When asked about happiness, we usually think of something extraordinary, an absolute delight, which seems to get rarer the older we get.

    For kids, happiness has a magical quality. Their delight at winning a race or getting a new bike is unreserved (毫无掩饰的).

    In the teenage years the concept of happiness changes. Suddenly it's conditional on such things as excitement, love and popularity. I can still recall the excitement of being invited to dance with the most attractive boy at the school party.

    In adulthood the things that bring deep joy—love, marriage, birth—also bring responsibility and the risk of loss. For adults, happiness is complicated.

    My definition of happiness is “the capacity for enjoyment”. The more we can enjoy what we have, the happier we are. It's easy to overlook the pleasure we get from the company of friends, the freedom to live where we please, and even good health.

    I experienced my little moments of pleasure yesterday. First I was overjoyed when I shut the last lunch-box and had the house to myself. Then I spent an uninterrupted morning writing, which I love. When the kids and my husband came home, I enjoyed their noise after the quiet of the day.

    Psychologists tell us that to be happy we need a mix of enjoyable leisure time and satisfying work. I don't think that my grandmother, who raised 14 children, had much of either. She did have a network of close friends and family, and maybe this is what satisfied her.

    We, however, with so many choices and such pressure to succeed in every area, have turned happiness into one more thing we've got to have. We're so self-conscious about our “right” to it that it's making us miserable. So we chase it and equal it with wealth and success, without noticing that the people who have those things aren't necessarily happier.

    Happiness isn't about what happens to us—it's about how we see what happens to us. It's the skillful way of finding a positive for every negative. It's not wishing for what we don't have, but enjoying what we do possess.

The Alexander technique

    Until earlier this year, I didn't know anything about the Alexander technique—and saw no reason to think I should. One day, the backache I regularly suffered was more painful. I was brought up to think that the preferred way of dealing with aches is to do nothing and hope they'll go away, but I eventually went to the doctor. After examining me, he said, "You actually have bad posture (姿势). Go off and learn the Alexander technique." Three months later I could walk straighter and sit better.

    The Alexander technique is a way of learning how you can get rid of harmful tension in your body. The teaching focuses on the neck, head and back. It trains you to use your body less severely and carry out the movements that we do all the time with less effort. There is little effort in the lessons themselves, which sets apart the Alexander technique from yoga or pilates, which are exercise-based. A typical lesson involves standing in front of a chair and learning to sit and stand with minimum effort. You spend some time lying on a bench with your knees bent to straighten the spine (脊椎) and relax your body while the teacher moves your arms and legs to train you to move them correctly.

    The technique helps to break the bad habits accumulated over years. Try folding your arms the opposite way to normal. This is an example of a habit the body has formed which can be hard to break. Many of us carry our heads too far back. The head weighs four to six kilos, so any inappropriate posture can cause problems for the body. The technique teaches you to let go of the muscles holding the head back, allowing it to go back to its natural place on the top of our spines.

    So who was Alexander and how did he come up with the technique? Frederick Alexander, an Australian actor born in 1869, found in his youth that he had vocal (声音的) problems during performances. He analyzed himself and realized his posture was bad. He worked on improving it, with excellent results. He brought his technique to London and opened a teacher-training school, which is still successful today.

    So if you're walking along the road one day with shoulders bent forward, feeling weighed down by your troubles, give a thought to the Alexander technique. It will help you walk tall again.

    Stephen Hawking was a famous physicist. He was born in 1942. He died at his home on March 14h, 2018 in Cambridge, Britain.
    As one of the well-known physicists on space and time in the world, Hawking devoted his whole life to discovering the secrets of the universe, and he is called the King of the Universe. Since he was 21 years old, Hawking had been badly ill, but he didn't give up his hope of living. He went on to study at Cambridge University after graduating from Oxford University. In 1965, he got a doctor's degree. Then he worked as a professor at Cambridge University.

    Hawking was known for his work with black holes. He also wrote several popular science books. Although he didn't live as freely as others, he still felt he was happy and he was thankful to life. When Hawking was invited to China, he made speeches in some famous universities.

    From Stephen Hawking's whole life, we learn that no matter how bad life is, we should not lose hope. As he once said," Life is not fair, you just have to do the best you can in your own situation."

My Favorite Sweater

By Bonnie Highsmith Taylor

    It was only a dollar. Belscher noticed it on the floor as he sat at the back of his English class. When the school day ended, Belscher wandered back to the classroom. The old bill was still there. He could easily have pocketed it without thinking twice. Instead, he picked it up and brought it to his English teacher, Mattison.

    "It wasn't my money," Belscher says. Mattison was a little surprised he'd turned the dollar in, knowing a lot of people would have just kept it. She suggested that Belscher tape(贴) it to the whiteboard at the front of the classroom, where she always puts lost things.

    Rose, another student, was in English class after break when he spotted the dollar on the whiteboard. After class, he asked Mattison why it was there. She was still waiting for the original owner to claim it, so she replied, "I don't know." Rose took the tape from Mattison's desk and taped a second dollar to the board.

    That got it rolling. The sight of the two dollar bills, side by side, started something in Mattison's students. They started asking about the purpose of the money, to which Mattison always gave the same answer: She didn't know. At that point, it was true.

    More students, curious, taped up single dollar bills. Mattison started to leave the tape on the tray of the whiteboard. The effort snowballed. Even with no clear purpose, many students wanted to be part of whatever this was. The amount continued to grow over several weeks, until it reached $175.76.

    That left Mattison to make the best decision. She kept thinking about her brother-in-law, Jack Hains. Eight years earlier, Jack had died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), a rare and devastating neurological disease(神经疾病).

    Mattison explained to her classes that Jack had raised money every spring for the ALS Therapy Development Institute, established to seek a cure for the disease. She asked the teens whether they minded if she donated the dollars in their names in honor of Jack.

    Their answer was to tape enough money to the whiteboard over the next few days to push the amount to $321.06. Mattison, choking back tears as she recalls the moment, says she carefully picked the cash off the board and made the donation just before the beginning of May, which is National ALS Awareness Month. That was Saturday. By Monday afternoon, eight more dollars had been taped to the board.