I used to think the whole purpose of life was looking for happiness. What truly makes people happy? What I discovered changed my life. Looking for happiness may make people stressed and ________. Even though life is getting better by nearly every standard, more people feel hopeless, sad and alone. According to the research, what causes this is not a lack(缺乏) of happiness but a lack of having ________ in life.

Many psychologists(心理学家) think of happiness as feeling comfortable or good in the moment. Meaning, though, is deeper. The famous psychologist Marin Seligman says meaning comes from belonging(归属感), achieving something beyond yourself and ________ from the best inside you. Belonging, purpose, transcendence(超越), telling stories—these are the four parts of meaning. We need to build them inside our families and organizations to help people ________ an excellent person. But living a meaningful life takes work. There’s a long way to go. As each day goes by, we’re creating our lives, ________ to our story.

I remember a powerful experience I had with my father. Several months after I graduated from college, my dad had a ________ heart attack. He survived, and when I asked him what was going through his mind as he faced death, he said all he could think about was needing to live, ________ he could be there for my brother and me, and this gave him the courage to fight for life. When doctors were giving him an operation, he didn’t feel afraid. ________, he repeated our names. He wanted our names to be the last words he spoke on earth if he died.

My dad lives a common, but a good life. Lying there facing death, he had a ________ to live: love. His sense of belonging inside his family, his purpose as a dad, his unusual thinking, repeating our names—these are why he survived. That’s the story he tells himself. That’s the ________ of meaning. Happiness comes and goes. But whether life is good or bad, having meaning gives you something to hold on to.

Lilly’s grandmother used to leave gifts for the whales—a perfect shell or a beautiful stone when she was young. She told Lilly if whales liked you, they would take your gift and give you something in return.

Lilly’s Uncle Frederick thought it was nothing but a silly old tale. He said whales were important for their meat, bones and blubber(鲸脂).

Lilly dreamt about whales. In her dreams she saw them, as large as mountains and bluer than the sky. In her dreams she heard them singing and their voices were like the wind. They jumped from the water and called her name.

In the morning, Lilly walked to the sea. The water was calm. She took a yellow flower out of her pocket and dropped it in the water. “This is for you,” she called into the air.

Lilly waited till it was dark when Uncle Frederick came down the hill after her. “Enough of this stupid behavior,” he said. “You can’t be dreaming your life away.”

That night, Lilly woke up suddenly. The room was bright with moonlight. She sat up and heard something in the distance, on the far side of the hill.

She rushed outside and down to the sea. Her heart was beating fast as she reached the sea. In the sea were lots of whales. They jumped and turned around across the moon. Their singing filled up the night. Lilly saw her yellow flower dancing on the spray(浪花).

Minutes passed, or maybe hours, Suddenly, Lilly felt the wind blowing her dress and the cold biting her feet. After a while, the sea seemed to be calm again and the night dark and silent.

Highly productive people have certain habits that other people don’t. How are they getting so much done and achieving their purposes? We all want success, but what are we doing wrong? Here are a few habits you really need to avoid if you want to be highly productive.

Not seeing the bigger picture

Starting with the end in mind can help you to imagine what you are trying to create. When you can see the bigger picture, you can begin to break the course down in steps, to see exactly how you’re going to get there. ① Thinking of the end helps you keep your eye on the prize, especially when you get less confident.

Working without priorities (优先事项)

When deciding what steps to take to reach the end, highly productive people don’t waste time on details that influence the course. ② Make your path simple. Pay attention to what’s important.

Procrastination (拖延症)

③ Though it is true, it can be the hardest thing. If we wait for the right time, it may take us a very long time to finally feel confident to begin something. Many things can pull us away from starting our project.

Working long hours without breaks

You can’t do your best job if you’re very tired. ④ If you take care of yourself, you are better prepared to be in top form to do the job at hand. According to studies, the ability to give attention becomes weaker after about an hour, and then you will become less productive. So if you’re tired, don’t work harder. You need at least a 15-minute break to give your brain a rest and be ready to do more of your best work.

Listening to people who say “no”

Never be limited by other people. Highly productive people are not prevented by difficulty and other people’s ideas about what they're doing. They find a way to get started, and they find a way not to give up.

Recently Google has announced a series of new artificial intelligence (Al) (人工智能) tools designed to help users in organizing emails and creating business writings and meetings. These tools display important AI development progress in recent years. The tools are built by putting a great deal of data (数据) into machine learning computer systems. The data trains the AI systems to develop skills and produce human-like results.

The technology received wide attention last year after a company called OpenAI announced a free writing tool called ChatGPT. That tool can quickly produce human-quality writings. Experts(专家) say such systems may bring great changes to many different industries and jobs. Now some companies are able to test Google’s new tools in their development and business activities.

