【推荐1】As human beings, we’re all guilty of getting things wrong occasionally, whether we are at work or in our personal lives.     1    

●Step away from being perfect

When you’re not sure of your own self-worth, you wonder how other people are going to see you. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you might feel like there’s less room for error. The smallest mistake can feel like a disastrous error. Nobody’s perfect. You may make mistakes, especially when you’re starting out.     2    

●Turn to social support

Your mistake might feel like a huge event in your life, but chances are others won’t see it as such a big deal. Reaching out to friends or family can help you see the bigger picture and feel more confident.     3    . When you have that softness, and you have relationships that give you confidence, you might be able to take some of life’s challenges with a lighter eye.

●     4    

Accepting unavoidable mistakes might help to soften your blow. What you can do after making a mistake is accept that you’ve messed up and promise to be better tomorrow.     5    . Instead of beating yourself up, take a moment to reflect on what you’ve learned from your mistake and how you could handle things for the better in future.

Forgiving yourself after making a mistake isn’t always an easy thing, and beating yourself up doesn’t benefit anyone—So it’s better for you to make changes and move on.

【推荐3】Simple Ways to Easily Solve A Problem

We face problems everyday of our lives. Many times these problems can actually be an opportunity in disguise. Solving problems can be broken down into steps that will make solving the issue at hand much easier.    1    

Identify the real problem. Often people think of a problem in terms of its consequences. You really have to dig to the root of the issues. If your problem is that you can’t make ends meet every month, you need to find why you lack funds.    2    You spend too much or something worse like a gambling addiction. Whatever the source is, that is what you need to fix.

Focus on solutions. Once you have identified the real problem, it is time to come up with a list of solutions. Most of the time there is more than one way to attack a problem.    3    You can always ask others for their suggestions. Once you have a good list of solutions you can weigh the pros and cons of each one.

    4    When you ask others for suggestions make sure that they are people who you really trust. It is also best if they share the same value system as you. This ensures that your problem is kept confidential and any advice you get is in line with your belief system.

Make a decision, Once you find a solution that provides the best long term outcome, you have to make the decision and follow through.    5    If things do not turn out as you had planned, do not beat yourself up. You put time and thought into your decision and that shows character.

【推荐1】For centuries, audiences have been fascinated by the mysterious Mona Lisa, an oil painting by Italian artist, inventor, and writer Leonardo da Vinci. Permanently located in the Louvre Museum, it is estimated to be worth an impressive $800 million today.

The piece features a female figure seated in a room with her arms folded as she looks at the viewer and appears to softly smile. The halfhearted smile makes the painting all the more mysterious (神秘的), inspiring viewers to try to understand both the mood of Mona Lisa and the intention of its artist.

Her look is another fascinating part of the painting. Many believe that her eyes follow you across the room, making her actively involved when being viewed, rather than remaining an object to look upon. But according to German researchers, this" “Mona Lisa effect” actually does not occur in the painting. In fact, they claim that the woman is always look about 15 degrees to your right, so more likely at your ear than your eyes. Whatever the case—perceived or real—her expression is one of the strongest reasons for Mona Lisa’s lasting success.

In addition to its mysterious appearance, her expression has been quite in line with art historians for its possible symbolism (象征性), as many believe it to be a clever visual representation of the idea of happiness suggested by the word “gioconda” in Italian.

The technique Da Vinci used in the painting left behind no visible brush marks, something that was said to make any master painter lose heart. This piece of Renaissance (文艺复兴) artwork completely changed the techniques and style of painting, and is admired around the world as the greatest masterpiece of all time.

【推荐2】To say that Spanish painter Pablo Picasso was a leader in Western art in the 20th century is to repeat an accepted fact, according to Time magazine. “No painter before him had enjoyed such a large following in his own lifetime.”

This year marks the 140th anniversary of Picasso’s birth. Born on Oct. 25, 1881, Picasso had created more than 20,000 paintings, drawings, sculptures and other pieces of art by the time he died at 91.

That’s a long time to paint! The result is not only a lot of art, but a lot of different phases in Picasso’s work. On its website, Christie’s auction (拍卖) house lists eight different periods in the course of his painting career.

Over a century ago, the painter once said that, “Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction.” So the eight periods are all very different in their choice of subjects and yet unmistakably drawn by Picasso’s hands. Financial Express called his style unusual.

As his style changed over time, it became more simplistic. A common joke is that Picasso forgot how to paint. After all, he was classically trained at the School of Fine Arts in Barcelona.

Now he is best known for leading an artistic movement known as “Cubism (立体派)”. It used geometric shapes to create human and animal figures. With this method, Picasso tried to show his figures from multiple perspectives (视角) in two-dimensional space. For example, a person’s left eye may be shown from straight ahead while his right eye and nose are shown from the side. The result is strange and beautiful, frightening and funny.

Picasso often said that he admired primitive art and drawings made by youngsters. “When I was the age I could draw like Raphael, but it took me a lifetime to learn to draw like them,” he said. Maybe that’s why Picasso is still so popular. We look at his work and think, “Maybe I could do that!”

【推荐3】People are always curious about researching the well-preserved masterpieces in Western history from the “Old Masters” such as Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, and Sandro Botticelli. One incredible finding is that they all loved using a kind of unusual paint in their paintings.

To be exact, the artists would mix eggs into their paints to create a thing called “egg tempera (蛋彩)”. This technique dates back to ancient Egypt and can be found on many of the paintings from the Old Masters such as Boticelli’s “Birth of Venus”.

Scientists study the elements of their paintings and find that there are added proteins (蛋白质) to the works of art. The reason for that had eluded us for a long time until a new study was published Tuesday, which might tell us why.

To reach their findings, the study’s authors drew on analysis of Old Master paintings such as Boticelli’s “The Lamentations of Christ” and Da Vinci’s “Madonna of the Carnation” along with chemical data from lab-made egg tempera. They found that the egg proteins essentially created a thin protective cover around the paint with the oil in the eggs. This helped prevent it from wrinkling, discoloration while stopping it from yellowing over time by slowing down reactions between the air and oil in the paints.

The findings provide fresh insights into the craft of some of the greatest artists who have ever lived. It just goes to show that while Da Vinci and his fellows might be gone now, there are still plenty of artists that we can learn from their processes and artwork. As an old saying goes, you have to crack a few eggs if you want to make an omelet (煎蛋卷) — and, apparently, so does a masterpiece work of art.