【推荐1】The saying “Choose a job you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life” puts a great deal of pressure on people who are trying to choose a right career. Can you really find one that is so enjoyable that it won’t even feel like work?

Well, no matter how much effort you put into picking an occupation, there are days when it will feel like work. However, sometimes you will think “I would do this even if I didn’t get paid.” The trick is to choose a career that has many more great days than ones that aren’t so great.

First, what matters most in finding a job is to learn as much as possible about yourself, for example, your advantages and disadvantages. If you think you know all there is to know, the results of self-assessment will be eye-opening. A career development professional, for example, a career adviser, can help you with this step but don’t be discouraged if you can’t afford to hire one.

Next, you should learn about the occupations on your list. The results of your self-assessment will include a list of occupations that are suitable for you, but the quest (追求) for the right career doesn’t end here. While some of the occupations may be nearly perfect for you, others may be all wrong. Even though they are a good match for your personality type, interests, values and talent, they may be unsuitable in other ways. For example, the job duties may not appeal to you, or the required education or training could be more than you are willing to complete.

The third is to make an informed decision by exploring each of the careers on your list. Read descriptions of the occupations and ignore your preconceived (事先形成的) ideas. Unless you have personal experience or have done prior research, there’s still a lot to learn before you can decide whether a career would be right for you.

After narrowing down your list to just a few careers, it is time to dig a little deeper. Continue your research by conducting informational interviews with people who take up the occupations you are seriously considering. Asking their advice can help you make a wiser decision.

【推荐3】Just like happiness and sadness, anxiety is part of everyone’s lived experience — but it’s not always tolerated as such. “People often spend too much time and effort trying to rid anxiety,” says Dr Joel Minden, a clinical psychologist. “I encourage them to remember that anxiety is a normal emotional response.”

If you try to banish anxiety, all you’re doing is putting it more at the forefront of your mind. But if you accept anxiety as part of life, you can learn to relate to it with self-pity or even with humour. This is a cornerstone of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which has been gaining clinical validation, including by the American Psychological Association. ACT guides people to see their unpleasant emotions as just feelings and to accept that parts of life are hard. Sufferers are encouraged to begin a dialogue with anxious thoughts, examining their causes while also keeping in mind their personal goals and values.

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【推荐2】King Canute couldn’t stop the ocean’s tide from rolling in — can Africa hold back the desert?That’s certainly what the continent is tying to do with its proposed “Great Green Wall”, 800km (almost 5,00 miles) worth of trees that officials hope will stop the advancement of the Sahara Desert, which has been rapidly expanding southward.

The idea was introduced in the 1970s when the once-rich region turned barren (贫瘠的) due to climate change and intensive land use. But it’s not a new idea; China has its own desert vegetation project to hold back the Gobi Desert! Thanks to the Chinese plan, the African project aims to plant 100 million hectares of trees by 2030 across the entire Africa. The initiative is a decade in, and around 15% completed, and there have already been benefits for many communities and wildlife. It’s bringing life back to the continent’s degraded landscapes at an unprecedented scale, providing not only food security and jobs but a reason to stay for the millions who live along its path.

The creators of the wall hope it will bring an urgently needed solution to the threats facing the African continent, creating 10 million jobs in rural areas, as well as preventing 250 million tons of carbon. The initiative is Africa-driven, which for those on the continent, is vital, and may hold the key to success. “The Great Green Wall…is about ownership, and that has been the failure of development aid because people were never identified with it,” said Elvis Paul Tangam, African Union Commissioner for the Sahara and Sahel Great Green Wall Initiative.“But this time they identify. This is the very thing of us!”

The wall may seem like a moonshot, but all the best ideas usually are. As Thomas Sankara, former president of Burkina Faso said in 1985, “You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain degree of madness. The courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future.”

【推荐3】It is an uncomfortable fact that civilized society is almost completely dependent upon fossil fuels in nearly every aspect. Whether you believe there are hundreds of years or just a few decades left of this resource, the fact remains that it is a limited resource. At some point, fossil fuels are going to either be gone or become too expensive to realistically use. That is, when fossil fuels become too expensive to use, people will just start using something else. Though this may work well in theory, actually shifting from fossil fuels is not the same as shifting from one brand of shampoo to another.

