Failure is probably the most exhausting experience a person ever has. There is nothing more tiring than not succeeding.

We experience this tiredness in two ways: as start-up fatigue(疲惫) and performance fatigue. In the former case, we keep putting off a task because it has either too boring or too difficult. And the longer we delay it, the more tired we feel.

     Such start-up fatigue is very real, even if not actually physical, not something in our muscles and bones. The solution is obvious though perhaps not easy to apply: always handle the most difficult job first.

Years ago, I was asked to write 102 essays on the great ideas of some famous authors. Applying my own rule, I determined to write them in alphabetical(按字母顺序), never letting myself leave out a tough idea. And I always started the day's work with the difficult task of essay-writing. Experience proved that the rule works.

Performance fatigue is more difficult to handle. Though willing to get started, we cannot seem to do the job right. Its difficulties appear so great that, however hard we work, we fail again and again. In such a situation, I work as hard as I can-then let the unconscious take over.

      When planning Encyclopaedia Britannica (《大英百科全书》), I had to create a table of contents based on the topics of its articles. Nothing like this had ever been done before, and day after day I kept coming up with solutions, but none of them worked. My fatigue became almost unbearable.

      One day, mentally exhausted, I wrote down all the reasons why this problem could not be solved. I tried to convince myself that the trouble was with the problem itself, not with me. Relived, I sat back in an easy chair and fell asleep.

An hour later, I woke up suddenly with the solution clearly in mind. In the weeks that followed, the solution which had come up in my unconscious mind provided correct at every step. Though I worked as hard as before, I felt no fatigue. Success was now as exciting as failure had been depressing.

      Human beings, I believe must try to succeed. Success, then, means never feeling tired.

Having learned much about the War of Resistance against Japan, Mao Jingxin didn't like the Japanese when she was a child. “I thought they were cruel and rude,” said the 18-year-old girl from Hebei Province.

But she began to change her mind after she met some Japanese teenagers in a history museum six years ago. These fashionable high school students looked seriously at the history displays and talked to Mao in a friendly way. “I found that they are not bad as I thought,” she said.

Like Mao, many Chinese teenagers' are caught up in this confusion. A survey by 21st Century Teens shows about 51 per cent of Chinese teenagers say they dislike Japan. But most of them still want to have a Japanese friend. Also, Japan lies third on their list of Asian countries that they want to visit, following Singapore and South Korea.

Teens did a survey just before the 60th anniversary of the victory day of the War of Resistance against Japan, which fell on September 3. The survey aimed to encourage understanding and communication between young Chinese and Japanese. Teens also wanted to understand Chinese teenagers' attitudes towards Japan, and how much they actually know about the country.

    As Teens found, more than 60 per cent of Chinese teenagers learn about Japan through the media or books. Only 16 per cent have ever met a Japanese person.

     “Most of my friends hate Japan for what it did to China during World War II. But people should not live in hatred. I think the best way to figure it out is to have contact with the Japanese people myself,” Zhang Yuyua n, a Senior 2 girl, told us in the survey.

“Japan has done wrong to Asian countries including China and it has caused pain to everyone,” said Hikaru, a 17-year-old girl in Kawasaki (川崎市). Having visited China four times and learned much, she understands the importance of communication between the two peoples. She plans to join in an exchange programme with Chinese youth. “Welcome to Japan, my Chinese friends!” She says it with a smile.

    Some people may think I'm crazy when I say “work is rest”. But that's the way it is — we need to rest. Without rest, we will die. At a minimum, we won't have the energy to work.

    Nobody forces us to be so stupid about this. We just don't know how to rest properly. We rest in ways that are not restful, even stressful. Some of our ways of rest interfere with our working energy. Instead of sleep, we go to the movies and clubs, drink or have a smoke with friends. This is because we misunderstand the meaning of “rest”.

    We should remember that rest means not working, both physically and mentally. Only then is it real rest. When tired, rest. It's simple. Actually, dogs and cats are smarter about this than people. People are stupid enough to rest in ways that destroy their capacity to work.

    Rest and work always go together. There must be a balance: work during the day and rest at night. When the sun comes up, one has plenty of strength to work well and enjoy it. In other words, rest is a kind of investment, so that one has the strength and energy to continue working. So we need rest to work, recognizing that we can't have one without the other. Rest is what recharges our batteries. We need enough time to charge up adequately to the tasks we undertake. Thus, we need to rest correctly; otherwise, illness will occur and also can affect the efficiency of our work.

