Stress is commonly regarded as something we experience during tough times, but there’s actually a certain degree to which stress can be positive and even an indicator of a healthy and productive lifestyle. Stress from positive experiences is【C1】________to as “eustress”, which is pronounced yoo-stress.

It’s perfectly【C2】_____to feel stressed about big life events, and it’s important that we understand this and not get “stressed about being【C3】__”. When we experience stress, our bodies【C4】__certain stress hormones like adrenaline and Cortisol.【C5】__the excited/ nervous feeling you get right before you go on a rollercoaster: sweaty palms, racing heart, butterflies in your stomach—these are your body’s natural response【C6】__these stress hormones. Our bodies get the same【C7】__when we experience excitement of most any kind,【C8】__excitement over relatively happy events. Short term, these【C9】__of stress hormones can actually be beneficial【C10】__they can increase brain function, improve concentration and【C11】_____feelings of alertness.

However, we【C12】_____need to recharge after the energy spike that stress (even eustress!)【C13】__. If we don’t recharge, or if we misinterpret the signs of stress【C14】__“problems”, we run the risk of becoming “stressed about stress” or【C15】__ourselves to the edge of exhaustion. As a clinical psychologist【C16】__in high-productivity people, many of my clients secretly【C17】__themselves on their high stress level because they think of it as【C18】__that they’re “giving 110 percent”. Certainly, this stress is what【C19】__them to keep achieving at a higher level, at least in the short term.【C20】_____, it can eventually lead to feeling exhaustive and anxious.

Justin Williams takes off a virtual-reality (VR) headset and wobbles away from a demo. The bottoms of his feet and calves are “on fire,” he says. Mr. Williams was playing “Sprint Vector”, a VR running game: players swing hand-held controllers to simulate motion. Though he has been standing in one place, his brain believes he has just run for several miles.

This sensation of complete immersion is called “presence”. Boosters of VR say it is what will drive the technology’s mass adoption, in time. When Facebook bought Oculus, a VR startup, for $2bn in 2014, and sent interest in the technology rocketing, it was this feeling of being present that Mark Zuckerberg, described as “incredible”.

Several obstacles still stand in the way of widespread use. The gear is expensive and clunky, and requires a powerful computer or gaming console to function. Consumers are hesitant to splash out on expensive kit when there isn’t a lot to do with it; developers are reluctant to spend resources making games for a tiny market. The way in which users must wave around hand-held controllers to input movements falls short of the promise of VR, which will eventually use sensors to convey bodily movement.

Some tech giants still see VR as integral to their future. Facebook is convinced that VR is “the next major computing platform”. It has a new offering, “Spaces”, which is a place to socialize with friends in VR that allows users to create avatars, to express some emotion through facial expressions, answer video calls, share photos and take selfies. As a first go, it is surprisingly compelling.

If VR is to take off at last, tech-industry executives agree that avid gamers will be crucial. Such people tend to be early adopters of expensive new equipment, so they subsidize innovation. Games developers know how to engage players and keep them interested, and how to tell stories in a non-linear fashion. And they have for years created content in three dimensions, a basic requirement for VR. Indeed, virtual reality is integrating games and the broader technology industry as never before. “It’s like two continents that were apart, and continental drift is bringing them together,” says Neil Trevett of the Khronos Group, a non-profit industry group.

Virtual reality also has new functions in business and beyond. VR producer says it receives many inquiries from carmakers, for example, which are using VR as a way quickly and cheaply to prototype and collaborate on new models of vehicles. Hospitals in America are experimenting with 3D models in VR as a way for doctors to get a closer look at tricky bits of bodies or to prep for surgery. The VR industry has not yet fulfilled the hype. But the believers have not lost their faith.

For a while last year it looked as though the widening of inequalities of all kinds, which has been one of the hallmarks of the pandemic, might not extend to housing. Demand for short-term and holiday lets on platforms such as Airbnb collapsed. In London, rents fell fast. For once, perhaps, the scales could be tipping away from the UK’s two million landlords and towards the 13 million people who rent from them.

The predictable result has now arrived, in the shape of a pandemic-driven property boom. Two weeks ago, the Bank of England’s chief economist, Andy Haldane, described the UK’s housing market as being “on fire”. Prices are rising at an average rate of 14.2% annually in rural locations, and 7% in cities.

Demand for second and holiday homes is not the only reason why the housing market in such places increasingly resembles a hot-air balloon. Well-off city dwellers are more likely than any other group to have worked from home over the past year. Some are now choosing to move house, either for a change of scene or more space. But demand for holiday homes is a key factor driving price rises, and forcing local people to vacate desirable areas such as south-western seaside towns and villages so that richer visitors can take their places, either as owners or short-term renters.