This is entirely due to the fact that humans rely so much on the infrastructure (基础设施) they have developed, which is entirely dependent upon this resource, accounting for 85% of the United State's energy use. If the world were entirely dependent upon solar energy, that would be fine because sunlight is a continuing resource. However, at the current state of things, humans are in a dangerous position owing to its complete dependence upon one single limited input.

Fossil fuels are also responsible for a significant amount of land, water, and air pollution beyond their carbon dioxide (二氧化碳) production. For example, coal mining brings solid wastes to the surface that would normally remain underground and the areas around a mine can remain barren (贫瘠的) for generations due to the lack of proper topsoil. The burning of coal for energy also produces many different types of particulate (微粒的) matter that pollutes the air. Compared with fossil fuels, renewable energy is far more environmentally friendly.

There exists an argument that renewable energy options are not as efficient as fossil fuels because the deployment (部署) of renewable energy equipment like the wind turbine (风力涡轮机) costs a lot of money. However, when factors such as pollution and climate change are considered, renewable energy is actually far more efficient than fossil fuels. And fossil fuels will be surely replaced by renewable energy whether it is your generation or your grandchildren’s.

【推荐2】For one week in May, more than 100,000 people in the UK carefully counted their plastic waste at home in a national investigation into plastic use and recycling. It was called the Big Plastic Count, run by organizations Greenpeace and Everyday Plastic.

So how did they get on, and what did they discover about their dependency on a material that has become a part of our everyday lives?

Jules, 41, and her family threw away 124 pieces of plastic during their week of counting. The packaging in party bags and sticker packs for her daughter’s sixth birthday was the most upsetting, she says. She had thought her household was quite low plastic and so was “shocked” by how much they used. “It’s the hidden stuff that isn’t recyclable—like pizza wrappers—that gets you,” Jules explains.

“Every single sheet for the stickers in the party bags came individually wrapped in its own unrecyclable bag, and then they were packed together in a bigger bag,” she says.

Her children are passionate about protecting the environment but Jules says she finds it very hard as a consumer to make the right choices.

“We can only do so much. It’s in the manufacturer’s hands. The whole thing is such a juggle (杂耍).” Taylor, a 25-year-old scheduler, says of the 70 pieces of plastic he counted, it was the cucumber packaging that upset him the most. He has family who live abroad where he says it’s easy to buy fruits and vegetables without any plastic. He’d also like to see more local produce in shops direct from farmers, which would reduce the need for excessive packaging used to transport goods long distances.

“I get progressively more upset with the fact that supermarkets sell so much plastic,” he says. Even if he could find plastic-free alternatives, he says the cost is exorbitant. “The price of everything is going up, but things that are better for the environment are much more expensive,” he says.

【推荐2】After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.

Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.

The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.

As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.

The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.

【推荐3】Guy Noble, one of Australia’s most famous conductors, who conducted the touring concert “East Meets West”, said he’d like to learn more about Chinese music. “I’m impressed by the history and the beauty Chinese music has,” he’s said in an interview recently.

“East Meets West” concert tour in Australia was resumed this year after being postponed twice due to the pandemic. It was hosted in Canberra last Saturday, bringing audiences some well-known Chinese and Western pieces such as Jasmine Flower, Carmen, Romeo and Juliet, and The Yellow River.

While it was called “East Meets West”, music from China and the West with the same themes was brought together. Chinese singer Ya Fen and Australian singer Victoria Lambourn performed a duet (二重唱) Hope Betrayed, which was inspired by the Chinese classic novel A Dream of Red Mansions. Noble said he loved the duet as it showed completely different singing styles: traditional Chinese opera style and Western opera style. “They’re not exactly the same, but they came together,” he said.

Having been a professional conductor for more than 20 years, Noble called music an international language. He noted that most music at the concert was about love, which was also an international language. He also spoke highly of some Chinese musicians, such as pianist Lang Lang who he thought has inspired many kids in China to learn music.

Noble admitted his knowledge of Chinese culture was limited. He said that conducting the Canberra concert was “an experience that I’ve enjoyed”, which made him more interested in discovering the background and history of the music, as well as the stories behind it. Noble is ready to create more things that can involve dance or calligraphy or some of the other aspects of Chinese culture, and put them together with music.