Trở lại "bình thường mới"

hay phết,

bạn làm việc với gì, với symbols (con chữ, mã máy tính), hay things hay people?

với symbols thì cứ làm việc thôi (từ xa) chẳng ảnh hưởng gì,

với things, thì chỉ essential mới nối lại được, nếu ko essential thì phải cắt giảm nhân công,

còn với people, phải đóng cửa hoặc nên nghĩ đến môi trường làm việc hoàn toàn khác (thay đổi)...

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Do you work with symbols, things, or people? The answer determines how you were affected by the virus crisis.

If your value comes from working with symbols (words, computer code), then you are more likely now to work from home. Otherwise, your work was not heavily disrupted.

If your value comes from working with things, then if those things were “essential” you kept working. In fact, work to deliver things actually increased. If you made things that were not so essential, you may have experienced a short-term layoff.

If your value comes from working with people, then you have had to shut down or operate in a greatly altered environment. Think of a restaurant server, a hair stylist, a teacher, or the proprietor of a small shop.

The virus crisis is going to exacerbate (làm trầm trọng) some of the class differences that Joel Kotkin talks about. The class least adversely affected includes those who were already separating themselves as an upper crust. The class most adversely affected includes those who already were suffering declines in status and relative economic strength.

Bài trước: Giáo dục sẽ khác

Giáo dục sẽ khác

sẽ (phần lớn) học online (qua mạng), trẻ em ở vùng sâu vùng xa cũng nhận được giáo dục tốt nhất,

trường học truyền thống sẽ như "nhà trẻ" -> chơi đùa thôi...

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Education

Education and training will be core activities. Both adults and children will be trained and coached to take advantage of online resources. Someone in the most remote rural area or the most blighted urban ghetto (khu vực trong một thành phố, nơi sống của một sắc tộc thiểu số hoặc một nhóm xã hội, tồi tàn và chật chội; khu nhà ổ chuột) will have access, via the Internet, to the best training and education that the world has to offer.

Young people will get their learning on line. Some may stay at home. Others will gather in what amount to day-care centers. These day care centers will provide Internet connections, supervision, opportunities for play, and meals.

Beginning around age 15, many young people will pursue vocational training. Businesses will be involved with this process. Firms may hire and train workers directly for their specific needs, such as call center staff. Or they may indirectly stimulate training by articulating general needs, such as a need for plumbers or automobile mechanics.

Other young people will pursue education in arts, sciences, and humanities. This education will be largely self-directed, with guidance from mentors.

Bài trước: "Cảnh sát giao thông" có cần thiết không?

Sáng tác - ghi nhận

chưa được ghi nhận thì cứ (kiên trì) làm thôi, đừng buồn...

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Creation/recognition // Seth Godin

If you buy an old painting (bức tranh cũ) at a garage sale for $1,000 and then sell it for $25,000, was the change in value (thay đổi giá trị) due to a change in the magic (điều kỳ diệu) involved in the creation of the painting, or is it because the market now recognizes (ghi nhận, thừa nhận) the painting for what it is (and was all along)?

When Alta Vista refused to pay a million dollars to buy Google, was the problem in the value of what Google had, or in Alta Vista’s recognition of that value?

There’s often a significant lag between the creation of something useful and when the market recognizes it.

That’s an opportunity for speculators and investors, who can buy before the recognition happens.

And it’s an opportunity or a trap for creators, who might get disheartened (làm chán nản, làm ngã lòng; làm mất nhuệ khí, làm mất can đảm) about the lack of applause (vỗ tay hoan hô) and upside immediately after they’ve created something.

When we look to the outside world for valuation and recognition, we might be confused about the intrinsic value (giá trị nội tại/bản chất/bên trong) of what we just created. Over time, those things may come into alignment, but that’s rare indeed.

Creation plus persistence can lead to recognition. But creation without recognition is still a worthwhile endeavor.

Bài trước: Tháp nước

"Cảnh sát giao thông" có cần thiết không?

sao dừng đèn đỏ, kiểm tra giấy tờ, bắn tốc độ v.v... phải là cảnh sát,

tại sao giao việc ứng phó với người dân bình thường, người đi đường... cho đơn vị chuyên về "cướp, giết, hiếp" xử lý...

cảnh sát điều tra, xử lý tội phạm thôi chứ...; "đừng dùng búa khi không cần phải đóng đinh"

giao việc đảm bảo "an toàn giao thông" cho đơn vị khác, cũng như thanh tra nhà hàng, thanh tra xây dựng v.v... thôi, ko cần phải là "cảnh sát nhà hàng"...