The housing problems faced by renters and would-be first time buyers long predate the pandemic. The transformation of homes into assets, and of the majority of households into property investors, has been a policy of governments since Margaret Thatcher. But the economic and social upheavals of the past year have brought about a new twist, as people venture further afield to spend the money they have made on the highest-value homes in London and the south-east. Being priced out has long been understood as a generational injustice, as house prices have floated beyond the reach of young adults without inherited wealth.

In the shadow of the pandemic, its geographical aspect has grown sharper too. There are economic as well as environmental reasons to support an expansion of domestic tourism. While second homes that are rarely used are rightly viewed as undesirable, especially in locations where they cluster together, seasonal variation is part of the rhythm of life in holiday towns. But while visitors come and go, locals need homes. Ensuring that the supply of affordable housing is increased, and secured long term, must be the primary goal of any housing and planning reforms. The alternative is increasing injustice and division.

They are surrounded by more bus lanes, picked on by more traffic wardens, spied on by more speed cameras, punished with more fines and soaked more enthusiastically by the exchequer than ever before. Now, to cap it all, British drivers are threatened with a road-pricing system that would track their movements and bill them according to where they travel and when.So much for the freedom of the road.

The driving lobby suspects that the government would use road pricing to screw more money out of it, but it need not be that way. Combined with a reform of motoring taxes, road pricing could make life better, not worse. For drivers road pricing is an economist’s dream solution because it replaces a system that rations road use by queuing, which wastes people’s time, with one which rations it according to the value different drivers place on their journeys. And as demand varies, so can price: in cities at rush-hour prices can be set high; at night and in the countryside they can be kept low. Actually, the best way would be to introduce road pricing along with a reform of the inefficient system of taxing and investing in transport.

Road taxes should charge drivers for four sorts of damage they do: to road surfaces, to the climate, to other people’s health and to other drivers by creating jams. The two main current sorts of tax—fuel duty and vehicle excise duty (VED)—do not do that well. VED, an annual tax, penalizes some dirty cars, while fuel duty taxes people for burning up petrol, and thus for contributing to climate change. Neither tax, however, does much to discourage congestion, which wastes time and damages health.

Road prices, by contrast, could be set to take into account all those four sorts of damage. Charges would depend crucially on assumptions about the costs of economic damage; but according to one set of calculations, mid-range assumptions about climate change and pollution costs would lead drivers to pay about the same overall as they do at present. Rural drivers would pay less; urban ones would pay more but get around faster, so saving money in other ways.

At present, investments in the road system are based on awkward cost-benefit calculations. By charging for road use, the government would discover just what people were prepared to pay for. That would encourage private investment in roads, and might lead to a more rational system of allocating public investment in transport of all types.

If you are anything like me, you left the theater after Sex and the City 2 and thought, there ought to be a law against a looks-based culture in which the only way for 40-year-old actresses to be compensated like 40-year-old actors is to have them look and dress like the teenage daughters of 40-year-old actors.

Meet Deborah Rhode, a Stanford law professor who proposes a legal regime in which discrimination on the basis of looks is as serious as discrimination based on gender or race. In a provocative new book, The Beauty Bias, Rhode lays out the case for an America in which appearance discrimination is no longer allowed. That means Hooters can’t fire its servers for being too heavy, as allegedly happened last month to a waitress in Michigan who says she received nothing but excellent reviews but weighed 132 pounds.

Rhode is at her most persuasive when arguing that in America, discrimination against unattractive women and short men is as pernicious and widespread as bias based on race, sex, age, ethnicity, religion, and disability. Rhode cites research to prove her point: 11 percent of surveyed couples say they would abort a fetus predisposed toward obesity. College students tell surveyors they’d rather have a spouse who is an embezzler, drug user, or a shoplifter than one who is obese. The less attractive you are in America, the more likely you are to receive a longer prison sentence, a lower damage award, a lower salary, and poorer performance reviews. You are less likely to be married and more likely to be poor.

And all of this is compounded by a virtually unregulated beauty and diet industry and soaring rates of elective cosmetic surgery. Rhode reminds us how Hillary Clinton and Sonia Sotomayor were savaged by the media for their looks, and says it’s no surprise that Sarah Palin paid her makeup artist more than any member of her staff in her run for the vice presidency.

The problem with making appearance discrimination illegal is that Americans just really, really like hot girls. And so long as being a hot girl is deemed a bona fide occupational qualification, there will be cocktail waitresses fired for gaining three pounds. It’s not just American men who like things this way. In the most troubling chapter in her book, Rhode explores the feminist movement’s complicated relationship to eternal youth. The truth is that women feel good about competing in beauty pageants. They love six inch heels. They feel beautiful after cosmetic surgery. You can’t succeed in public life if you look old in America.

