1 . Only about 20% of U.S.adults say they have a best friend at work.Should the other 80% start looking for one?Yes and no.    1     ,says psychologist Catherine Heaney. That support can come from a coworker who has become a close friend,but it doesn’t have to;interactions with managers and friendly acquaintances can also boost your well-being, Heaney notes.

    2    : having friends in the workplace can improve wellness.It’s linked to a lower risk of burnout,better mental health,and maybe even a longer lifespan.Meanwhile,research is equally clear that loneliness is bad for your health.    3     , given its links to various health problems.

But if becoming best friends with your coworkers feels too daunting (使人气馁的),or just not your style,you can still benefit from social support.When most people hear “social support”,they think of emotional support,like venting (发泄) to a coworker over coffee, Heaney says.    4     :when someone steps in to help you on a busy day,for instance,or shares advice.Even relatively minor interactions,like a manager allowing you to leave early to pick up your sick child,can buffer (缓解) the negative effects of stress, Heaney explains.    5    —although it is great if you do—but rather to promote “a sense of being in the right place” by becoming part of a community.

2 . My grandma passed away last week. My mum began the painful yet necessary task of sorting through her belongings.

“Is there anything you want from grandma’s flat?” Mum texted me.

“Her aloe (芦荟), please.” I required zero thinking time.

Sometime around 1975, Grandma, always believing good things would happen in the future, received this plant as a gift, which she appreciated and placed in her doorway. It came from the local butcher. Five years later, my mum married the butcher’s son and had me. Grandma revealed to me this particular plant was a living relationship between the two families. And so was I.

Recently, whenever we visited Grandma’s flat, I attempted to fix this concept in my children’s minds. “That was a gift your great-grandma bought your other great-grandma! It’s older than me!” Then my kids would nod and ask Grandma for a sweet.

Numerous times, Grandma gave me cuttings or clippings of the plant, hoping I might raise my own and continue the legend. Yet, every time, my new branch died with my awful gardening skills. But that didn’t used to matter, because I could turn to Grandma, who would wait and accept my disturbance without becoming upset. Then I got another clipping and tried again. But now I can’t. So, I decided that the plant will go and live with Ann, my mother-in-law, who is a genius with a greenhouse.

The plan is for Ann to keep hold of the original plant. In time, she can teach me how to deal with its cuttings properly, and then maybe one day I can settle the plant in my place.

In the meantime, Ann will allocate (分配) clippings among my relatives, as Grandma used to do. My wife’s two sisters, for example, are both better at tending plants than I am, so it is quite imaginable they, too, will offer cuttings of the plant to their partners, spreading this loving plant across my entire extended family.

3 . My father Ed Kobbeman built his own house after he married my mother, so it wasn’t too surprising when he proudly showed me his latest creation—the outhouse (户外厕所). The traditional sun and moon were cut out of the front door. There was a fancy (精致的) seat inside. It was, indeed, a fine outhouse. Dad said he wanted to use his creation in the outhouse races, where teams must pull or push their homemade outhouse to compete. To be in this event, Dad found some old wheels in his storage area.

On the day of the race, Dad’s nephews and great-niece arrived. The four made up the outhouse racing team, along with one great-niece weighing a hundred pounds, chosen to ride on the seat inside.

In the sun of that hot day in June, the teams lined up. The starting shot rang out. The red-shirted Kobbeman team led the way and turned to make their way back to the start/ finish line.

Just then, disaster happened. The hard rubber on the wheels started peeling off (剥落). The nephews hung on for the last few meters, barely winning the first race by great strength of will and brute force (蛮力) as they lifted that outhouse off the ground across the start/finish line. But there was no hope for the second round. I stood there, ready to cry.

Ten minutes later I realized Dad was nowhere to be seen. How could he just leave like that? Soon the announcer was telling the participants (参赛者) to get ready. Just then Dad turned up with new wheels. We changed the wheels and won the next four races.

On the way home, I asked my dad, “Where did you go? And where did you get those new wheels?”

My father took a deep breath. “Well,” he said, “I ran two blocks to the car, unlocked it, drove home, ran into the house, got the key to the storage, ran out there, unlocked the garage, pulled my new lawnmower (割草机) out on the grass, took some tools, pulled off the wheels and threw them in the car.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “Dad, why did you do that in this heat? You had a heart attack ten years ago. What if you couldn’t come back on time?”

He smiled, “Well, I just couldn’t let the boys down. They worked so hard. There was a problem, and it just needed to be fixed. That’s all.”

6 . It’s the eighth autumn since my father died, and I want to have some chicken nuggets. My father would understand. I don’t remember him saying “I love you.” His love language was the simple pleasure of processed food. He introduced me to fries, fat cream, and sugary drinks.