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It’s an unacknowledged peculiarity (sự kỳ quặc, cái khác thường; cái lập dị) that police are in charge of road safety (an toàn giao thông). Why should the arm of the state that investigates murder (giết người), rape (hiếp dâm) and robbery (cướp của) also give out traffic tickets? Traffic stops are the most common reason for contact with the police. I (allegedly) rolled through a stop sign in the neighborhood and was stopped. It was uncomfortable–hands on the wheel, don’t make any sudden moves, be polite etc. and I am a white guy. Traffic stops can be much more uncomfortable for minorities, which makes the police uncomfortable. Many of the police homicides, such as the killing of Philando Castile happened at ordinary traffic stops. But why do we need armed men (mostly) to issue a traffic citation?

Don’t use a hammer if you don’t need to pound a nail. Road safety does not require a hammer. The responsibility for handing out speeding tickets (phạt chạy quá tốc độ) and citations should be handled by a unarmed agency (đơn vị không vũ trang). Put the safety patrol in bright yellow cars and have them carry a bit of extra gasoline and jumper cables to help stranded motorists as part of their job–make road safety nice. Highways England hires traffic officers for some of these tasks (although they are not yet authorized to issue speeding tickets).

Similarly, the police have no expertise in dealing with the mentally ill or with the homeles–jobs like that should be farmed out to other agencies. Notice that we have lots of other safety issues that are not handled by the police. Restaurant inspectors, for example, do over a million restaurant inspectors annually but they don’t investigate murder or drug charges and they are not armed. Perhaps not coincidentally, restaurant inspectors are not often accused of inspector brutality, “Your honor, I swear I thought he was reaching for a knife….”.

Another advantage of turning over road safety to an unarmed, non-police unit would be to help restore the fourth amendment which has been destroyed by the jurisprudence of traffic stops.

As we move to self-driving vehicles it will become obvious that road safety does not belong with the police (eventually it will be more like air traffic control). We can get a jump start on that trend by more carefully delineating which police duties require the threat of imminent violence and which do not.

Defunding the police, whatever that means, is a political non-starter. But we can unbundle the police.

Bài trước: Vì sao thời gian check-in trong khách sạn thường vào lúc 14 giờ?

Không cảm xúc

còn thi cử, thì không còn cảm xúc/đam mê (ko ai trở thành cổ động viên bóng đá do đọc các sách về rê dắt và qua bài kiểm tra cả) ->  bỏ đi thôi...

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Almost no one who takes an intro to economics course becomes an economist. One reason might be that within a few days of starting the class, it becomes abstract, formula-based and dull.

The same ennui kicks in for having to memorize things in chemistry or world history.

We don’t have these fields because we need to employ professors. We have them because they give us a chance to understand and to figure things out. Once you are enrolled in the journey of discovery, decoding a formula or engaging with a taxonomy becomes urgent, not merely an assigned task.

Because a testing regime is in place, particularly now when so many other tropes in the education-industrial complex are disrupted, the textbook authors and administrators work together to skip the ‘fluff’ and go straight to the stuff that’s easy to test.

That’s not how passion is discovered or nurtured. No one becomes a baseball fan because they read the baseball textbook and did well on the baseball test. The same goes for people who devote their lives to cooking, leading or healthcare. These are journeys that require emotional enrollment, not a good test score. We need to stop holding the future hostage in exchange for an exam.

Bài trước: Bực mình vì phải đóng tiền sân tennis khi đi giao lưu

Vai trò của kiến trúc sư trong dịch Covid-19

biến container cũ thành phòng hồi sức tích cực... :)

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A group of architects and engineers is working to convert shipping containers into intensive care units to help hospitals that are running low on space for COVID-19 patients.

The open-source project, dubbed Connected Units for Respiratory (hô hấp, để thở) Ailments (CURA, or Latin for "cure") is harnessing (khai thác để sản xuất điện (một con sông, một thác nước...)) the skills of experts from around the world to develop self-contained, mobile ICUs that can be plugged into hospitals or installed in parking lots (bãi đỗ xe).

Bài trước: Vì sao thời gian check-in trong khách sạn thường vào lúc 14 giờ?

