Everybody has one of those days when everything goes wrong. This is what happened to Harry.

    He got up one morning very late because he had forgotten to wind up his alarm clock（闹钟）. He tried to shave（刮脸）quickly and cut himself. When he got dressed he got blood all over his clean shirt, so he had to find another one. The only other shirt that was clean needed ironing（熨）, so he ironed it. While he was ironing it, there was a knock at the door. It was the man to read the electricity meter（表）. He showed him where the meter was, said good-bye and found that the iron had burnt a hole in his shirt. So he had to wear the one with the blood on it after all. By this time it was very late, so he decided he couldn't go to work by bus. He telephoned for a taxi to take him to work. The taxi arrived and Harry got in and began to read the newspaper.

    In another part of the town, a man had killed a woman with a knife and was seen to run away in a taxi. When Harry's taxi stopped outside his office, a policeman happened to be standing there. He saw the blood on Harry's shirt, and took him to the police station. He was kept till 3 o'clock in the afternoon before the police were sure that he was not the man they wanted. When he finally arrived at the office at about four, his boss took a look at him and told him to go away and find another job.

    In a historic moment on June 26, the US Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is a legal right across all 50 states. The Supreme Court justices ruled states cannot deny gay men and women the same marriage rights. The decision means the 13 states with bans on same-sex marriage are no longer able to enforce them.

    Same-sex couples “ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law”. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion: “The Constitution grants them that right.”

    The decision came after decades of litigation（诉讼） and activism. It set off celebrations across the US. In affected states including Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Texas, same-sex couples rushed to wed, while officials in Mississippi and Louisiana said marriages had to wait until procedural issues were addressed, reported the BBC.

    According to “The New York Times”, the ruling came against the backdrop of fast-moving changes in public opinion in the US, with polls indicating that most Americans now approve of same-sex marriage.

    US President Barack Obama welcomed the ruling, saying it “affirms what millions of Americans already believe in their hearts.” “Today,” he said in a press release, “we can say, in no uncertain terms, that we have made our union a little more perfect.”

Another win.

    This was the second time the Supreme Court took up same-sex marriage, according to an article in “Business Insider”. The first time, in June 2013, the court made a decision that allowed the US federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where they were already legal.

    But at that time, the Supreme Court declined to rule on the broader question about gay marriage: Is there a constitutional（宪法的） right to same-sex marriage? The June 26 ruling gave a positive answer to that question.

Justice Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion that the Constitution should evolve with societal changes.

    “The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times,” he wrote. “The generations that wrote and ratified the “Bill of Rights” and the “Fourteenth Amendment（修正案）” did not exactly know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they hoped the future generations can protect the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.”

    The Fourteenth Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the law. In the June 26 ruling, the Supreme Court declared that the equal protection clause of the amendment requires marriage rights be extended to same-sex couples, too.

    Some of the best research on daily experience is rooted in rates of positive and negative interactions, which has proved that being blindly positive or negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or to simply tune out.

    Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the rate of positive and negative interactions. Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood that a couple will divorce to the chances of a work team with high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.

    More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of criticism or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates (激活) conflict and defense mechanisms (机制). You assume that situations are worse than they actually are.

    When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges increase your body's production of oxytocin, a feel-good that increases your ability to communicate with, cooperate with and trust others. But the effects of a positive occurrence are less dramatic and lasting than they are for a negative one.

    We need at least three to five positive interactions to outweigh every one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you're having a conversation, keep this simple short cut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what's going right.

    Workplaces, for example, often see this. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses and “areas for improvement”. They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address weaknesses.

    Gardening is popular in many parts of the world. This outdoor activity gives us beautiful plants, pleasant smelling flowers and fresh fruits and vegetables. But it also does a lot of good to our health.

    Gardening connects people. When you are gardening, you are outdoors. So it is a perfect chance to meet and spend time with your neighbors. Most people love to talk about their hobbies, and gardeners are no different. They usually enjoy showing people what they are growing. And most enjoy sharing advice and stories about their gardens almost as much as sharing flowers and vegetables from their gardens.

    Gardening is a great activity for children. It gets them outdoors and off computers, televisions and cell phones. Gardening is also a great teacher. It can teach a child about where food comes from and healthy eating. It also helps them to understand that the natural resources (资源) are not inexhaustible and the importance of using them carefully.

    Then, when you garden, you must move around. All the different movements needed for gardening, like bending and lifting, work small muscles (肌肉) in the body. And you can easily get good exercise when you are digging holes or pulling grasses.

    In a study, researches looked at more than 2,800 people over the age of 60. They studied their lifestyle habits, activities and health over a 16-year period. They found that gardening could lower the risk of future dementia (痴呆) by 36%. Gardening requires people do many repeated actions, such as picking off dying flowers. These actions have a calming influence on the brain. The brain is still active but not in the same way when we use computers.

    You'll feel wonderful when what you grow in a garden looks, smells, feels and tastes good.

    10-year-old Mikaila Ulmer from Texas is building a lemonade（柠檬水）empire, hoping to save honey bees in the process.

    It all started when Mikaila was 4 years old and she was bitten by a bee twice in one week. This caused her to become very scared whenever bees were near. In order to help her manage this new fear, Mikaila's parents asked her to do some research on bees. She learned that bees are quite important for flowers, gardens and trees. She also learned that they are dying at a rapid rate. In the past year, honeybee farmers have reported losing nearly 42% of them. Many believe that this could be due to the overuse of pesticides（杀虫剂）.

    This is when she set her mind to create a product to help save bees. She started her company BeeSweet Lemonade. Her special lemonade recipe came from her great-grandmother's cookbook. She adds honey to it, instead of sugar. In order to call attention to the problems honeybees face, Mikaila sells lemonade almost every day at her lemonade stand. And she takes every opportunity to tell her customers about the problems that face honeybees.

    What began as a small activity is starting to grow. BeeSweet is projected to sell almost 140,000 bottles of lemonade this year. BeeSweet lemonade can be found on the shelves at select Whole Foods Markets as well as many restaurants and other locations near her home.

    Does Mikaila have any time to just be a kid? Sure! Every weekend Mikaila does something fun. She doesn't mind the hard work though. She says that she is happy watching people enjoy her lemonade. The more people enjoy it, the more they're learning about the bees.

As we all know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Now scientists have given us another warning: spending too much time on smart phones or computers makes you dull too.

"Many focus on the benefits of digital devices (设备) in education but ignore the costs," said Patricia Greenfield from the University of California, "losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people is one of the costs." Greenfield and her research team did an experiment. They worked with 105 children who spent about 4.5 hours in front of screens on a school day. The students were asked to describe the emotions towards the pictures of people who were happy, sad, angry or scared. Then, half of them attended a five-day nature and science camp. There they had no smart phones, TV, or computers. The other half stayed in school and spent the five days as usual. Five days later, all the children took the test again.

Students who had been to the camp got about 5 percent more answers correct than they had done before the camp. But the other group of students didn't show much improvement. The study is not perfect in some ways, said the researchers. But scientists say that the study is still a warning for us.

"Emotional skills develop in practice and the brain develops through real interaction." said Professor Taylor, a professor at the University of San Francisco.

Researchers talked to 2,000 parents of children aged 2-16 in the UK about what activities their children could do confidently. The results were surprising: Their children could use a tablet (平板电脑) (59%) and work a mobile phone (57%) more confidently than they could tie their shoe laces (鞋带) (53%)! So, spend more time away from mobile phones and computers if you want to be an understanding friend, and not a member of what the Daily Mail called "Generation Helpless".