Loneliness Case

However, while enjoying better performance at work, those working apart from their family are subject to attacks of loneliness. When the work is done, they often return to their empty apartment alone, with no loved ones to greet or open the door for them. Spending time with friends can only slightly alleviate their nostalgia, which can be trying from time to time. To combat nostalgia, most people turn to work. They put in longer hours and stay at the office on weekends. Gradually, they become workaholic. This, we should note, is rather innocuous compared with other possible consequences of long-term separation. Living in separate places for a stretched period of time is likely to cause family crisis. Without proper management, distance often leads to alienation. This is true for husbands and wives as well as parents and kids. As time goes by, their feelings toward each other gradually fade; they begin turning to someone else for solace. Whenever possible we should avoid working away from home. For those unfortunate enough to work this way, more attention should be given to maintaining family ties instead of reaching career goals. In order to fulfill the main tasks of universities, university education should contain ample opportunities for independent learning which can cultivate students who are more likely to adapt to the changing society.

The two tables reflect the findings of a survey which sampled a cross-section of 200,000 British people over a span of four years from 1994 and 1998. The first one shows the purposes of their visits abroad and the second indicates their choices of destinations.

As can be seen from table 1, holiday-making was the main reason for British people to travel abroad. Next were for business sake and for visiting friends and relatives. Table 2 shows that Western Europe was the primary destination of the British people traveling abroad and next came North America and many different countries and areas as a whole.

First, in 1994, there were 15,246 visits abroad for holiday spending which contrasted strikingly to 3,155 visits for business, 2,689 visits for visiting friends and relatives and 982 visits for other reasons. In 1995, we see that the number of visits paid by the sampled British people in the survey decreased to 14,898, but it was still much higher than visits for all other reasons. In the following years, we find that visits for holiday making, business and for visiting friends and relatives continued to rise, among which 1996 witnessed the biggest growth. In 1997, visits for business and for seeing friends and relatives saw the largest growth and there were an increase by 390 and 277 respectively. Visits abroad for other reasons fluctuated, dropping from 982 in 1994 to 896 in 1995 and then climbing back to 1054 before finally falling to 990.

Second, the destinations of the visits of the sampled people in the survey followed a similar trend to table 1. We