1 . Why Traveling Is Essential for Personal Growth

There’s something about traveling that stirs up a sense of adventure within us all. It’s like a call to explore new places, meet new people, and create unforgettable memories.     1    . It’s also an essential tool for personal growth.

Giving you confidence

Traveling, especially for the first time, can be challenging. If you stay in the same place for a long time you become fearful of any change.     2    . But what if you take a risk and do it? You’ll definitely gain more confidence about traveling. The more challenges you come across during your travels, the stronger you become.

Redefining your comfort zone

It’s easy to get stuck in a routine and stay within your comfort zone.     3    . By actively seeking out new experiences, you’ll discover sides of yourself that you never knew existed and create unforgettable memories along the way.

Taking risks and facing challenges

While traveling, it’s not uncommon to encounter obstacles, but it’s all about how we overcome them and accept changes as part of the journey.     4    . This can be as simple as navigating (导航) a new city or as complicated as communicating with locals in a foreign language.

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It can be easy to get caught up in busy daily life. When you travel, you’re forced to slow down and really enjoy each experience. You get to enjoy all the little moments that make life so special, like sunsets in a new city or quiet conversations with strangers. Traveling helps us appreciate the beauty of the world around us and be grateful for what we have right here, right now.

2 . Like many others who are autistic (患自闭症的), Bobby Latheron has known for most of his life that there was something that made him different from his peers. As a child, he often preferred spending time with adults.

Throughout school, Bobby struggled. He suffered from panic attacks that would cause him to run out of the room crying, which made teachers view him as a “naughty child”. Then, at around 13 years old, he was officially diagnosed (诊断) with autism. But because autism was still so misunderstood, this didn’t improve his situation by much.

Still, Bobby persevered and made it to university. But after a while, he struggled academically here, too. Things were looking up when he switched to art, design, and photography, but he simply couldn’t do it. That’s when a kind teacher changed his life for the better.

“I was telling one of the music teachers about my life with autism—my relationships and my struggles,” Bobby tells InspireMore. “She said, ‘Why don’t you write a book about your life?’ So I did.”

This is how My World in My Words by Bobby Latheron came to be. When writing this book, Bobby remained incredibly focused. Finding the inspiration to write his first book has changed Bobby’s life in so many ways. He’s met others who are like himself, plus, he’s even managed to secure a job he loves. He’s even given multiple interviews for various news and radio stations. Best of all, this new direction in life has given Bobby the opportunity to help others like him to feel less alone and, in doing so, he’s proven to himself that he’s far more capable than he once believed.

“I’m not here to say it’s always been perfect and that I haven’t made mistakes,” Bobby tells InspireMore, “but you have to learn in life.”

3 . Getting older means greater maturity and wisdom.     1     In a society that is aging fast, it has become crucial to find ways to prevent related mental and emotional disorders. Music emerges as a promising tool for promoting well-being of the elderly.

Music has a great power to cause strong emotions and intense pleasure.     2     singing and dancing to music with others is not only fun but also improves mood. Musical activities are great ways to reduce stress because they take our minds off problems. They also help us feel less lonely and more connected with other people.

    3     A song may become a soundtrack for a particular time, such as a delightful party with friends that you had along time ago. Listening to that song allows you to remember all the happy memories from that time.

Finally, music contributes to keeping our thinking skills sharp. It makes our brains work hard in unique ways to understand the rhythm and melody.     4     For example, exposure to background music, particularly classical music, during cognitive (认知的) tasks is shown to improve older people’s cognitive processes, such as processing speed and working memory.

In conclusion, music is a powerful tool to fight against aging-related emotional and cognitive problems. It is an enjoyable and social activity, available to anyone regardless of their background or previous musical experience.     5    

5 . Common Mistakes New Runners Make

Running is a great way to get in shape and just about everyone can do it. However, many make a number of common mistakes, which can interfere (妨碍) with training or lead to injury.     1     , keep these things in mind to help you increase your chances of running success.

·Doing too much too soon

One of the biggest mistakes new runners make is doing too much too soon. Slowly easing into a training program will help reduce the risk of injury, so you can continue on with your new running routine     2     .

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Beginners might think they need to run every day (or nearly every day) to meet their fitness or weight-loss goals, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. Running is a high-impact activity which can be really hard on your body. So it’s important to give your body a rest between workouts.

·Not wearing the right equipment

    4    , it’s important that you wear properly for your workouts. The most important piece of equipment for running is a good pair of running shoes, so be sure to do some research before you purchase a pair. Visit a running specialty store and ask an employee to fit you for a shoe.

•Running through pain

    5     If something hurts when you run, you need to stop and treat the pain. Remember: It doesn’t make you less of a runner if you listen to your body to keep it healthy.

6 . For lots of kids, toddlerhood (幼儿期) is an important time for friendship. Studies show that the earlier kids learn to form positive relationships, the better they are at relating to others as teenagers and adults. Playing together also helps these kids practice social behaviors, such as kindness, sharing, and cooperation.

Even so, how quickly your child develops into a social creature may also depend on his temperament(性格). Some toddler s are very social, but others are shy. In addition, the way that toddlers demonstrate that they like other children is markedly different from what adults think of as expressions of friendship. Research at Ohio State University in Columbus found that a toddler’s way of saying “I like you” during play is likely to come in the form of copying a friend’s behavior.