Like ChatGPT, Google’s AI tools are designed to create completely written texts for many different purposes. For example, an office worker could enter some keywords of a kind of text they want. The tools could then create a full marketing email, training materials or a business plan in a while. Google sees the system being able to offer an “AI Helper” to help human workers in real time. Google wants to have its AI change the work of lawyers, scientists, teachers and more.

However, Google says it keeps developing AI products of high quality. That is why the company is inviting groups of “trusted testers” to use its AI tools rather than widely selling its new products. Google’s new AI tools are the company’s latest move to fight for business. Companies like Microsoft and Meta are also working on products about AI.

Technology experts have warned that while the new AI tools can produce human-like writings, the systems can also make mistakes.

Last month, Bard, Google’s new AI tool designed to give a better online search, made a mistake and caused a $100-billion drop. Microsoft users said the company’s new AI tools produced unfriendly and rude results.

Here are some interesting seahorse facts to surprise you!

Though they look nothing like fish, they are fish     51    . They live in water and breathe like fish. But unlike other fish, they have a tail and a neck.

They are     52     swimmers. In fact, they are the slowest moving fish in the ocean and swim about 5 feet per hour.

Seahorses hide from     53     by changing colours to look like the things around them. They can do this because they have special cells in their skin that allow them to change colours.

Male seahorses are the     54     male animals that can give birth! Babies grow inside dad seahorse’s pouch (a soft bag on his body). After two to four weeks, it gives birth to 100 to 1,000 babies     55    . They are a lot of cute, tiny seahorses! How amazing!

The world is always full of surprising things. Everyone expects to see the beautiful eye-pleasing flowers and plants. It is reported that there are about 390,900 plants in the world. The following may not be so eye-pleasing, but are certainly eye-catching.

Baseball Plant

This ball-shaped plant used to be only found in South Africa. It is thought to be endangered(濒临灭绝的)in the natural environment in which it lives, yet it’s commonly planted around the world. Luckily, some special gardens have started to grow this plant to make sure that it no longer needs to be got from the wild so that it does not die out.

African Starfish Flower

Don’t fall for its beautiful flowers. It smells like bad meat, and its colors and hairs really look like those from a dead animal. This works wonders for attracting insects, even from a great distance. This is also a plant in danger as the result of less and less living space. This has been a problem for collectors hoping to have the plant at their home, as well as the Zulus, a group of people in Africa who use the plant as medicine.

Bat Flower

The black bat flower is an unusual flower that grows in the wild of Yunnan Province in China. It needs a special environment to grow. This is the reason why it is an endangered plant. As a result, the bat flower attracts a lot of attention from collectors and gardeners. It is famous for its bat-shaped black flowers. Its leaves look like the wings of a bat. There’s no question how the plant got its name.

Venus Flytrap

Venus flytrap can be easily found in many places. It lives mainly on meat. It survives like other plants by getting energy from gases in the air and the soil. However, it also eats insects. It opens its mouth wide and the hairs inside try to attract any insect that might land. As soon as it senses an insect, it shuts the mouth and begins to enjoy the food.

Plants take in CO₂ from the air and make oxygen. They help keep soil in their place. Many of them are commonly used for making our environment look better, and some of them are also used as medicine, food and so on. You are lucky if you see one of the plants mentioned above.

You may have seen this photo before: an old fisherman with a bamboo hat standing on a boat. This was how Huang Quande looked in his photos with visitors. He became famous and was a    66     the most well-known characters of the Lijiang River in Guilin. Many people b    67     the fisherman on the back of the 20-yuan renminbi is based on his image (形象). Huang passed away at the age of 94 this year.

Fisherman Huang’s life s    68     the true spirit of the Lijiang River. He was a man full of kindness and energy. For example, in his nineties, Huang could s    69     row his boat. After becoming a photo model in 2008, he took photos with tourists from all over the world.

The picture is not just about one man, but c    70     as a special cultural symbol of the Lijiang River. In fact, the most beautiful landscapes in the country a    71     on the different backsides of the fifth series of renminbi. Moreover, they all carry their own cultural v    72     as well.

For example, on the back of the 5-yuan banknote (钞票) is Taishan Mountain in Shandong Province. For thousands of years, many emperors would go there and pray (祈祷)for p    73     and good luck. The renminbi pictures have helped make the classic Chinese landscapes even more p    74     . Many love to find out where the pictures were taken. Pan Jinyu from Chongqing went on a “banknote tour” of China when he was 21 years old, enjoying all the sights w    75     are on renminbi banknotes from 1 yuan to 100. “I want to finish this meaningful journey and feel the beauty of our country.” Pan said.