【推荐1】I used to think the whole purpose of life was pursuing happiness. Everyone said the path to happiness was success, so I searched for that ideal job, that perfect boyfriend, and that beautiful apartment. But instead of ever feeling fulfilled, I felt anxious and lost. Eventually. I decided to go to graduate school for positive psychology to learn what truly makes people happy.

And what's the difference between being happy and having meaning in life? Many psychologists describe happiness as a state of comfort and ease, feeling good in the moment. Meaning, though, is deeper. The famous psychologist Martin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging to and serving something beyond yourself and from developing the best within you. Our culture is obsessed with happiness, but I came to see that seeking meaning is the more fulfilling path.

There are four pillars of a meaningful life.

The first pillar is belonging. Belonging comes from being in relationships where you're valued for who you are and where you value others as well. For many people, belonging is the most essential source of meaning.

For others, the key to meaning is the second pillar: purpose. Finding your purpose is not the same thing as finding that job that makes you happy. A doctor told me her purpose is healing sick people. Many parents tell me, “My purpose is raising my children.” The key to purpose is using your strengths to serve others. Without something worthwhile to do, people flounder, thus losing the aim of life.

The third pillar of meaning is also about stepping beyond yourself, but in a completely different way: transcendence (超然). Transcendent experiences can change you. Transcendent states are those rare moments when you're lifted above the hustle and bustle of daily life, your sense of self fades away, and you feel connected to a higher reality. For me, I’m a writer, and it happens through writing. Sometimes I get so in the zone that I lose all sense of time and place.

The fourth pillar is storytelling, the story you tell yourself about yourself. Creating a narrative from the events of your life brings clarity. It helps you understand how you became you. But we don’t always realize that we're the authors of our stories and can change the way we’re telling them. Your life isn't just a list of events. You can edit, interpret and retell your story, even as you're constrained by the facts.

That’s the power of meaning. Happiness comes and goes. But when life is really good and when things are really bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.

【推荐2】Idling around all day long while wondering why you can’t succeed? Better stop wasting your time thinking of reasons for your failures and shortcomings. Instead, realize that the seeds of success were planted within you when you were born. Only you have the power to make those seeds grow. The seeds, and the power to grow them, are contained in the human mind. Success is a choice and not a chance. You can be a success if only you make the right choice.

You cannot be successful without first developing your self-esteem (自尊). Your level of self-esteem is always based on the degree of control that you are able to exercise over yourself, and thus over your life. People with low self-esteem do not believe that they have any power, or responsibility for their life. They are leaves tossed (摆) by the winds of chance blown about with any sudden change in the weather.

You can exercise control over your life only to the degree that you believe that you are responsible for whatever happens in your life. Losers think that everything happens by accident while successful people realize that they are responsible.

Everything happens as a result of something. If we can identify the cause, we can control the effect. We are responsible for what we consciously choose to accept and believe. Thoughts and beliefs cause everything. Our actions are merely a result of habits ingrained in us over a period of time. One generally rises to the level that one expects. We are responsible for setting our expectations. We are responsible for either reinforcing (强化) good habits or kicking bad habits and consciously replacing them with consistently practiced good habits. All in all, you are what you choose to be, so please make an informed choice first.

If you associate with positive-thinking people, you are definitely going to achieve success. On the contrary, the opposite happens. We are responsible for finding, planting, and nurturing (培育) the seeds that contain future victory, born from setbacks.

In short, in all areas of your life, whether they are financial, physical, emotional, or spiritual, you are responsible. Once you recognize this, accept it, and firmly believe it, you are on the road to success.

【推荐3】When I was about 12, I had an enemy, a girl who liked to point out my shortcomings(缺点). Week by week her list grew: I was very thin, I wasn’t a good student, I talked too much, I was too proud, and so on. I tried to bear all this as long as I could. At last, I became very angry. I ran to my father with tears in my eyes.

He listened to me quietly, then he asked. “Are the things she says true or not? Janet, didn’t you ever wonder what you’re really like ? Well, you now have that girl’s opinion. Go and make a list of everything she said and mark the points that are true. Pay no attention to the other things she said.”

I did as he told me. To my great surprise, I discovered that about half the things were true. Some of them I couldn’t change (like being very thin), but a good number I could—and suddenly I wanted to change. For the first time I go to fairly clear picture of myself.

I brought the list back to Daddy. He refused to take it.“That’s just for you,” he said.“You know better than anyone else the truth about yourself. But you have to learn to listen, not just close your ears in anger and feeling hurt. When something said about you is true, you’ll find it will be of help to you. Our world is full of people who think they know your duty. Don’t shut your ears. Listen to them all, but hear the truth and do what you know is the right thing to do.”