To put it another way, appearance bias is a massive societal problem with tangible economic costs that most of us—perhaps especially women—perpetuate each time we buy a diet pill or sneer at fat women. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work toward eradicating discrimination based on appearance. But it may mean recognizing that the law won’t stop us from discriminating against the overweight, the aging, and the imperfect, so long as it’s the quality we all hate most in ourselves.

If you’re like most people, chances are you find yourself caring way too much about what other people think of you. And it’s not all in your head; we are constantly being judged in all kinds of ways by everyone—from our friends and family to complete strangers. Of course, it’s important to be mindful of how your words and actions affect others, but if you care too much about what other people think, you might miss out on some opportunities for self-growth and happiness. So here’s what happens when you stop caring what other people think!

【G1】__________________

When we constantly worry about how others perceive us, we feel less important. We place more value on their thoughts and opinions than our own, making it difficult for us to truly love ourselves. However, when you stop caring what other people think, your sense of self-worth will automatically increase. Your worth is no longer based on the opinions and judgments of others. You will realize that whether or not they approve of you doesn’t matter that much; the most important thing is how you feel about yourself.

【G2】__________________

That may sound counterintuitive, but if you think about it, the most attractive people don’t care what other people think. They do their own thing and speak their minds without fear of criticism or judgment because they are secure in themselves and where they stand in life. If you have a carefree attitude, people will consequently want to be noticed by you. It will also make them feel more comfortable around you.

【G3】__________________

Not caring what other people think doesn’t mean you have no empathy or that you’re heartless. It simply means that you know your worth and go about your life without expecting constant validation and praise from others. You’re able to say no to things that don’t align with who you really are without worrying about disappointing anyone else or making them angry at you for standing up for yourself. Instead of always looking for ways to make sure everyone’s happy, your priority becomes yourself and what’s suitable for you.

【G4】__________________

Not caring what others think gives you complete control over your life since you have more time and energy to spend on what matters to you. You can make your own decisions and solve your own problems instead of relying on others for help whenever something goes wrong. This allows for a sense of independence that most people never get to experience because they are too busy worrying about what other people think of them!

【G5】__________________

You’re likely to notice an improvement in your mental state when you stop caring what other people think. You become more present and fully engaged in whatever you’re doing. Your creativity flourishes, and you have more fun in general since you’re able to focus on the things that bring you joy and make you happy. When you can do things for yourself instead of relying on others to make you happy, your life becomes all the more colorful and exciting.

Hopefully, this article has given you some food for thought. I know how hard it can be to stop caring so much about what other people think, but the fact that you’re even reading this right now means that you have already taken a big step toward being more self-confident and happy. Keep going!

[A] You Become More Attractive

[B] You Become Independent

[C] Your Relationships Become More Genuine

[D] You Experience Less Stress and Anxiety

[E] You Can Love Yourself

[F] You Rely on Yourself for Happiness

[G] You Won’t Be a People-Pleaser Anymore

Is there anybody out there?【T1】For centuries human beings have wondered, although the ways in which we have gone about this have varied, encompassing spiritual and metaphysical questions as well as scientific ones. As we have gained greater understanding of the universe, however, our searches have taken on more concrete form. Questions about extraterrestrials have become a subject for science rather than science fiction and philosophy.

Now a new collaboration between the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico and the privately funded Seti Institute in California, could mean that our curiosity about aliens is closer than ever before to being satisfied. Data from the VLA’s 28 giant radio telescopes, configured so as to scan a vast expanse of sky, will be fed through a special supercomputer that will search for distant signals.【T2】Scientists who work at the Seti Institute said the announcement means their research, for a long time confined to the eccentric margins of respectable science, are now “almost mainstream”.

How likely it is that a signal will be found, and what this might mean, are hard questions to answer. Seti’s existing projects have not detected any transmissions from other planets so far.【T3】But recent discoveries in space and Earth sciences have provided some encouragement to those who are enthusiastic about the prospect, however remote, of detecting other civilisations.

While once it was thought that our solar system could be unique, since the discovery of the first exoplanet (a planet in another solar system) in the 1990s, thousands more have been located.【T4】Around one in five stars are now thought to have a planet in their orbit in a so-called “habitable zone”—that is, at a distance from the star where the temperature (neither too hot nor too cold) means that life is theoretically feasible.

At the same time, the date at which life on Earth is thought to have started has been pushed back.【T5】Whereas once it was thought that the deep oceans could have sat dead and empty for billions of years before a freak chemical reaction produced the primitive cells that were the first form of life, recent science suggests that this could have happened much more quickly after the planet formed 4.5bn years ago. If it happened here, why not elsewhere?