4 . The benefits of positive emotions don’t stop after a few minutes of good feelings. In fact, the biggest benefit that positive emotions provide is an improved ability to build skills and develop resources for use in later life.

A child, who runs around outside, swinging on branches and playing with friends, develops the ability to move athletically(physical skills), the ability to play with others and communicate with a team (social skills), and the ability to explore and examine the world around them(creative skills).

These skills last much longer than the emotions. Years later, that foundation of athletic movement might develop into a scholarship as a college athlete or the communication skills may develop into a job offer as a business manager. The happiness that developed the exploration and creation of new skills has ended long since, but the skills themselves live on.

All of this research begs the most important question of all: if positive emotions are so useful for developing valuable skills and appreciating the big picture of life, how do you actually get yourself positive? Well, anything that creates feelings of joy, satisfaction and love will do the trick. You probably know what things work well for you. Maybe it’s playing the guitar. Maybe it's spending time with a certain person.

Recent research by Fredrickson and her colleagues shows that people who meditate(冥想) daily show more positive emotions than those who do not. As expected, they also build valuable long-term skills. For example, three months after the experiment was over, those people continued to show increased mindfulness, purposes of life, social support, and decreased symptoms(症状) of illness.

It is necessary to include playtime in your schedule. We have plans for meetings, conference calls and other responsibilities in our daily life. Why not spare some time for play? Give yourself chances to smile and enjoy the benefits of positive emotions. Spare some time for play and adventure so that you can find joy, and explore and build new skill.

Have you ever had problems in your life? Have you ever wondered how to be happy? If so，you will find the book Being a Happy Teenager     1    (write) by an Australian writer Andrew Matthews     2    (use)．

In his book，Matthews tells us how to have a happy life and     3     (answer) the questions of teenagers.

There are many subjects，such as parents and friends，and the book says we should stop     4    (be) angry and should forgive. The book tells us some useful skills, such as how to put     5     you have learned into pictures of your mind to make your memory better.

Many teenagers think that     6    (happy) comes from a good exam result or praise from other people. But you can still be happy when there are no such “good” things. Success comes from     7     good attitude. If you learn from problems，you     8    (have) success in the future.

Some school students have problems，such as being too tall     9     too short. But Matthews tells us that we should think about things     10     a positive way. This is Matthews' most important lesson: You choose to be happy!

7 . An amount of the best research on daily experience, according to some experts, is based on rates of positive and negative interactions, which has proved that being blindly positive or negative can cause others to be frustrated or annoyed or to simply tune out.

Over the last two decades, scientists have made remarkable predictions simply by watching people interact with one another and then scoring the conversations based on the rate of positive and negative interactions. Researchers have used the findings to predict everything from the likelihood that a couple will divorce to the chances of a work team with high customer satisfaction and productivity levels.

More recent research helps explain why these brief exchanges matter so much. When you experience negative emotions as a result of disapproval or rejection, for example, your body produces higher levels of the stress hormone, which shuts down much of your thinking and activates conflict and defense mechanisms. You assume that situations are worse than they actually are.

When you experience a positive interaction, it activates a very different response. Positive exchanges increase your body’s production of oxytocin, a feel-good thing that increases your ability to communicate with, cooperate with and trust others. But the effects of a positive occurrence are less dramatic and lasting than how they are for a negative one.

We need at least 3 to 5 positive interactions to outweigh one negative exchange. Bad moments simply outweigh good ones. Whether you’re having a conversation* keep this simple short cut in mind: At least 80 percent of your conversations should be focused on what’s going right.

Workplaces, for example, often see this. During performance reviews, managers routinely spend 80 percent of their time on weaknesses and “areas for improvement”. They spend roughly 20 percent of the time on strengths and positive aspects. Any time you have discussions with a person or group, spend the vast majority of the time talking about what is working, and use the remaining time to address weaknesses.

9 . Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean (毕达哥拉斯) power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery (嘲弄) of what human life should be. I long to alleviate (减少) the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

10 . MADRID   — What is it that makes people happy? Youth, health, a good job, good looks, a flashy car? None of these things, Spanish experts say.

The concept of happiness is coming under increasingly close examination in Spain. As the nation rises to the club of the world’s wealthiest countries, people are discovering that material things do not bring happiness.

“Most people use money as a measure of human value,” says Jesus Yn-fante, author of a book on Spain’s 300 biggest fortunes. “Expensive products are regarded as the best. The rich are admired simply for being rich,” Yn-fante said. Yet psychologists (心理学家) warn that happiness cannot be bought. They advise people to look for it in human relations and in the small pleasures of everyday life.

Many people regard happiness as moment of ecstatic pleasure (狂喜) — something that, by definition, cannot last — while others speak of it as peace and acceptance of oneself. Polls (问卷 调 查 ) in different countries indicate that between 65 and 85 percent of the world’s population regard themselves as reasonably happy.

Around 40 percent of a person’s happiness is thought to be determined by genetics ( 遗传), while the rest depends on childhood environment and the process of growing up.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about happiness is that it has little to do with age, health, wealth, or other values thought to be important in Western society.

For most Spaniards, happiness is linked with feeling close to other people.

Happy people accept their limitations and set themselves reachable goals, experts say. There are lifestyle choices which favour happiness, such as exercise, eating carbohydrates (含碳 水化合物的食物) and exposing oneself to sunlight.

But the main secret of happiness is to take pleasure in small things.

“If you are given a choice between eternal (永久的) happiness and cheese sandwich, take the sandwich,” advises musician Julian Hernandez.