The more people have to do unwanted things the more chances are that they create unpleasant environment for themselves and others. If you hate the thing you do but have to do it nonetheless, you have choice between hating the thing and accepting that it needs to be done. Either way you will do it. Doing it from place of hatred will develop hatred towards the self and others around you; doing it from the place of acceptance will create compassion towards the self and allow for opportunities to find a more suitable way of accomplishing the task. If you decide to accept the fact that your task has to be done, start from recognising that your situation is a gift from life; this will help you to see it as a lesson in acceptance.

Everyone’s heard the expression don’t let the perfect become the enemy of the good. If you want to get over an obstacle so that your idea can become the solution‑based policy you’ve long dreamed of, you can’t have an all‑or‑nothing mentality. You have to be willing to alter your idea and let others influence its outcome. You have to be okay with the outcome being a little different, even a little less, than you wanted. Say you’re pushing for a clean water act. Even if what emerges isn’t as well‑funded as you wished, or doesn’t match how you originally conceived the bill, you’ll have still succeeded in ensuring that kids in troubled areas have access to clean water. That’s what counts, that they will be safer because of your idea and your effort. Is it perfect? No. Is there more work to be done? Absolutely. But in almost every case, helping move the needle forward is vastly better than not helping at all.

Brands that fail to grow and develop lose their relevance. Think about the person you knew who was once on the fast track at your company, who is either no longer with the firm or, worse yet, appears to have hit a plateau in his or her career. Assuming he or she did not make an ambitious move, more often than not, this individual is a victim of having failed to stay relevant and embrace the advances in his or her industry. Think about the impact personal computing technology had on the first wave of executive leadership exposed to the technology. Those who embraced the technology were able to integrate it into their work styles and excel. Those who were resistant many times found few opportunities to advance their careers and in many cases were ultimately let go through early retirement for failure to stay relevant and update their skills.

* hit a plateau: 정체기에 들다

What consequences of eating too many grapes and other sweet fruit could there possibly be for our brains? A few large studies have helped to shed some light. In one, higher fruit intake in older, cognitively healthy adults was linked with less volume in the hippocampus. This finding was unusual, since people who eat more fruit usually display the benefits associated with a healthy diet. In this study, however, the researchers isolated various components of the subjects’ diets and found that fruit didn’t seem to be doing their memory centers any favors. Another study from the Mayo Clinic saw a similar inverse relationship between fruit intake and volume of the cortex, the large outer layer of the brain. Researchers in the latter study noted that excessive consumption of high‑sugar fruit (such as mangoes, bananas, and pineapples) may cause metabolic and cognitive problems as much as processed carbs do.

* hippocampus: (대뇌 측두엽의) 해마 ** carb: 탄수화물 식품

Winning turns on a self‑conscious awareness that others are watching. It’s a lot easier to move under the radar when no one knows you and no one is paying attention. You can mess up and be rough and get dirty because no one even knows you’re there. But as soon as you start to win, and others start to notice, you’re suddenly aware that you’re being observed. You’re being judged. You worry that others will discover your flaws and weaknesses, and you start hiding your true personality, so you can be a good role model and good citizen and a leader that others can respect. There is nothing wrong with that. But if you do it at the expense of being who you really are, making decisions that please others instead of pleasing yourself, you’re not going to be in that position very long. When you start apologizing for who you are, you stop growing and you stop winning. Permanently.

Human beings like certainty. This liking stems from our ancient ancestors ① who needed to survive alongside saber‑toothed tigers and poisonous berries. Our brains evolved to help us attend to threats, keep away from ② them, and remain alive afterward. In fact, we learned that the more ③ certain we were about something, the better chance we had of making the right choice. Is this berry the same shape as last time? The same size? If I know for certain it ④ is, my brain will direct me to eat it because I know it’s safe. And if I’m uncertain, my brain will send out a danger alert to protect me. The dependence on certainty all those millennia ago ensured our survival to the present day, and the danger‑alert system continues to protect us. This is achieved by our brains labeling new, vague, or unpredictable everyday events and experiences as uncertain. Our brains then ⑤ generating sensations, thoughts, and action plans to keep us safe from the uncertain element, and we live to see another day.

* saber‑toothed tiger: 검치호(검 모양의 송곳니를 가진 호랑이)

Free play is nature’s means of teaching children that they are not ____________. In play, away from adults, children really do have control and can practice asserting it. In free play, children learn to make their own decisions, solve their own problems, create and follow rules, and get along with others as equals rather than as obedient or rebellious subordinates. In active outdoor play, children deliberately dose themselves with moderate amounts of fear and they thereby learn how to control not only their bodies, but also their fear. In social play children learn how to negotiate with others, how to please others, and how to manage and overcome the anger that can arise from conflicts. None of these lessons can be taught through verbal means; they can be learned only through experience, which free play provides.

* rebellious: 반항적인

It seems natural to describe certain environmental conditions as ‘extreme’, ‘harsh’, ‘benign’ or ‘stressful’. It may seem obvious when conditions are ‘extreme’: the midday heat of a desert, the cold of an Antarctic winter, the salinity of the Great Salt Lake. But this only means that these conditions are extreme for us, given our particular physiological characteristics and tolerances. To a cactus there is nothing extreme about the desert conditions in which cacti have evolved; nor are the icy lands of Antarctica an extreme environment for penguins. It is lazy and dangerous for the ecologist to assume that ________________________________. Rather, the ecologist should try to gain a worm’s‑eye or plant’s‑eye view of the environment: to see the world as others see it. Emotive words like harsh and benign, even relativities such as hot and cold, should be used by ecologists only with care.

* benign: 온화한 ** salinity: 염도

Human processes differ from rational processes in their outcome. A process is rational if it always does the right thing based on the current information, given an ideal performance measure. In short, rational processes go by the book and assume that the book is actually correct. ① Human processes involve instinct, intuition, and other variables that don’t necessarily reflect the book and may not even consider the existing data. ② As an example, the rational way to drive a car is to always follow the laws. ③ Likewise, pedestrian crossing signs vary depending on the country with differing appearances of a person crossing the street. ④ However, traffic isn’t rational; if you follow the laws precisely, you end up stuck somewhere because other drivers aren’t following the laws precisely. ⑤ To be successful, a self‑driving car must therefore act humanly, rather than rationally.

In the electric organ the muscle cells are connected in larger chunks, which makes the total current intensity larger than in ordinary muscles.

Electric communication is mainly known in fish. The electric signals are produced in special electric organs. When the signal is discharged the electric organ will be negatively loaded compared to the head and an electric field is created around the fish. ( ① ) A weak electric current is created also in ordinary muscle cells when they contract. ( ② ) The fish varies the signals by changing the form of the electric field or the frequency of discharging. ( ③ ) The system is only working over small distances, about one to two meters. ( ④ ) This is an advantage since the species using the signal system often live in large groups with several other species. ( ⑤ ) If many fish send out signals at the same time, the short range decreases the risk of interference.