Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. addicted        B. pleasing        C. limited     D. baggage     E. conscious     F. quotation G. operating   H. imposed     I. strings     J. informative     K. sinking

Who’s in control of your life? Who is pulling your     1    ? For the majority of us, it’s other people—society, colleagues, friends, family or our religious community. We learned this way of     2     when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We discovered that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice experience and so we learned to do everything we could to make other people like us. As Oscar Wilde puts it. “Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a(n)    3    .”

So when people tell us how wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We long for this good feeling like a drug—we are     4     to it and seek it out wherever we can. Therefore, we are so eager for the approval of others that we live unhappy and     5     lives, failing to do the things we really want to do. Just as drug addicts and alcoholics live worsened lives to keep getting their fix, we worsen our own existence to get our own constant fix of approval.

But just as with any drug there is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom—the freedom to be ourselves. The truth is that we cannot control what other people think. People have their own agenda, and they come with their own     6     and, in the end, they’re more interested in themselves than in you. Furthermore, if we try to live by the opinions of others, we will be building our life on     7     sand. Everyone has a different way of thinking, and people change their opinions all the time. The person who tries to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted and probably     8     no one in the process.

So how can we take back control? I think there’s only one way—make a(n)    9     decision to stop caring what other people think. We should guide ourselves by means of a set of values—not values     10     from the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more authentic, effective, purposeful and happy life.