Daddy’s advice has returned to me at many important moments. In my life, I’ve never had a better piece of advice.

【推荐2】Each of Apple’s products such as the iPhone and the iPad sounds cool and has become a fashion. Apple has cleverly taken advantage of the power of the letter “i”, and many other brands are following suit. The BBC iPlayer, which allows Web users to watch TV programs on the Internet, used the title in 2008. A lovely bear — popular in the US and the UK — that plays music and video is called iTeddy. A simplified version of The Independent was launched in 2010 under the name i.

In general, single-letter prefixes(前缀) have been popular since the 1990s, when terms such as e-mail and e-commerce first came into use.

Most “i” products are aimed at young people and considering the major readers of The Independent’s sister paper I, it’s no surprise that they’ve selected this fashionable name.

But it’s hard to see what’s so special about the letter “i”. Why not use “a” , “b”, or “c” instead? According to Tony Thorne, former Director of the Language Centre at King’s College London, “i” works because its meaning has become unclear. “When Apple uses ‘I’, no one knows whether it means the Internet, information, individual or interactive,” Thorne told BBC Magazines. “Even when Apple created the iPad, it seems it didn’t have one clear definition,” he said.

“However, thanks to Apple, the term is now connected with portability (轻便),” added Thorne.

Clearly the letter “i” also agrees with the idea that the Western world is centered on the individual. Each person believes they have their own needs, and they love personalized products for this reason.

Along with “Google” and “blog”, readers of BBC Magazines voted “i” as one of the top 20 words that have come to define the last decade.

But as history shows, people grow tired of fashion. From the 1900s to the 1990s, products with “2000” in their names became fashionable as the year was connected with all things advanced and modern.

However, as we entered the new century, the trend unavoidably disappeared.

【推荐3】Moscow city authorities have begun using comics（漫画） with characters from Russian fairy tales to explain to migrants（移民） how they should behave. They say a 100-page guide is needed to "keep a positive image" of the city and could help reduce "tensions" between natives and migrants. But critics have pointed out that foreign migrants and natives may be regarded as antagonists in the manual(手册).

Russians and migrants have repeatedly flooded in Moscow recently. Many migrants from ex-Soviet republics in Central Asia, the Caucasus（高加索） and North Caucasus, arrive in Moscow every year, attracted by the capital’s job opportunities and relatively high salaries. A significant number of them work in the Russian capital illegally.

The new guide in Russian seeks to explain the "dos" and "don’ts" to migrants. They are urged not to cause trouble, by staring at women, or eating or talking loudly on the streets. They are also warned that the police may routinely（例行公事） stop them to check their documents.

In the manual, Russia’s famous "three warriors" are meant to represent the city’s law enforcement agencies（执法机关）, while Prince Yuri Dolgoruky (a historical character) is used for tours around Moscow.       Meanwhile, Vasilisa the Wise and The Snow Maiden test the reader on Russia’s language and history. A special section of the book explains the importance of following Moscow’s strict residency and employment rules, stressing that migrants could otherwise be deported(驱逐出境) or banned from entry.

The manual was written primarily for illegal migrants, Alexander Kalinin, who heads the group Support for Working Migrants in Moscow, told BBC Russian.

"We want to raise their level of law awareness," he added.

Migrant characters had initially(最初) been identified as representatives of different nationalities, but the book’s authors later decided to drop this idea so as "not to offend anyone", said Mr. Kalinin.

"The old conflict between Russian heroes and non-Slavic invaders is being revived," Yevgeny Varshaver, a migration expert told BBC Russian. He also suggested that the language used in the book would be "difficult" to understand for some migrants who were not native Russian speakers.

【推荐1】Compared with solar and wind energy, which are booming, tidal (潮汐的) power is a loser in the clean-energy competition. But if you did want to build a tidal power station, there are few better sites than the mouth of the River Severn, in Britain. Its tidal range, the difference in depth between high and low tides, of around 15 metres is among the largest in the world.

Engineers and governments have been toying with the idea since at least 1925. But none of the suggested projects has materialised. Price is one objection. A study thought that tidal energy might cost between ￡216 and ￡368 ($306-521) per MWh of electricity by 2025, compared with ￡58-75 for seagoing wind turbines (轮机) and ￡55-76 for solar panels. Environmentalists also worry that any plant would change the tides, making life harder for wildlife.

An engineer called Rod Rainey thinks he has a way around both problems. He plans to replace the conventional turbines of previous plans with a much older technology. Specifically, he plans to span (横跨) the river mouth with a line of water wheels. This is a design that dates back to the early days of the Industrial Revolution. Examples can be found fixed to the sides of old watermills (水磨).

