Many people often say there is more stress in today's society than in years past. In fact, these people are comparing our lives with that of the cave man, who didn't have to worry about the stock market or the atomic bomb. They forget that the cave man worried about being eaten by a hear while he was asleep, or about dying of hunger—things that few people worry much about today.

Actually, stress is a normal state of affairs, and it's important that people understand what they are talking about when they speak about stress. Whenever anyone experiences something unpleasant, for lack of a better word they say they are under stress. Yet there is such a thing as pleasant stress--as in the case of the Olympic winner at the moment of his glory, or a conductor as his orchestra performs particularly well. They are just sending out excitement, and they are giving off all the stress hormones exactly the same as if they were in low spirits or had just heard of a death in the family. We call the pleasant or healthy kind "eustress” and the unpleasant or unhealthy kind "distress".

Then how can people deal with stress? The secret is not to avoid it but to “do your own thing”. It implies doing what you like to do and what you are made to do at your own speed. For most people, it is really a matter of learning how to live and how to behave in various situations, to decide: “Do I really want to take my father's business or be a musician?” If you really want to be a musician, then be one.

【推荐1】If you are a teenager without a job, you probably do not have much extra money. Sometimes parents will give their children pocket money for doing small housework, but it is often not enough once the children grow into teenagers and want to do things with their friends all of the time. How to make money is an important thing for teens to learn. If you’re wondering how a teenager can make good money, some ideas might be:

Getting a part-time job at a local restaurant or store is always a sure way to make money as a teen. But getting a job somewhere like this might be bard, considering many jobs in local stores are being taken by adults more and more often.

Doing landscaping (绿化) is something that most adults do not like to do, and teens can usually find jobs around their neighborhood doing the landscaping of friends and family.

Some teens are good at something such as writing or photography. These teens can make money by doing things such as writing articles for newspapers or magazines or selling their photos online.

Teens who live in a country area can earn money by helping out on farms, or they can try raising their own animals such as chickens, and selling them or their products.

Looking for jobs can seem hard at first, but if you have a try, it should not be too hard to find a job or way to make money.

【推荐2】The climate change may lead humans to shrink in size. Steve Brusatte, a researcher at the University of Edinburgh, believed that the way that other mammals have previously responded to periods of climate change could offer an insight into humans’ future. He compared the possible difficult situation of people to that of early horses. Those horses became smaller in body size as temperatures rose around 55 million years ago.

In his book, Brusatte mentions that animals in warmer parts of the world today are often smaller than those in colder areas. “Becoming smaller was a common way that mammals deal with climate change.” Brusatte told The Guardian, “That’s not to say every species of mammal would get smaller, but it seems to be a common survival trick of mammals when temperatures rise very quickly.”

In a recent study, researchers studying human remains over the past million years have also suggested that temperature is a main predictor of body size change, while scientists studying red deer have said that warmer winters in northern Europe and Scandinavia may lead to the body size of these animals becoming smaller.

However, not all experts agree that rising temperature causes mammals to shrink. Adrian Lister, an expert from the Natural History Museum in London, said, “The relationship shown by the recent human remains study is weak. I prefer to believe that the strong connections between temperature and mammal body size may often depend on the availability of food and resources.”

Lister has also expressed doubts about the idea that humans will shrink as the climate heats. “We are not really controlled by natural selection,” he said. “We wear clothes. We have got heating. We have got air conditioning if it is too hot.”

【推荐3】How many phone numbers can you remember by heart? It’s probably fewer than you would like. Actually, you are not alone. Out of more than 1,000 Americans who were surveyed, more than half said that they couldn’t recall the phone numbers of their friends and neighbors. In their eyes, there is no point in filling their heads with phone numbers if they are all stored in smart phones that are with them almost all the time.

In fact, most people are suffering from a sort of digital amnesia(健忘). more than 90% of those surveyed agreed that they used the Internet as an online of their brains. Rote memorization(死记硬背) was once an important part of modern education, but we just need a click or slide now. That’s making us worse at remembering things.

Researchers found that when people expected to use the information online, they were less likely to remember actual facts, but more likely to remember how to find them. As a result, we are already becoming ones with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found.

However, some believe it isn’t necessarily a bad thing--maybe it gives them more chances to think through things. We certainly acquire more knowledge now than ever, even if it isn’t all stored in our brains.

Even so, I still believe that there are more risks to this new world of memory beyond losing our ability to recall some information such as who the 15^th President was. That kind of information may always be a click away, but the important things are personal ones, like the way your parents smiled at your wedding. It’s harder to recall or find online. If you’re relying on yourself to keep track of those memories, they will be much more meaningful.