source： http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0614-deboer-rachel-dolezal-20150614-story.html
-We repeat behaviors that are rewarded. And clearly, [Rachel] Dolezal believed she would find rewards in representing herself as a black woman.
"Stop interrupting me."
"I just said that."
"No explanation needed."
In fifth grade, I won the school courtesy prize. In other words, I won an award for being polite. My brother, on the other hand, was considered the class comedian. We were very typically socialized as a "young lady" and a "boy being a boy." Globally, childhood politeness lessons are gender asymmetrical. We socialize girls to take turns, listen more carefully, not curse and resist interrupting in ways we do not expect boys to. Put another way, we generally teach girls subservient habits and boys to exercise dominance.
How different?
Beijing (CNN)Shiny rings, white gowns and luxury cars filled the mammoth national convention center, next to the Chinese capital's Olympic Bird's Nest stadium, one recent weekend.
Armed with balloons, teddy bears and goody bags filled with coupons, throngs of salespeople stood outside their booths, shoving free gifts into the hands of visitors in an attempt to turn them into clients.
Spread across two floors, more than 200 vendors competed at Beijing's Olympic-sized wedding expo for the attention -- and, more importantly, the wallets -- of thousands of young couples.
Everything was on sale at a discount, but even a rough calculation on site pointed to the soaring cost of getting married in China.
A clip about death penalty:
A tragic news happened not long ago that a man cut a kid's throat in the campus of a elementary school.
That brings some debate about death penalty and campus security.
source: http://www.medicaldaily.com/creativity-and-unremarkable-cerebellum-motor-region-found-play-surprising-role-335680
How do scientists capture the euphoric flights of creativity? The answer to this question led to surprising, some might say shocking, evidence of the human brain's capacity for invention, and quite possibly reinvention. The cerebellum, long considered a drudge-like region of the brain, performs its own unique dance in the creative process, say researchers from Stanford’s School of Medicine and the d.school (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design). Their new study also suggests that trying too hard can block, rather than increase, the inspirational flow.
You can’t exactly command people to alight on an original thought or two while they lie on a cold, hard MRI bed. Considering this problem, Dr. Manish Saggar, a co-author of the study and instructor at the d.school, figured it would be best to simply trick people into revealing their imaginations. With this in mind, he borrowed an idea or two from Pictionary, a game that requires players to draw instead of say words, when designing his experiment.
After selecting a few verbs, Saggar and his colleagues tracked the brain activity of 14 men and 16 women who drew the words while lying in an MRI chamber. For each word, participants improvised an illustration in the allotted time of just 30 seconds — time enough for a decent brain scan but not enough time for anyone to get bored. For comparison, participants also drew a quick zigzag line, an action requiring fine-motor control but minimal creativity. When finished, participants rated the difficulty of drawing each word.
“What is your current work doing to you as a person—to your mind, character and relationships?”
This quote is from one of my favorite career books, How to Find Fulfilling Work(link is external) by Roman Krznaric(The School of Life/PicadorUSA, 2013). There’s much to recommend here: I like the way he traces the history of career decision-making (including career counseling’s rather shady history and the failure of career testing) and offers insights as to why many of us struggle with career choices.
I also like his philosophy of “act-first, process-later”—too many people think about their ideal career occurring sometime in the future (if at all) without stopping to consider what they could do today to move toward it. And I especially like his emphasis on our “many selves”—a notion similar to the “Possible Lives” map and exercise I devoted a chapter to in my own book, You Majored in What?(link is external). I highly recommend Krznaric’s book for anyone going through or considering a career transition.
I think a particularly compelling element is Krznaric’s discussion of the dimensions of meaning in a career (Chapter 3- pp. 55-93). After considering whether one has the luxury, in this day and age, of even considering meaning in a career (one does, he concludes), he lays out five dimensions of meaning:
Let's break down these five dimensions and examine them. You might want to start by re-ordering the list based on your priorities. For example, while money might be a key driver for one individual, another might consider the use of his/her talents more important. As you consider these dimensions, consider how much of each dimension you need. How much money is enough? What percentage of time spent with interests or talents is enough?
How does it feel when you make a mistake on something that really matters?
Is it frustrating? Do you want to scream, to kick something, to slap your forehead really hard?
Do mistakes make you angry with yourself? Or is it more like fear – do mistakes make you anxious, tense, worried that you are on the fast track to failure?
It’s small wonder that the prospect of screwing up is met with such dread. Many of us are wary – though not always consciously – of doing things that are unfamiliar or outside our domain of expertise because we might make mistakes. But the problem is, we need to be expanding our skills and knowledge, continuously striving to grow and improve and going beyond our comfort zones if we want to be successful.
So how can you motivate yourself to approach new challenges with confidence and energy, without fear of making mistakes? The answer is simple, though perhaps a little counterintuitive: Give yourself permission to screw-up.