Bực mình vì phải đóng tiền sân tennis khi đi giao lưu

đến giao lưu ở trường của con gái, toàn đồ "free", cảm thấy rất là sung sướng, mà thật ra có free đâu, học phí đã đóng quá cao rồi,

nhưng đi giao lưu tennis, bị bắt đóng thêm 10 usd thì bực mình, vì sao?

-> đó là do nghĩ đến các chi tiêu riêng rẽ nhau, mà ko nhìn vào bối cảnh tổng thể 

-> là lý do đưa ra các quyết định chi tiêu phi lý như trả tiền trước hằng năm cho tiki để được giao hàng miễn phí, hoặc bực mình khi siêu thị bắt mua túi đựng đồ,

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Dear Dan,

Our daughter attends a very expensive private university, where I recently attended an event. There were lots of freebies for us to take, including fancy snacks and notebooks with the university logo. I was excited to get these items, but of course they aren’t really free since we pay so much in tuition.

I thought about this last week when my tennis team was playing a match at a different club, and we were asked to pay a $10 fee to use the facilities. This felt annoying and unfair, even though I spend a lot more than that on my tennis hobby overall. Why did I get so excited about those “free” items and so angry about this small expense, when neither of them really matters in the big picture?

—Juliet

The problem is that we tend to think about each of our expenses separately, rather than seeing them in their overall context. This is the source of many of our irrational financial decisions and emotions—whether it’s paying high fees to money managers who don’t justify the cost, or paying Amazon an annual fee for “free” shipping or getting annoyed when the supermarket starts charging a nickel for a plastic bag. It’s not easy to think clearly about each small expense in terms of our total financial situation, but if you can, you will be able to make better decisions about money.

Bài trước: Ứng dụng miễn phí giúp quản lý chi tiêu

Ứng dụng miễn phí giúp quản lý chi tiêu

nếu chỉ đặt ra hạn mức chi tiêu rồi quên bẵng đi đến cuối tháng mới xem lại thì ko ích gì, thường bị overspend,

điều cần làm là thỉnh thoảng phải phân tích, xem chi nhiều vào mục nào rồi, và từ đó điều chỉnh, để đi đúng hướng, chi tiêu hiệu quả...

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Dear Dan,

I use a budgeting app (ứng dụng quản lý chi tiêu) to set monthly spending goals (hạn mức chi tiêu hằng tháng) for each category of expense, but every month I find that I’ve gone over my limit in multiple categories. Are budgeting apps just a waste of time?

—Anthony

The struggle that you are experiencing is not between you and your app but between your emotional (cảm xúc) self, which wants to get things now, and your cognitive (liên quan đến nhận thức; dựa trên hiểu biết, kinh nghiệm) self, which wants you to plan for a better future. My guess is that you’d be in an even worse situation without the app.

Budgeting isn’t effective if you set a spending goal and then don’t think about it again until the end of the month. Instead, try using the app to analyze (phân tích) your spending every other day. That way, when you find yourself spending too much, you’ll be able to adjust (điều chỉnh) your behavior (hành vi) to stay on track for your monthly goal, rather than discovering you’ve overspent only when it’s too late to do anything about it.

Bài trước: Tư vấn mua máy tính

Tư vấn mua máy tính

nhiều máy tính quá, ko biết chọn cái nào -> cùng ngồi chọn trên mạng chỉ 2 tiếng thôi (giới hạn thời gian) và sẽ chọn mua cái tốt nhất tìm được trong thời gian đó,

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Hi, Dan.

I offered to purchase a computer as a gift for a close relative, and I asked him to pick out the one he wanted. But he simply can’t make a choice. He keeps comparing different models and researching all the available features, even though I’m sure he will never use most of them. How can I help him to make a decision?

—Stanley

Choice paralysis, or what’s sometimes called “paralysis by analysis,” (tê liệt vì phân tích) is a common problem. Some famous experiments in behavioral science have shown that making decisions is harder when you have too many options and too much information (quá nhiều lựa chọn, quá nhiều thông tin). To force your relative to limit his search, tell him that the two of you will sit down together and go shopping online for two hours; then you’ll buy the best computer you’ve found in that time. Using firm deadlines (hạn chót) is a good way to combat our indecisive nature.

Bài trước: Tư vấn mua xe mới

Vì sao thời gian check-in trong khách sạn thường vào lúc 14 giờ?

ko rõ, cũ rồi, giờ The Hoxton và một số khách sạn đã chuyển sang áp dụng check-in giờ linh hoạt...

