalk anxiously for fifteen minutes, my wallet was nowhere to be found.

    Just as I was about to give up the search, I heard the garbage truck pull up to the sidewalk next to me. When a voice called from the inside, "Alisa Camacho？" I thought I was dreaming. How could this man know my name？ The door opened, and out jumped a small red-haired man with an amused look in his eyes. "Is this what you're looking for？" he asked, holding up a small square shape.

    It was nearly 3 a. m. by the time I got into bed. I wouldn't get much sleep that night, but I had got my wallet back. I also had got back some enjoyment of city life. I realized that the city couldn't be a bad place as long as people were willing to help each other.

    Making decisions when shopping is often tough. Even if you're satisfied with the first dress you try on, would you go on looking for alternatives, comparing styles and prices, until you drop dead?

    According to a recent Wall Street Journal column, psychology researchers have studied how people make decisions and concluded there are two basic styles.“Maximizers” are people who want the best. They like to take their time and weigh a wide range of options—sometimes every possible one—before choosing.“Satisfiers” would rather be fast than thorough. They are people who want to be good enough.

    Schwartz and his colleagues followed 548 job-seeking college seniors at 11 schools from October through their graduation in June. They found that the maximizers landed better jobs. Their starting salaries were, on average, 20 percent higher than those of the satisfiers, but they felt worse about their jobs.

    There is no right choice.“The maximizer is kicking himself because he can't examine every option and at some point had to just pick something,” Schwartz says.“Maximizers make good decisions and end up feeling bad about them. Satisfiers make good decisions and end up feeling good. ”

    Faced with so many choices in our lives, we need to learn how not to waste time and energy on our decision-making, says Jane C. Hu in Slate online magazine.Hu suggests, decrease your range of options. Once you've arrived at a decision, stick with it. Just accept that no decision is ever completely perfect, and remind yourself that it is the best you can do at the moment.

    Americans gave nearly $300 billion away last year. Do you know the reason? Beyond the noble goals of helping others, it is that giving will make them happier.

    It is a fact that givers are happier people than non-givers. According to the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, a survey of 30,000 American households, people who give money to charity are 43% more likely than non-givers to say they are "very happy" about their lives. Similarly, volunteers are 42% more likely to be very happy then non-volunteers.

    The happiness difference between givers and non-givers is not due to differences in their personal characteristics, such as income or religion. Imagine two people who are identical in terms of income and faith, as well as age, education, politics, sex, and family circumstances, but one donates money and volunteers, while the other does not. The giver will be, on average, over 40 percentage points more likely to be very happy than the non-givers.

    A number of studies have researched exactly why charity leads to happiness. The surprising conclusion is that giving affects our brain chemistry. For example, people who give often report feelings of euphoria, which psychologists have referred to as the "Helper's High". They believe that charitable activity produces a very mild version of the sensations people get from drugs like morphine and heroin.

    Of course, not only does giving increase our happiness, but also our happiness increases the possibility that we will give. Everyone prefers to give more when they are happy. Researchers have investigated this by conducting experiments in which people are asked about their happiness before and after they participate in a charitable activity, such as volunteering to help children or serving meals to the poor. The result is clear that giving has a strong, positive causal impact on our happiness, so does happiness on giving

    NEW HAVEN, Connecticut—A surprise awaited students in Yale who showed up for Professor Laurie Santos's class. They got slips of paper that said, "No class today." There was only one rule for the students' unexpected free time—They were not allowed to study, but to relax. Since exams and papers were coming up, everyone was tired and stressed. At this moment they were touched. With around applause, nine students hugged Santos, and two burst into tears.

    Yet, cancelling class was not just a break. It was also a challenge, as she was asking them to stop worrying about their grades, even if it was just an hour. One student went to the Yale University Art Gallery for the first time in her four years at Yale. A group of students went to a recording studio and played a new song. More people were outside, and more were smiling. That's why about 1, 200 students were taking Santos's class, called "Psychology and the Good Life," the largest class in Yale's 317-year history. Even non-Yale students had the chance to take Santos's class. It was offered as an online course and she immediately became an Internet hit.

    Skyler Robinson, one of her students, was at a loss for a while about what to do during his break, and then decided to take a nap. "It was a great nap," he commented. Santos designed the class after she realized that her students kept busy through long days that seemed far more depressing and joyless than her own college years. "They feel they're in this crazy rat race. They're working so hard that they can't take a single hour off. That's awful."

    The ideas behind the class are simple. Santos said, "It is the hope that science can help students find peace among all the stresses and difficulties they face at college." The lessons include showing more gratitude, performing acts of kindness and increasing social connections. The students really wanted to learn to lead a happy life in a science -driven way. Santos also noted the psychological happening of "mis-wanting", which led people to work towards the wrong goals in life.

    One week, Santo asked students to exercise. Another week, she wanted them to get more sleep. They worked hard to keep some new habits. Social science research led to many new understandings of how people find happiness. She thinks her class can change Yale, or rather, not just Yale.

It was 1504,and Columbus was making another trip to the New World.Columbus and his men needed fresh water and food after three months at sea.They saw an island and went to the shore.On the island there were unfriendly Indians who refused to give food and water to them.Columbus' men were afraid of the Indians,but he had a clever plan.He used gesture(手势) language to tell the Indians about his mysterious (神秘的) power to turn off the light in the sky.He knew about a lunar eclipse (月食) the next night because the information was in his almanac (天文历书).Columbus told the Indians,"Tomorrow night I'll turn off the light in the sky." But they didn't believe him.When the eclipse began the next night,the Indians became very frightened.They begged Columbus to turn on the light again,and they quickly gave him all the food and water he wanted.Immediately Columbus and his men hurried back to the ship and sailed away in the moonless night.