2 . A therapy (治疗) client and I are working on an eating disorder and find it originated from a relationship break-up or perhaps being bullied in middle school. Such hurtful experiences led to not eating for a couple of weeks. Then comes a high praise from a friend that totally backfires. Maybe it’s an enthusiastic, “Wow, you look great!’’ In a flash, this praise excites an inner and often unconscious thought: “Oh, people care more about me if I lose weight. So many things feel out of control but I can control people’s affection by not eating.”

Often, very well-intentioned individuals offer praise out of a desire to uplift and connect. Such praise is often tied, directly or indirectly, to a person’s relationship with the standards of a specific group or institution. Sadly, such praise can easily reduce an individual’s dignity to their level in line with the group’s expectations rather than supporting their inherent (固有的) dignity and worth. So, what’s a better way?

One answer is to exit the game of “right and wrong” and enter a more life-giving focus on what needs are present. Returning to our example above, when you see that someone has lost weight and you want to give them a praise, just pause and take a deep breath. Simply ask, “How are you doing?” See them and hear them. Appreciate them as a person of limitless value. Know there may be much more to their inner world than meets the eye. Similarly, when you see someone’s success in school, appreciate the hard work they put into it. Ask with gentle curiosity, “How’s it been for you?” Listen with your full attention that in itself can be a rare gift in today’s hustle and bustle world.

By maintaining your concern and listening to the ways they want to be accompanied and supported — even when it might not be your first instinct — you can see them as a whole person, with complex feelings, very human needs, and inherent dignity.

3 . It’s a great feeling when someone gives you a compliment (赞美), isn’t it?    1    When you compliment someone, he/she will become open and begin to talk with you. How do you give an appropriate compliment, though? It’s important to be sincere and specific about your praise.

When someone does an activity or a task particularly well, let him/her know about it by saying “You did a great job!”     2     For example, “That was a great presentation! I particularly liked the funny examples you used.”

    3    You can use “I like” or “I love” to start compliments, especially if someone wears a new coat or has a new haircut. For example, “I love your hair today” or “I like your skirt”.

When you’ve bought something new, it feels great when other people are excited about it. For example, if you take out your new mobile phone and a colleague says, “What a cool phone!”, it makes you feel like you made the right decision to buy it.

    4    

Compliment someone on their personalities and you'll make a new friend. For example, if you like how happy a coworker is, you can tell him/her, “You are always so happy. It makes my day better.”    5     If you like how organized another colleague is, tell him/her, “I really appreciate how organized you are. I would love to be as organized as you.”

4 . Launched in 2004 by then-Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook became the biggest social media platform in the world just five years later. It was young people who helped Facebook initially shoot to success, but today’s youth think that “Facebook is for old people”, reported the Daily Star.

In 2015, a survey found that 71 percent of teens aged 13 to 17 used Facebook. But in 2022, that number dropped to 32 percent, reported NBC News. Alex Tani, a 25-year-old from the UK, said that when he started university in 2016, his tutors always set up student groups on Facebook to help everyone stay in touch and interact. But by the time his younger brother went to university three years later, this wasn’t the case.

Today’s younger generation prefers to use other social platforms, such as Instagram, a photo and video-sharing social networking service also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, and TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, said NBC News. These two platforms are different from Facebook in that they are mainly image-based and video-based, not text-based. Visual culture is a rising trend and young people have grown tired of reading people’s remarks on Facebook, said Forbes.

Another reason for Facebook’s decline in popularity is AI. According to The Guardian, TikTok’s “most powerful tool” is its algorithm (算法) which predicts what content you want to see. It shares related content with you from people you may not follow based on what you’ve watched before. This saves people the effort of searching for what they like, and so becomes an “escape for them”, said North Carolina State University.

Going forward, Facebook plans to use AI in a similar way as TikTok to show short videos and give users a better platform to discuss video content, said Fortune Media. Only time will tell whether it can stay “young” or remain as a platform used only by “old people”.

6 . A friendship doesn’t begin with the hope that it will end. We invest time and energy, not believing that our efforts could ultimately be fruitless.     1     When things said or done cause a breakdown in trust or closeness, you can reconnect with a friend you’ve grown apart from by starting a conversation.

    2     So take time to reflect on what exactly happened between you and your friend. When knowing what went wrong in the relationship, you are often better equipped with an understanding of what you could say to make things right again.

If you and your friend need to have a serious heart-to-heart conversation, it’s a good idea to select the right time and place to talk. Choose a time when you both have some open availability. Don’t try to jam in a heavy conversation in a half-hour lunch break on a workday.     3     A public place is generally not the best place to have a serious and emotional conversation with a friend.

There may be moments in the conversation when you feel-yourself tense up, want to shut down or explode in anger.     4     Otherwise, they can become roadblocks that make it impossible to have a productive conversation. When feeling like interrupting or talking over your friend, take a deep breath and keep calm.