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Check-in and checkout usually run like clockwork: between 2 and 4 p.m. on the front end and around 11 a.m. or noon on the back end. And breaking free of that mold has traditionally meant one of two things: cracking the upper tiers of a hotel loyalty program (where flexible check-in might be a perk of elite status) or requesting extended hours when booking, only to have to plead your case in person. But nowadays The Hoxton and other hotels are embracing more elastic time frames as an across-the-board offering — a move that substantially changes the guest experience, particularly for business and red-eye travelers.

Bài trước: Bực gì bằng đèn đỏ còn 10s mà đã giục còi inh ỏi

Tiền chỉ là tờ giấy

dave trott kể chuyện thuyền trưởng Cook đến Matavai Bay, Tahiti năm 1769,

các thủy thủ nhiều ngày vật vã trên biển, thấy gái đẹp thổ dân đảo hoang chỉ muốn sex và dùng tiền để "đổi tiền lấy tình", nhưng các em gái ko hiểu đó là gì, chỉ cần đinh sắt (vì with iron they could make fishing-hooks, chisels, drills) -> các thủy thủ lấy đinh từ bất kỳ đâu (kể cả từ vỏ tàu),

ý dave muốn nói "tiền chỉ là tờ giấy", 'là một khái niệm' you can’t make tools out of paper money, you can’t build anything with it, or use it to feed or protect your family, nhưng People will trade happiness, health, relationships, family, even life for paper money.

trong ngành quảng cáo, có những người làm marketing nhắm đến danh hiệu, giải thưởng (là concept - khái niệm) mà quên việc cần làm (marketing)

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...the Tahitian women were beautiful.

They bathed every day, they wore sweet-smelling flowers in their hair, they protected their skin from the sun with oil, they wore hardly any clothes.

To sailors who had been at sea for months, with nothing but stale water and rotten biscuits, they were irresistible.

The sailors took every nail they could find, from wherever they could find it.

When the ship’s supply of nails was gone, they even began pulling out nails from the ship itself, even from the planking in the hull.

Eventually it was discovered and stopped, it began to threaten the ship’s seaworthiness.

The point is, the men would do anything for sex with these women.

And these women would do anything for iron nails.

We might call it prostitution, but either way it was trade, and the nails were money.

The nails were real money, whereas the paper money wasn’t.

Bài trước: Tháp nước

Bực gì bằng đèn đỏ còn 10s mà đã giục còi inh ỏi

vậy thì thử nghiệm thôi, ở ấn độ, xe mà còi quá 85 decibel, đèn đỏ sẽ... tiếp tục đỏ

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'Honk more, wait more': Mumbai tests traffic lights that reward the patient driver

There is a truth universally acknowledged (sự thật được thừa nhận rộng rãi) by drivers (lái xe) in India: honk your horn loud enough and the traffic lights will surely change to green.

But, fed up of impatient (không kiên nhẫn) drivers inflicting (nện, giáng (một đòn); gây ra (vết thương); bắt phải chịu (sự trừng phạt, thuế, sự tổn thương...)) a deafening roar (tiếng còi điếc tai) every time they are forced to stop, police in Mumbai have come up with a new system to punish (trừng phạt) those who cannot wait at traffic lights in silence.

The new system, said the police, was quite simple: “Honk more, wait more.” (càng còi càng đợi)

Known as “the punishing signal”, Mumbai police installed a rigged traffic light system to tackle the problem of “reckless honkers”, which resets the red traffic signal every time the sound of car horns goes above 85 decibels. For particularly honk-happy drivers, it could mean a very long wait at the lights.

Bài trước: Dẹp cảnh hỗn loạn ở 'xóm đường tàu'

Tháp nước

trên nóc các tòa nhà (hay đỉnh đồi ở nhiều làng/thị trấn) luôn có một tháp nước,

việc đẩy/bơm nước lên tháp nước, chầm chậm, nhưng nhất quán, tận dụng trọng lực, sẽ hữu hiệu hơn rất nhiều so với bơm công suất cao, tốn năng lượng để đáp ứng (nếu) nhu cầu tăng đột biến,

chúng ta luôn cần có một "tháp nước" ở đâu đó trong công việc...

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Water towers // Seth Godin

On the top of many apartment buildings (and on a hill in many towns) you’ll find a water tower (tháp nước), a large wooden or metal container holding tons of water.

Why bother?

It turns out that a pump (bơm) that slowly and consistently pumps water uphill (lên đỉnh đồi) is way more efficient than the high-powered, high-capacity pump you’d need to meet spikes (tăng đột biến) in demand (nhu cầu). By using gravity (trọng lực) to assist during times of heavy load (quá tải), the consistent and more efficient pump gets the job done by planning ahead (lên kế hoạch từ trước).

