【推荐3】I can remember once when I was just a little boy, I sat on a chair and watched as my mum painstakingly ______ a large, homemade quilt (被子). I looked over at one edge of the quilt being sewed and saw a piece of thread _______. Without thinking I reached over to ______ it.

“No!” yelled my mum. I jumped back. That was the first time I can ever remember her yelling at me. Seeing the ______ look on my face, she smiled and ______ showed me why she had yelled. That piece of thread ______ in and out, making its way from one end of the quilt to the other. If I had pulled it out, I might have torn the entire quilt and ______ hours of work.

As I look back on that ______ today, I can see that each of our lives is like that _______. We are all just a ______ string in the tapestry (挂毯) of life. We can’t always ______ where we are going or what we are connected to. If we pull ourselves out of it, we will leave a ______ in it.

Don’t feel lost in the tapestry of life then. Embrace your ______ in it. You may ______ be a single piece of thread but your love and your life help to ______ the whole thing together.

【推荐1】“Our life is what our thoughts make it,” said Marcus Aurelius, the great Roman Emperor and philosopher. It is an absolute _________. Abraham Lincoln said something similar: “People are just about as _________ as they make up their minds to be.”

When we gain _________ over our thought, we begin to develop control over how we feel. It is very_________ to look at our lives and just say “I should have this” or “I should have_________.” This lack of actions in our lives sows seeds (播下种子) of unhappiness and _________. Many people around the world live a _________ life to the point that they do not know where they are going to find their next meal. Yet, many of them are not _________. The material world of having money and things is not a _________ leading to happiness or joy.

Happiness is nothing more than a decision. When we look at the circumstances in our lives we should be __________ with them rather than want more. Christ told the __________ young man to “go and give something you have to the poor.” The young man was attached to the things he __________ and didn’t give. So he created a barrier (障碍) between him and others, which __________ his path to happiness. It is not little material wealth, or the __________ of it, that leads one to unhappiness. However, helping others can __________ one to happiness.

Many who have very little are unhappy because they have __________ that if they are able to obtain certain wealth they will be happy. Instead, the__________ often become fascinated (着迷的) with hanging on to the things they have, feeling that if they lose them their world will __________. The true path to happiness, however, is conditioned on the __________ to be happy. We look at our world and we say “what I have is just __________ and I am happy.”

【推荐2】David Cote, then CEO of Honeywell, shared the pros and cons of hiring a CEO with experience in the role. Experience can make directors feel more ________ at a candidate, but the question is: Does he or she have the ________ to make a difference? If they don’t possess that hunger, they won’t investigate things deeply. So in many cases, experience is ________.

Are inexperienced CEOs more likely to have hunger than others? If they have no real reputation, they’ll be more likely to be driven to ________. For example, when Cote was CEO of Honeywell, some leaders said to him they didn’t know if the company could be ________—and that even if it could be, they weren’t sure whether he was the ________ to do it because he was not their first choice. Those comments just ________ his hunger. He decided to impress them.

Does the finding that previous CEO experience can hurt a person’s performance ________ you? An experienced CEO might say, “I am ________ in this work, so I know how to settle it.” Rushing to conclusions tends to ________ an experienced CEO to all facts and opinions. People will ________ act according to their own experience, which is an instinct (天性). So sometimes experience can be a(n) ________.

Rather than a fundamentally necessary factor for a CEO, ________ is simply the icing (糖霜) on the cake. The hunger ________ it. Nobody knows the future. It’s more important to hire somebody eager to ________ things, regardless of their experience.

【推荐3】At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comǎneci made history. She performed a routine ______ on the uneven bars (高低杠), scoring a perfect 10. She pursued perfection in her practice, which led to remarkable ______ in the game.

Perfectionism is generally appreciated as a good quality. Therefore, it’s not ______ that perfectionism in society has been on the rise for years. And it is more common in certain ______ like top athletes and medical specialists. Perfectionism can be seen as a behavioral ______. Perfectionists usually set extremely high standards for themselves and others. According to researchers, such behavior is rooted in insecurity. Many perfectionists ______ that if they don’t pay enough attention to ______, it will hurt their performance. So they ______ their perfectionism even when it’s self-defeating.

Aiming for a high degree of success isn’t necessarily ______ as long as you behave reasonably. People with adaptive perfectionism work hard to meet ambitious goals, but are also able to ______ mistakes, changes, and problems that they didn’t anticipate. When encountering barriers, they stay flexible.

Maladaptive perfectionism, which involves an intense ______ for others’ approval, and a high level of concern over mistakes, is unhealthy. It tends to ______ individual confidence and affects relationships and overall well-being. To overcome it, it’s crucial to ______ your mindset. Start by being ______ and gaining a broader perspective. Give yourself permission to loosen up a bit on certain matters, enabling you to ______ what truly matters. Transformation can be challenging, but it is indeed attainable.