This seemingly unusual way of demonstrating fondness can result in unpleasant behavior. Regardless of how much they like a playmate, they may still grab his toys, refuse to share, and get bossy. But experts say that this is a normal and necessary part of friendship for kids this age. Through play experiences, toddlers learn social rules. That’s why it’s so important to take an active role in your toddler’s social encounters by setting limits and offering frequent reminders of what they are. When you establish these guidelines, explain the reasons behind them.

Begin by helping your child learn sympathy (“Ben is crying. What’s making him so sad?”), then suggest how he could resolve the problem (“Maybe he would feel better if you let him play the ball.”). When your child shares or shows empathy(同理心) toward a friend, praise him (“Ben stopped crying! You made him feel better.”).

Another way to encourage healthy social interaction is by encouraging kids to use words- not fists-to express how they feel. It’s also important to be mindful of how your child’s personality affects playtime. Kids are easy to get angry when they’re sleepy or hungry, so schedule playtime when they’re refreshed.

7 . In his 1936 work How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie wrote: “I have come to the conclusion that there is only one way to get the best of an argument — and that is to avoid it.” This distaste for arguments is common, but it depends on a mistaken view of arguments that causes problems for our personal and social lives — and in many ways misses the point of arguing in the first place.

Carnegie would be right if arguments were fights, which is how we often think of them. Like physical fights, verbal (言语的) fights can leave both sides bloodied. Even when you win, you end up no better off. You would be feeling almost as bad if arguments were even just competitions — like, say, tennis tournaments. Pairs of opponents hit the ball back and forth until one winner comes out from all who entered. Everybody else loses. This kind of thinking explains why so many people try to avoid arguments.

However, there are ways to win an argument every time. When you state your position, formulate (阐述) an argument for what you claim and honestly ask yourself whether your argument is any good. When you talk with someone who takes a stand, ask them to give you a reason for their view and spell out their argument fully. Assess its strength and weakness. Raise objections (异议) and listen carefully to their replies. This method will require effort, but practice will make you better at it.

These tools can help you win every argument — not in the unhelpful sense of beating your opponents but in the better sense of learning about what divides people, learning why they disagree with us and learning to talk and work together with them. If we readjust our view of arguments — from a verbal fight or tennis game to a reasoned exchange through which we all gain respect and understanding from each other — then we change the very nature of what it means to “win” an argument.

8 . Yellowstone Poster Exhibition to Be on View at UW’s Coe Library

A first-of-its-kind exhibition that focuses on the history of Yellowstone National Park posters will be on display at the University of Wyoming’s Coe Library beginning Tuesday, February 1.

“Wonderland Illustrated” will present posters and poster-style illustrations of the park spanning from the 1870s through 2022. The exhibition will be located on Level 3 of Coe Library. It will be on view through Tuesday, May 31.

The exhibition takes place at the same time as this year’s 150th anniversary of the creation of Yellowstone National Park. The posters in the exhibition serve the purpose of both advertising and art.

“We’re thrilled to be working with Yellowstone collectors Jack and Susan Davís, and Larry and Thea Lancaster to bring this exhibition to the University of Wyoming as part of year-long celebrations recognizing Yellowstone’s 150th anniversary,” says Tamsen Hert, head of UW Libraries’ Emmett D. Chisum Special Collections. “This exhibition involves the history of printing, art, photography and advertising over 16 decades. The images reproduced are found on travel brochures, postcards and maps—many of which are held in our collections.”

One poster from the exhibition—Henry Wellge’s “Yellowstone National Park” from1904—was recently purchased with donated funds and is now part of UW Libraries’ Emmett D. Chisum Special Collections. Wellge, a productive bird’s-eye-view artist, designed the piece for the Northern Pacific Railroad, which used it to advertise the park. This is a unique piece, as posters such as this one were printed on soft paper and very few have survived.

9 . As you read this, pause to reflect on your recent interactions. As a politician, husband, and father, I encounter various spoken language styles: analytical or chatty, formal or informal, pointed or gentle, cooperative or decisive. Talk is the currency of politics. It is our way of negotiating, debating, and persuading. Talk is also the currency of learning-how we develop our ideas, deepen our thinking and share our feelings.

That’s why I want speaking skills, sometimes called “oracy”, to play an important part in Labor’s plans for a reformed school curriculum (课程).

Employers value speaking skills equally with reading and writing. The ability to speak well and express yourself should be something every child should master. But the curriculum doesn’t allow us to provide this. This is short-sighted. An inability to express your thoughts fluently is a key barrier to getting on and doing well in life.

Oracy is in part about good public speaking and debating skills, but in reality, it’s about teaching young people to make strong arguments, choose wise words, understand their audience, form meaningful social connections, and use facial expressions and body language to convey their message. Above all else it’s about finding your voice. To work out who you are and what you believe. If reading opens up a world of imagination and possibility, then speaking and listening opens up a lifetime of empowerment-a chance for those who feel invisible in their own country to be heard. It is about the confidence to speak out, to call out injustice or harm.

And the other side of speaking is listening, which can also be taught. Listening, truly listening, develops tolerance and understanding. And as parents we can play our part. We’ve all been there, at mealtimes, silent as we all stare at our devices. Our job, all of ours, is to get off our screens and give young people, and adults, the gift of listening.

So, oracy―speaking and listening―needs to be placed firmly at the heart of school life.