Diet Coke, diet Pepsi, diet pills, no-fat diet, vegetable diet… We are surrounded by the word “diet” everywhere we look and listen. We have so easily been attracted by the promise and potential of diet products that we have stopped thinking about what diet products are doing to us. We are paying for products that harm us psychologically and physically.

    Diet products significantly weaken us psychologically. On one level, we are not allowing our brain to admit that our weight problems lie not in actually losing the weight, but in controlling the consumption（摄入） of fatty, high-calorie, unhealthy foods. Diet products allow us to jump over the thinking stage and go straight for the scale（秤）instead. All we have to do is to swallow or recognize the word “diet” in food labels(标签).

    On another level, diet products have greater psychological effects. Every time we have a zero-calorie drink, we are telling ourselves without knowing that we don't have to work to get results. Diet products make people believe that gain comes without pain, and that life can be without resistance（抵制and struggle.

    The danger of diet products lies not only in the psychological effects they have on us, but also in the physical harm that they cause. Diet foods can indirectly harm our bodies because consuming them instead of healthy foods means we are preventing our bodies from having basic nutrients(营养成分). Diet foods and diet pills contain zero calorie only because the diet industry has created chemicals to produce these wonder products. Diet products may not be nutritional, and the chemical that go into diet products are potentially dangerous.

    Now that we know the effects that diet products have on us, it is time to seriously think about buying them. Losing weight lies in the power of minds, not in the power of chemicals. Once we realize this, we will be much better able to resist diet products, and therefore prevent the psychological harm that comes from using them.

    Grey clouds move as low as smoke over the treetops at Lolo Pass. The ground is white. The day is June 10.It has been snowing for the past four days in the Bitterroot Mountains.Wayne Fairchild is getting worried about our trek over the Lolo Trail-95 miles from Lolo Montana to Weippe in Idaho, across the roughest country in the West. Lewis and Clark were nearly defeated 200 years ago by snowstorms on the Lolo.Today Fairchild is nervously checking the weather reports.He has agreed to take me across the toughest,middle section of the trail.

    When Lewis climbed on top of Lemhi Pass,140 miles south of Missoula,on Aug.12,1805,he was astonished by what was in front of him;“high mountain chains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.”Nobody in what was then the US knew the Rocky Mountains existed,with peaks twice as high as anything in the Appalachians back East.

    Today their pathway through those mountains holds more attraction than any other ground over which they traveled,for its raw wilderness is an evidence to the character of two cultures:the explorers who braved its hardships and the Native Americans who prize and conserve the path as a sacred (神圣的)gift. It remains today the same condition as when Lewis and Clark walked it.

    The Lolo is passable only from July to mid-September.Our luck is holding with the weather,although the snow keeps getting deeper.As we climb to Indian Post Office,the highest point on the trail at 7,033 ft,we have covered 13 miles in soft snow,and we hardly have enough energy to make dinner.After a meal of chicken,I sit on a rock on top of the ridge (山脊）.There is no light visible in any direction,not even another campfire.For four days we do not see another human being.We are occupied with the things that mix fear with joy.In our imagination we have finally caught up with Lewis and Clark.

    They wear the latest fashions with the most up-to-date accessories(配饰). Yet these are girls in their teens or twenties but women in their sixties and seventies. A generation which would once only wear old-fashioned clothes is now favoring the same high street looks worn by those half their age.

    Professor Julia Twigg, a social policy expert , said ,“Women over 75 are now shopping for clothes more frequently than they did when they were young in the 1960s .In the 1960s buying a coat for a woman was a serious matter . It was an expensive item that they would purchase only every three or four years — now you can pick one up at the supermarket whosever you wish to .Fashion is a lot cheaper and people felt tired of things more quickly . ”

    Fashion designer Angela Barnard ,who runs own fashion business in London ,said older women were much more affected celebrity(名流) style than in previous years .

    She said, “When people see stars such as Judi Dench and Helen Mirren looking attractive and fashionable in their sixties ,they want to follow them . Older women are much more aware of celebrities .There's also the boom in TV programs showing people how they can change their look, and many of my older customers do yoga to stay in shape well in their fifties . When I started my business a fen years ago .my older customers wended to be very rich, but now they are what I would call ordinary women .My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would call ordinary women .My own mother is 61 and she wears the latest fashions in a way she would never have done ten years ago.”