We all need a water tower somewhere in our work.

Bài trước: Ngày Black Friday cuối cùng

Tư vấn mua xe mới

thích thì nhích, mua đại đi, đừng ngại lỡ sau này phát hiện ra là quyết định/lựa chọn tồi vì, về ngắn hạn thì thế, nhưng về dài hạn sẽ tiếc/hối hận nếu ko mua xe mình thích...

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Dear Dan,

I’m shopping for a new car and I’ve been finding it hard to make a decision. Which would I regret more—buying a car I really want but later finding out that I made a bad choice, or not buying the car I really want and later finding out I should have bought it?

—Warren

Research shows that in the short term, we tend to regret actions—in this case, buying a car—more than inactions. But in the long term, we’re more likely to regret the things we didn’t do. Psychologists suspect that this is because the consequences of inaction are uncertain and take much longer to make an impact. So while you might have regrets at first if you buy a car you don’t like, choosing not to buy a car you love would be worse in the long run.

Bài trước: Chủ nghĩa tiêu thụ đang ảnh hưởng giá trị sống giới trẻ

Chủ nghĩa tiêu thụ đang ảnh hưởng giá trị sống giới trẻ

ko muốn ai mua/tặng quà cho mình, ko muốn nhận quà dịp lễ, tết thì phải làm sao?

-> lên danh sách các món đồ trong nhà vẫn còn dùng tốt, nhưng bản thân ko còn dùng nữa, nói bạn bè cũng làm điều tương tự, và trao đổi đồ cho nhau, vào ngày black friday, v.v..., để vẫn có cái thú mua sắm/mặc cả

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Hi, Dan.

I’ve told my family and friends that I don’t want them to buy me any gifts for the holidays this year—I already have everything I need. I’ve also learned about the bad working conditions for store employees during the holiday season and don’t want to contribute to the problem. Still, I’m worried that by cutting out gifts, I’ll miss the fun and energy of the season. Do you have any suggestions for other ways to show generosity?

—Name

Your commitment (cam kết) to avoiding (tránh) consumerism (chủ nghĩa tiêu thụ) this holiday season (mùa lễ) is admirable (đáng khâm phục), but naturally (theo tự nhiên, thường thì) it would be disappointing to see all your friends having fun and getting gifts while you don’t.

Why don’t you make a list of items you have at home in good condition but don’t want, and ask your friends to make a similar list. On Black Friday weekend, instead of hitting the sales, you could all get together and exchange (trao đổi) things on your lists. If you want to have the fun of hunting for bargains (mặc cả), you could even hold an “auction” (đấu giá) where you negotiate which items you are willing to trade. This way you will get some new things for the holidays, you will experience some of the fun of shopping and looking for deals, and you will be sticking to your principles.

Bài trước: Dọn dẹp mớ hỗn độn sau bữa tiệc một cách dễ dàng

Dọn dẹp mớ hỗn độn sau bữa tiệc một cách dễ dàng

mởi bạn bè cùng dọn dẹp, rửa bát -> họ cảm thấy hài lòng vì góp phần giúp đỡ chủ nhà, một cách bày tỏ lời cảm ơn, thắt chặt thêm mối quan hệ xã hội,

nên dọn ngay, và sau đó cùng uống trà, để ấn tượng buổi tối đẹp hơn...

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Dear Dan,

When I host friends for dinner, can I ask them to help with cleaning up afterward? I hate doing dishes, but maybe it’s impolite to ask guests to share the load.

—Evelyn

I think that you should ask your friends to help. Doing dishes isn’t fun, but if your guests pitch in they will derive satisfaction from knowing they are helping you out. Not only is it a way for them to express appreciation for the meal, but working together on a task is a way of increasing social bonds.

But since the end of an experience is important in determining how we remember and evaluate it, you may want to avoid ending the evening with this chore. Instead, try cleaning up together right after the meal and then invite everyone for a final drink. Of course, that would create a few more glasses to wash, but you would end the evening on a positive note.

Bài trước: Thêm niềm vui trong bữa ăn gia đình

Dẹp cảnh hỗn loạn ở 'xóm đường tàu'

ở ấn độ, dùng 'thần chết' làm cảnh báo nguy hiểm, cấm xâm phạm đường sắt

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Yamraj, lord of death, has been deployed to discourage people from trespassing on Western Railway’s heavily used suburban lines in Mumbai.

