Rosie Dutton teaches a weekly class for 10- and 11-year-olds. During a recent class, Dutton used apples to brilliantly explain the effects of bullying.

Rosie Dutton started out by showing the class two perfect-looking apples. But unknown to the students, she had dropped one of the apples repeatedly on the floor. She picked up the dropped apple and began insulting (侮辱；损害) it.

“I started to tell the children how I disliked this apple, that I thought it was ugly and it was a horrible color,” Dutton wrote. “I told them that because I didn't like it, I didn't want them to like it either.”

They passed that apple around in a circle and the kids joined in on the insults. Then, Dutton took a completely different approach with the other apple.

“We then passed another apple around and started to say kind words to it,” the 31-year-old wrote.

She eventually cut both of them open to reveal that the apple that had been insulted was bruised (青肿的) inside. The apple that received praise wasn't.

“When people are bullied, especially children, they feel horrible inside and sometimes don't show or tell others how they are feeling,” Dutton wrote in her post. “If we hadn't cut that apple   open, we would never have known how much pain we had caused it.”

“Unlike an apple, we have the ability to stop this from happening. We can teach children that it's not OK to say unkind things to each other,” the 31-year-old explained in her post. She later added, “More and more hurt and damage happens inside if nobody does anything to stop the bullying. Let's create a generation of kind, caring children.”

I've often wondered if I might do more good as a travel agent rather than as a psychologist. It seems that I have been more dramatically affected by certain kinds of travel experiences than I ever have.

My trip to Iceland is a fine example of that. The plan was to spend two days in a remote mountain hut(棚屋)in Iceland. I was working on a photographic book about winter in Iceland and needed to capture images of this amazing region of high mountain peaks, smoky volcanoes, and lakes with floating icebergs.

The moment after we arrived, the weather turned extreme making visibility impossible. It snowed so much and the wind blew so hard that we couldn't leave the tiny hut. To stay warm, we walked around in circles much of the day inside the tiny hut. We tried to call for help but the radio did not work. Day after day, we watched our supplies of food and fuel grow dangerously short. We got acute cabin fever(幽居病)and started going for walks and ski expeditions outside. Even when the weather finally broke, nobody came to get us even though it was three days beyond our scheduled pickup. By the time the rescue team came to pull us out, we had all given up hope.

From then on, the world looks different to me, as does my life. It would have taken me years of psychotherapy(心理治疗)to get to the same point.

Almost everyone has a story to tell, and interestingly, most of these experiences were not altogether pleasant at the time. In fact, it appears that the most constructive life-changing journeys were those that involved some sorts of awful and uncomfortable events that forced the person to develop new resources, increase confidence, and solve problems in new ways.