But there would be nothing old-fashioned about Mr Rainey’s wheels. Thirty metres high and sixty wide, they would be made from ordinary steel. Two hundred and fifty of them, along with the supporting structures, would be floated into place and secured to the seabed, creating a line 15km long. Together, they could supply power at an avenge ate of 4GW. That is about as much as two biggish nuclear power stations would manage. Substituting one of the wheels with a set of locks would provide a shipping channel about twice the width of Panama Canal, permitting upstream ports such as Avonmouth and Cardiff to continue operating.

【推荐2】You want your children to do well in school. You want them to have nice friends and interesting hobbies and to not go out with strangers. You may even want them to be happy. But in this computer game, you can always start over with a new digital child if things don't work out as planned.

A new game in China puts players in control of those most fearsome of characters: Mom and Dad. The mission? Raise a son or daughter from kindergarten to college.

In a nation of famously demanding, scolding and, yes, sometimes loving mothers and fathers, the game, Chinese Parents, is a hit. Since its release in September, it has found a huge audience on Steam, an online marketplace run by the American game maker Valve Corporation. There are no official figures for how many people have downloaded the game but it has caused heated discussion online while earning tens of thousands of reviews.

Yang Gee Yelling, a founder of Moy wan Games, the independent studio that developed Chinese Parents, said he hoped to produce an English version this year. The success of the game, which costs $9. 99 to play, does not appear to be driven by people hoping to exact revenge for their own upbringings. Quite the opposite:   Some fans have written that, by letting them experience childhood from their parents' perspective, it had moved them to tears.

"I used to not understand many things my mom made me do when I was little, "said Kang Shang hero, 19, a professional blogger in the northeastern city of Qinhuangdao. "But when I play the game and try to increase figures for my son so he can unlock more achievements and marry the prettiest girl in school, start to understand my parents more.

All the joys and trials of raising children are here. Players choose between pushing their digital generation to attain conventional success and allowing them some appearance of childhood innocence. They must give career guidance and tolerate (just barely) their teenager's first dates. Everything leads up to the gaokao, the highly competitive college entrance exam that decides the fortunes of so many young Chinese people.

【推荐3】Over the past half-century, the tools of neuroscience have revealed much about the workings of the human brain. Now researchers are pushing forward in a new frontier: exploring what goes on in the mind of man’s best friend. The study of canine cognition（狗的认知）has taken off in recent years, energized by new findings about how dogs learn words, numbers and abstract concepts — and how they manage us.

In a study published in the journal Animal Cognition, researchers used a procedure known as “preferential viewing” to show that dogs can understand simple calculations. Eleven pet dogs were shown treats that were then placed behind a screen and the screen was removed, dogs gazed briefly at the two treats. When two treats were deposited behind the screen but only one remained when the screen was taken away, the dogs stared at the lone treat for longer, indicating that they were aware the math didn’t add up.

Dogs understand language too, and the new research shows they can learn more words than just “down” and “sit”. The average dog can learn 165 words, notes psychologist Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia, and some superdogs can have a vocabulary of 250 words. In a study that appeared in the journal Science, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany reported on a border collie named Rico who could learn a name given to an unfamiliar object like a stuffed bunny through a process of elimination and could remember the name of that object four weeks later. (Border collies lead the list of the most intelligent dog breeds, according to a survey of dog-obedience judges; they’re followed by poodles, German shepherds, golden retrievers, Dobermans, Shetland sheepdogs and Labrador retrievers.) Dogs can learn to solve spatial problems — figuring out the fastest route to a favorite chair, locating a hidden treat — and can learn to operate simple mechanisms like latches（弹簧锁）.

Most impressive of all is dogs’ ability to learn about humans. They respond to our gestures, they attend to our body language, and they follow our gaze to figure out what we’re looking at. They even are susceptible to repeating human yawns, according to a study published in the journal Biology Letters. As the longest-domesticated species, dogs have evolved alongside humans, selected over thousands of years for traits that make them especially sensitive to our cues. Another study from the journal Science reported that puppies only a few weeks old could interpret human signals, while full-grown wolves raised by humans could not. Dogs read people better than do chimpanzees, humans’ closest primate relative, according to research published this year. In fact, the most accurate comparison is to a human child: dogs have the social-cognition capacities of a 2-year-old.

Gregory Berns, the Emory University researcher writes that there are “endless” questions still to be explored: How do dogs distinguish among the humans they know; is it by sight or smell? What meaning does our language have to them? The study of canine cognition, he notes, ultimately brings us back to our own desires and behaviors: “Because humans, in effect, created dogs through domestication, the canine mind reflects back to us how we see ourselves through the eyes, ears, and noses of another species.”