There were secrets between us: a Happy Meal on our fishing trip, or two liters of Coke before my mother came home. I felt honored until I found that my father kept secrets from me. One day, I spotted a pack of cigarettes at home and threw it away. He got mad, then promised to quit, but I kept smelling smoke in his clothes and car. I had plans for my future self. The person I aimed to be was never reflected in my smoking-addicted and blue-collar father.

I used to blame my father for his bad habits. But the older I get, the more I see myself giving in too. And so, each autumn, I think: I’m at the age when my father followed my mother to a country where he couldn’t speak the language; now I’m at the age when he was fired and tried his first cigarette, which was as irresistible to him as the stupid online games are to me. Thus I think: the age I am is far too young for the responsibilities he bore.

I can imagine how excited my father felt upon moving to the US to discover that KFC’s was the stuff of everyday. It was cheaper than fish, much more accessible than fresh fruit, and simpler than a long-distance phone call to home in which he had to hide his difficulties and his loneliness. I can imagine it might be easier to hand your child a chicken nugget—a promise of abundance and pleasure.

Is it wrong to compare my father to a piece of deep-fried food? But it’s a more faithful representation than the usual metaphors of fathers as safe harbors, rocks, or teachers. None of those really rings true when it comes to my father. The next time the urge strikes, I’ll have a chicken nugget or two or four. And at that moment, I will understand my father completely.

7 . I stood in my father’s garden one late summer evening, watching my three kids dig in the dirt with toy bulldozers (推土机). I had driven up to my parents’ house that afternoon in a fit of desperation. My husband was working a double shift, my twins hadn’t napped, and I was one misstep away from a complete breakdown.

“Come up,” my mom said, “Let’s rest for a while.”

As the day of temporary relaxation drew to a close, I wandered along Dad’s once-neat garden rows and noticed the tomato plants Dad had planted.

“Roma tomatoes, the kind for sauce. Remember when your mom used to make sauce?” my father said.

I hadn’t thought of it in years actually. It was a recipe passed from my Italian immigrant great-grandmother down to my grandmother and then my mother. And that’s where it had stopped. Though I liked cooking, I didn’t want to waste much time on the dish. Why should I simmer (慢慢地煮) tomato sauce all day when I could make different kinds of dishes?

Dad gave me an idea. “I’m going to make sauce,” I said. My father raised a skeptical eyebrow but grabbed some boxes and told the kids to start picking. The twins threw tomatoes like softballs to each other as the youngest begged to join me. Everyone was crying at one point, and I almost gave up on my grand scheme. Yet something inside me fought back, a deep-seated fancy for finding the link between the recipe’s owner and me.

At last, I successfully finished my sauce and it was approved by my parents. The efforts I made with those boxes of tomatoes gave me a sense of accomplishment. Each crank of the handle, each slice of the knife, each stir of the stockpot was a prayer for comfort and confidence. Like most things that are worthwhile, the mess was part of the process.

8 . My father Earl was to take two-lane highways all the way from Chicago to New York. "This way," he explained, "we’ll actually see where we’re going. I hate turnpikes (收费高速公路), Virgil." There were other reasons for taking highways: no fee to pay, cheaper gas stations, and a chance to shop for food.

He had me laughing from the moment we left town. I’d never seen him in better spirits. He did imitations, told stories and made remarks to the waitresses in the restaurants we’d stopped in every three hours, highly praising their cooking skills.

Earl asked me to keep an eye out for hitchhikers (搭便车的人), so we might have someone to share the driving. My father had, however, tough standards of selecting hitchhikers. We passed teenagers, soldiers and old men, and each time Earl had a different excuse for not stopping.

Finally, my heart was filled with uncontrollable anger. "Why don’t you ever stop? It’s not fair to look at people and then not stop."

Earl looked at my face. "I don’t know. Virgil," he said. "I think the reason is that I don’t want anyone in the car. We never have any time alone and I like it with just the two of us.”

Hearing what he said, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. How wonderful, yet disturbing and unprepared I was to hear it.

We pulled in for the night some twelve hours after leaving Chicago and checked into a nameless motel. It was in this motel that my father and I spent one of the best nights of our lives. He watched TV with me for a while and he begged a pack of cards from the motel manager and did card tricks for me — a skill I had no idea he possessed. Then my father and I played a card game and we were so comforted by the game that we took the pack with us when we drove out for a late night snack of ham and eggs.

The sky was filled with stars. After turning off all the lights, we whispered to each other in bed, like boys who fear they might be overheard. I don’t remember what I said, but I was sure he was listening.