    Rest can't be skimped. Without enough rest, good work is impossible. This is why we say that rest is another kind of work.

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    A Spanish company Siesta &Go has opened the first public napping (小睡) space in Madrid. It promises people a quiet rest in the middle of the city's business center.

    Napping spaces are nothing new; places to rest are already set up in other big cities in the world. But the idea would appear to work well with the culture of Spain, where people traditionally take an afternoon nap, called siesta.

    The Madrid nap space recently opened with 19 beds. People can use them by the minute or by the hour, and they can also choose either a private or shared room. An hour of napping inside a private room costs about $ l5.

    Siesta &GO provides all bedding, clean nightshirts and other materials. Nippers can request to be woken up when their time is up. It also offers areas to work, with armchairs, newspapers and coffee for those not wishing to sleep.

    Philip &Go is one happy customer. Marco says he gets tired during the day because of hard work. He says a siesta is the perfect way to build up energy. “I come for about 30 minutes or something like that. That is usually enough for me to be full of energy.”

    While many Spanish people love their naps, others like Carlos Villarroja say they are just too busy to keep the tradition. “It's a Spanish tradition, but I think it's more of a legend (传说) than a tradition. Because of the lifestyle and the working hours, we have very little free time for a siesta at least during the week.”

    But many health experts believe there is evidence that taking a short nap can be very good for the body and mind. Scientific studies show that taking a siesta can also prevent illness and lower blood pressure.

    One of the most firmly established idea of manliness(男子汉) is that a real man doesn't cry. Although he might cry a bit at a funeral, he is expected to quickly regain control. Crying openly is for girls. One study found that women cry significantly more than men do—five times as often, on average, and almost twice as long per period.

    Historically, however, men usually cried, and no one saw it as shameful. For example, in the Middle Ages, knights(骑士) cried only because they missed their girlfriends. In The Knight of the Cart, no less a hero than Lancelot cries at a brief separation from Guinevere. There's no mention of the men in these stories trying to hold back or hide their tears. They cry in a crowded hall with their heads held high. Nor do other people make fun of this public crying; it's universally regarded as an expression of feeling to show love.

    So where did all the male tears go? The most obvious possibility is that this is the result of changes as we moved from an agricultural(农业的) society to one that was urban(城市的)and industrial(工业的). In the Middle Ages, most people spent their lives among those they had known since birth. If men cried, they did so with people who would sympathize(同情). But from the 18^th to 20^th centuries, the population became increasingly urbanize, and people were living in the midst of thousands of strangers. Furthermore, changes in the economy required men to work together in factories and offices where expressions of feelings and even personal conversations were discouraged as time wasting.

    Yet human beings weren't designed to hide their feelings, and there's reason to believe that restraining tears can be harmful to your well-being. Research from the 1980s has suggested a relationship between stress-related illnesses and not enough crying. Crying is also, somewhat related with happiness and wealth. Countries where people cry the most tend to be richer and more confident.

The hottest cities in the world

    The locations below are the hottest and also travel destinations on the planet.

    Bangkok

    According to the data, Bangkok is the hottest city on the planet﹣not because of any particularly impressive high temperatures, but because it is consistently hot all the year round. The city has an average annual temperature of 29℃, coupled with high dampness and an average of 128rainy days per year; while the highest temperature on record is 40℃.

    Timbuktu, Mali

    Located on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, the African city of Timbuktu is similar to everything remote. It's also one of the hottest cities in the world, with a hot, dry climate offering record highs of 49℃. Throughout April, May and June, average maximum temperatures are beyond 40℃. Modern﹣day Timbuktu is slowly being swallowed by the desert and is certainly a shadow of the trade center that it once was.

    Ahvaz, Iran

    Built on the bank of the Karun River, Ahvaz is an industrial city with average highs of around 46℃ during July, its warmest month. The city's record high is 54℃, making it one of the world's hottest cities during the summer. Frequent sand and dust storms and an absence of rain from July to September mix with its sky﹣high temperatures.

    Kuwait City

    The wealthy capital of Kuwait is another competitor for the title of the world's hottest summertime city with average highs of over 45℃ from June to August. Nightfall brings little respite（缓解）, with after﹣dark low temperatures often over 30℃ during the summer months. Kuwait City's record high is 52℃, while it rains on an average of just 19 days per year.