【推荐1】It was a normal school day for senior Solymar Solis until an unexpected visitor arrived . Her dad, Solis Melendez, surprised her by coming home early from Kuwait and visiting her unannounced at Spring Valley High School in South Carolina.

After serving in Kuwait for nine months, Melendez returned home a week earlier than his daughter expected . He held balloons and flowers in a classroom as he sat at a student’s desk to blend in with the crowd. “ It came across my mind like, ‘How is she going to react?’, he recalled the heartwarming moment.” Is she going to be happy and run to me and hug me, or cry? That was all going on through my mind .

As unsuspecting Solymar entered the classroom, she was soon overcome with emotion, immediately bursting into tears and covering her mouth. She didn’t talk. She was just crying. She was overwhelmed with everything. She thought it was a dream.

Melendez was a single parent so while he was deployed (调度), he got his sister to live with his daughter. When he was coming back and talking to his sister, both of them came to the conclusion that they should do something special for his daughter. Melendez and his sister got in touch with the school and they planned this whole being -in -the-classroom thing,and it turned out perfect.

The two are very much looking forward to some daddy-daughter time now that he’s home. “It means everything,” Melendez said of being able to surprise his daughter this way. “After all the sacrifices she’s made, she deserves all the special arrangements and special occasions and celebrations. I’ll do anything for my daughter. I believe I’m doing good parenting!”

【推荐2】Many people think that listening is a passive business. It is just the opposite. Listening well is an active exercise of our attention and hard work. It is because they do not realize this, or because they are not willing to do the work, that most people do not listen well.

Listening well also requires total concentration upon someone else. An essential part of listening well is the rule known as ‘bracketing’. Bracketing includes the temporary giving up or setting aside of your own prejudices and desires, to experience as far as possible someone else’s world from the inside, stepping into his or her shoes. Moreover, since listening well involves bracketing, it also involves a temporary acceptance of the other person. Sensing this acceptance, the speaker will seem quite willing to open up the inner part of his or her mind to the listener. True communication is under way and the energy required for listening well is so great that it can be accomplished only by the will to extend oneself for mutual growth.

Most of the time we lack this energy. Even though we may feel in our business dealings or social relationships that we are listening well, what we are usually doing is listening selectively. Often we have a prepared list in mind and wonder, as we listen, how we can achieve certain desired results to get the conversation over as quickly as possible or redirected in ways more satisfactory to us. Many of us are far more interested in talking than in listening, or we simply refuse to listen to what we don’t want to hear.

It wasn’t until toward the end of my doctor career that I have found the knowledge that one is being truly listened to is frequently therapeutic (有疗效的). In about a quarter of the patients I saw, surprising improvement was shown during the first few months of psychotherapy (心理疗法), before any of the roots of problems had been uncovered or explained. There are several reasons for this phenomenon, but chief among them, I believe, was the patient’s sense that he or she was being truly listened to, often for the first time in years, and for some, perhaps for the first time ever.

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【推荐1】As the coronavirus disease (冠状病毒) takes hold and causes lockdowns (禁闭) in major urban centers, researchers studying air pollution data are recording significant improvements in air quality levels. The change is so huge that some believe these short-term reductions could end up saving many more lives than those who are lost to the virus itself.

''These are quite great times, '' Francois Gemenne, director of The Hugo Observatory, an environmental research center, said during an appearance on France 24's The Debate. ''What surprises me most is that the measures that we are ready to take to face this coronavirus are much severer than the measures we would be ready to take to face climate change or air pollution. ''

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 91% of the world's population live in places where air quality levels are beyond acceptable limits. Globally, this results in nearly 4.2 million deaths annually, according to 2016 statistics.

Recent data from the European Space Agency's (ESA) Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite have shown marked reduction over Italy in the amount of nitrogen dioxide (二氧化氮), a gas produced from road traffic and other processes, during the country’s nationwide lockdown.

''Although there could be slight variations in the data due to cloud cover and changing weather, we are very confident about the improvement of air quality because of less traffic and industrial activities, '' said Josef Aschbacher, esa's Director of Earth Observation Programmes.

People living in Venice have noticed how much clearer the water has become now that the city is in lockdown. Fishes have been seen in the canals, which is unusual for waters normally full of mud caused by so much can canal traffic, reports CNN. In some cities, animals are cautiously exploring new areas, especially in urban areas.

【推荐2】A science teacher from rural Kenya who gives away most of his salary to help poorer students has been awarded the world's best teacher and $ 1 million, beating 10,000 nominations from 179 countries. Peter Tabichi, 36, a maths and physics teacher at Keriko secondary school in Pwani Village, has won the Varkey Foundation Global Teacher Prize 2019.

Tabichi gives away 80% of his income to help the poorest students at the poorly-equipped and overcrowded school who could not otherwise afford uniforms and books. More than 90% of his students are from poor families and almost a third are orphans or have only one parent. Drug abuse, teenage pregnancies, leaving off their studies, young marriages and suicide are common. Students have to walk 7 km along roads that can become impassable in the rainy season to reach the school and the area can be affected by drought and starvation.

Despite only having one computer, a poor Internet connection and a student-teacher ratio of 58:1, Tabichi started a “talent nurturing club” and expanded the school's science club, helping students design research projects of such quality that many now qualify for national competitions.

His students have taken part in international science competitions and won an award from the Royal Society of Chemistry after using local plant life to generate electricity. Tabichi and four colleagues also give struggling students one-to-one tuition in maths and science, visiting students' homes and meeting their families to identify the challenges they face.

Accepting the prize, Tabichi said Africa's young people would no longer be held back by low expectations.“Africa will produce scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs whose names will be one day famous in every corner of the world.” he said.

【推荐3】One of the statements that many personal development coaches seem to agree on is the fact that great things happen the minute we step outside of our comfort zone.

As soon as we decide that we're willing to go beyond what is safe, the possibilities are endless.

For me, one of the most important things that we should always keep in mind is that growth and comfort can't coexist.

Personal development author Napoleon Hill once wrote, ''Whatever the mind can understand and believe, the mind can achieve regardless of how many times you may have failed in the past or how lofty your aims and hopes may be.”

This statement is especially powerful because it reminds us that we are the only ones who can be responsible for how far we will go.

To reach any personal objective, we're usually required to change the way we do things.

However, stepping outside of our comfort zone is probably the most important step toward experiencing real change.

But consistency and continuing to move forward are equally as important, as it's extremely easy to slip back into old habits without realizing it.

For a long time, I knew that I wanted to live in Argentina, so halfway through my bachelor's degree, I bought a one-way ticket there. While I was in Argentina, I was able to finish the last two years of my degree online before flying home for graduation.

I currently still live in Argentina, and I can proudly say that taking the necessary steps to make it a reality was one of the most important things I ever did.

Of course, I'm not implying that we should all buy one-way tickets to foreign countries and just see what happens.

But it's important for us to recognize what we want and try to bring our dreams to life.

Living in a comfort zone can trick us into believing that we have plenty of time when, in reality, years can fly by without us haying accomplished what we really wanted to.

Remember, we won't always have tomorrow to do what we could have done today. So, hug the discomfort and allow it to encourage you to try new things. You never know what you could be missing out on by remaining complacent.