Friendships take time to rebuild especially if trust has been broken. Don’t expect things to go right back to normal once you and your friend talk through things.     5    

7 . Friendship is a beautiful relationship. While some friendships tend to come to an end as we grow in life, there are some rare and special ones that are meant to last forever. No matter how many years pass by, the connection stays alive.

Two childhood best friends who were “joined at the hip” as kids were reunited over a half century later—when they least expected it.

Irene Gresty and Janet Henderson were neighbors in the 1940s, growing up in England, but like many friends, they lost touch over the years. After getting married, Gresty moved with her husband who was in the navy and was shipped to many foreign places. However, Gresty, despite living in many countries, loved her own country. Gresty said, “I loved the area where I grew up, so I wanted to settle down to enjoy retirement (退休).” Thanks to an event hosted by Bield Housing and Care, a non-profit organization devoted to supporting residents over 55 years old, finally they met each other. Gresty said, “We sat down beside each other and she turned to me and said ‘Is that you Irene?’ and I just laughed and said ‘Yes. Are you Janet?’ ” They couldn’t believe that they were meeting each other after so long. They spent the rest of the afternoon talking to each other.

Henderson said that it is usual in life for people to often move away from the area and lose contact. As their family names changed, Henderson couldn’t recognize her friend’s name despite being told about her. The two have promised to never stay long without seeing each other. They exchanged numbers so they could meet in the future. They have many years to catch up on everything they have missed.

8 . I have quite a bit of experience with Toastmasters, an organization aiming to help people overcome speech anxiety. I joined many years ago with the hope of improving my public speaking. After one of my speeches, the comments I received were harsh. Constructive or not, the critique was hard to take. I felt my feelings were hurt.

I learned many things from my time with Toastmasters, and one was the value of good feedback. Welcoming the critique of others is hard for adults, even when it’s well-intentioned. So naturally, we can expect that children will also struggle with it. But the feedback our children receive from teachers and parents is important to their growth and development. So as parents, we must learn how to deliver our feedback effectively, and we’ll need to train our children on how to accept it with openness and wisdom.

The way parents deliver their feedback is as important as the specific words used. It’s possible to have good intentions, but when feedback is poorly given, it can be harmful and not helpful.

It’s important to create a welcoming, safe environment in the home for intaking and processing feedback. Especially between a child and parent, the feedback needs to be healthy, constructive and regular.

The words used are also important. In a New York Times article written by Dr. Adam Grant, an organizational psychologist at the Wharton School, he shares that it is “22 to 29 percent more effective” to encourage children with nouns than verbs, but when it comes to giving negative feedback, it’s generally better to use verbs.

A parent’s feedback provides the scaffolding (脚手架) for how a child will manage their inner monologue. Consider, as an example, a discussion you may have with your child about their goals. Your feedback can encourage them not just to focus on where they are now but to reflect on how far they’ve come. This kind of feedback can spur them on to reach the finish line.

9 . Kiley Crisp, a 15-year-old teenager, has Williams syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that causes learning and developmental issues. Despite her outgoing personality, Kiley sometimes struggles to make friends. Last year, however, she met two amazing girls at a summer camp she went to. The girls, who live far away from her, daily contact Kiley. They call her, check in on her using social media, and make her feel deeply loved.

Kiley was out to dinner with family to celebrate her turning 15. She was extremely moved to find that her friends drove three hours to celebrate her birthday! In a video posted by her sister Ashley on social media, Kiley is seen moved to tears at how kind her friends were to surprise her on her birthday.

In the video, the 15-year-old is seen happily dancing around in a cafe. Then she feels two girls coming towards her. She realizes they are her two good friends. Kiley widens her eyes, unable to believe it, because both had told her that they felt sorry for not being able to come to observe her birthday. Then the two friends are seen comforting Kiley as they offer her hugs and wish her a happy birthday!

The video has acquired over 5.2 million views since it was posted, through which Kiley has received a lot of love. And in an update, she expressed her hearty thanks to those who left sweet comments. One of them said, “Really sweet of those girls to support their friend like that.” Another said, “The world would be a much better place if more people were like these girls. They are inspiring role models. We should all try to be so nice.”

I was lucky to have a happy childhood, one that most people would want to have. My family lived in a tiny     1     in Scotland. Our neighbors next door had a son named Danny, and we grew up together.

We     2     long summer evenings in the forests, digging up worms for fishing, and collecting feathers left by the birds. It was here that I discovered that I was allergic (过敏) to the tiny flies which     3     me and made my face swell (肿). There were a few walnut trees above the village and we would frighten the squirrels away and wait for them to ripen (成熟). However, the village was too far north for a proper     4    .

Danny was a     5     boy, and we made things out of branches, which we tried to sell in the village shop. We even     6     a tree house. Once I lost my footing, fell out and     7     my foot, so Danny washed my wounds in the river. He was a very     8     boy for someone so young. My mother     9     blamed me for tearing my clothes.   

It was the finest     10     anyone could have, and I’m proud of calling him my friend.