    Jack Ma, the founder and executive chairman of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, and US president-elect Donald Trump met at Trump Tower in New York City on Jan,9th 2017, with Trump calling it a "great meeting" and Ma saying the meeting was "very productive"

    "We had a great meeting, and a great, great entrepreneur（企业家）, one of the best in the world, and he loves this country, and he loves China," Trump said. "Jack and I are going to do some great things."

    The two met with reporters briefly after the meeting, and said they discussed plans to create 1 million US jobs by allowing US small and medium-sized businesses to sell to China through Alibaba's platforms.

"We're focused on small business," Ma told reporters. And he had complimentary words for Trump: "I think the president-elect is very smart, he's very open-minded to listen. I told him my ideas about how to improve trade, especially to improve small business, cross-border trade."

    "We also think that the China and USA relationship should be strengthened — should be friendlier," Ma said. "The door is open for discussing the relationship and trade issues."

    The meeting comes in tensions between China and the incoming Trump administration(政府). Trump has repeatedly criticized China for its economic policies and accused the country of "stealing jobs away" from the US.

Trump also has said he may raise tariffs(关税) on Chinese goods sold in the US.

    Yesterday night, over a dinner with my elder brother's family, a topic of happiness came up. My wife, Marla, a psychologist, was sharing Csikszentmihalyi's concept of “flow” with us. Marla explained that according to the research on flow, people are happiest when they are absorbed in a task that is just challenging enough for them to experience a sense of mastery(熟练).

    A few moments later my brother, Yuri, offered the following opinion: “The first and only, necessary and sufficient factor for happiness is to stop associating happiness with pleasure. The two — happiness and pleasure — have nothing to do with each other.” This morning, with my cup of coffee, I searched through a pile of books on my bedside table and—at the bottom—found a book by Bertrand Russell, I started reading but didn't finish. In it, I found the following thought:

    “The human animal, like others, is adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life, and when by means of great wealth homo sapiens can gratify all his whims (突发奇想) without effort, the mere absence of effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness.”

    The conversation came full circle: people are happiest when they are in a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi's language )…which is the effortful devotion in a moment…which has nothing to do with pleasure.

    Indeed, as Yuri insisted : happiness–as–pleasure is a myth; the association between happiness and pleasure is nothing but a semantic(语义的) habit; psychologically, the two—happiness and pleasure—are arguably different; and breaking up this association between pleasure and happiness might, in fact, be a powerfully first step in pursuit of happiness.

    As I look back on that exchange, I recall that there was an effort, a struggle to find a common understanding about this seemingly difficult idea—a struggle that made me happy.

The light from the campfire brightened the darkness, but it could not prevent the damp cold of Dennis's Swamp (沼泽地) creeping into their bones. It was a strange place. Martin and Tom wished that they had not accepted Jack'sdare. They liked camping, but not near this swamp.

"So," Martin asked as they sat watching the hot coals. "How did this place get its name?"

"Are you sure you want to hear it? It's a scary story," warned Jack.

"Of course!" cried out Tom. "If there were anything to be scared of, you wouldn't have chosen this place!"

"Ok, but don't say I didn't warn you," said Jack, and he began this tale.

"Way back in time, a man called Dennis tried to start a farm here. He built that cottage over there to live in. In those days, the area looked quite different — it was covered with tall trees and the swamp was a crystal-clear river. After three hard years, Dennis had cleared several fields and planted crops. He was so proud of his success that he refused to listen to advice.

"‘You are clearing too much land,' warned one old man. ‘The land is a living thing. It will hit back at you if you abuse it. '"

"‘Silly fool,' said Dennis to himself. ‘If I clear more land, I can grow more crops. I'll become wealthier. He's just jealous!'"

"Dennis continued to chop down trees. Small animals that relied on them for food and shelter were destroyed. He was so eager to expand his farm that he did not notice the river flowing slowly towards his door. He did not notice salt seeping to the surface of the land. He did not notice swamp plants choking all the native plants."

"What happened?" Martin asked. It was growing colder. He trembled, twisting his body closer to the fire.

"The land hit back — just as the old man warned," Jack shrugged. "Dennis disappeared. Old folks around here believe that swamp plants moved up from the river and dragged him underwater. His body was never found."

"What a stupid story," laughed Tom. "Plants can't …" Before he had finished speaking, he screamed and fainted (晕倒). The other two boys jumped up with fright, staring at Tom. Suddenly, they burst out laughing. Some green swamp ivy (常春藤) had covered Tom's face. It was a while before Tom could appreciate the joke.