The costumed member of the Railway Protection Force provides safety awareness information to the public and intervenes to stops people from walking on the tracks.

‘If you cross the track in an unauthorised way, Yamraj will be standing in front of you’, the Ministry of Railways warned.

Bài trước: Mức phạt chạy quá tốc độ cho ô tô và xe máy

Mức phạt chạy quá tốc độ cho ô tô và xe máy

là 1 tiếng đồng hồ đứng nói chuyện với csgt nhé,

thử nghiệm ở estonia, ko phải nộp phạt bằng tiền, mà bằng thời gian (lãng phí), xem người vi phạm thấy có quý thời gian mà đi đúng tốc độ hay không,

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Estonia has a new way to stop speeding motorists

Make them stand by the road for an hour

On the desk of a government building, a diorama ((hội họa) tranh tầm sâu, cảnh tầm sâu) is laid out. Little vehicles sit by the side of a road, watched over by little policemen. On two recent mornings, this scene was recreated in real life. Drivers caught speeding along the road between Tallinn and the town of Rapla were stopped and given a choice. They could pay a fine, as normal, or take a “timeout” instead, waiting for 45 minutes or an hour, depending on how fast they were going when stopped.

The aim of the experiment is to see how drivers perceive speeding, and whether lost time may be a stronger deterrent than lost money. The project is a collaboration between Estonia’s Home Office and the police force, and is part of a programme designed to encourage innovation (đổi mới sáng tạo) in public services (dịch vụ công). Government teams propose a problem they would like to solve—such as traffic accidents caused by irresponsible driving—and work under the guidance of an “innovation unit”. Teams are expected to do all fieldwork and interviews themselves.

Bài trước: Người bán và người tạo ra sản phẩm: phần lớn lợi nhuận thuộc về ai?

Người bán và người tạo ra sản phẩm: phần lớn lợi nhuận thuộc về ai?

(có lẽ) hơn 90% lợi nhuận thuộc về người bán, nhé

phần khó (# phần quan trọng) là giành được sự chú ý của khách hàng...

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If you’ve ever bought a mattress (nệm, đệm) online, or a private label product from Amazon, you’ve experienced the value created by the last step.

That mattress company didn’t make the mattress.

And Amazon doesn’t make light bulbs.

There are countless factories vying to sell generic products to the companies that own the customer relationship. Perhaps 90% (sometimes 100%) of the profit goes to companies that make the sale, not the ones who actually made the product.

That’s because while they make the thing, they don’t do the work. The hard part is earning attention and trust (giành được sự chú ý và niềm tin). The hard part is helping someone make the choice. (There’s a difference between the hard part and the important part. Without the factory, there’s nothing to sell. Making it is important. But increasingly, it’s not the hard part.)

The Broadway producer makes a profit, the chorus (những người hát, dàn hợp xướng) member ekes out (kiếm sống một cách khó khăn, có thu nhập ít ỏi) a living. Fair pay is related to the scarce work of engaging with the customer.

Either you’re doing the hard part or you’re left out of the transaction.

Bài trước: Thêm niềm vui trong bữa ăn gia đình

Thêm niềm vui trong bữa ăn gia đình

đi ăn với bố mẹ (đã về hưu) vào cuối tuần, đừng nghĩ đến việc trả tiền hết (tất cả các lần), đây là dịp (như) 'trao quà' (đi lại),

nếu muốn, có thể thanh toán các hóa đơn khác (của bố mẹ) hoặc quà tặng cuối năm

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Dear Dan,

My retired (nghỉ hưu) parents and I usually go out for lunch every other Sunday. We have been taking turns (lần lượt) paying the check, but I know that I make more money (kiếm nhiều tiền hơn) than they do. Should I start paying for all the meals or at least cover the tip when they are paying?

—Andrew

Since you’ve established a custom (tục lệ) of taking turns paying for meals, I think you should continue on that basis. Think of these meals as gifts that you are giving each other: The purpose of gift-giving is to help strengthen relationships (củng cố/đào sâu mối quan hệ) rather than a strictly financial exchange (trao đổi/giao dịch tài chính). If you are worried about potential strain (căng thẳng (về tài chính...)) on your parents, you can offer to pay some of their other bills or give them a yearly cash gift, but I would separate the issue of their finances from the weekly tradition that you have established.

Bài trước: Kỷ niệm nào vội tan