【推荐1】Ten years ago, I adopted my dog Rudy from a shelter just days before they were going to kill him painlessly. We’ve had a(n)_______ relationship ever since. As a single woman in my 50s, I’ve found his _______ really meaningful. We do everything together. _______ every night we have a little bedtime snack and then I get in my bed and he gets in his right next to mine. But a year ago suddenly Rudy _______ every night when I got in bed he’d jump up on my bed and start tonguing my face. I would make him get off but every night he _______ the same tonguing.

I was considering taking him to obedience school (服从训练课) when it suddenly _______ me that he was tonguing the same spot on my jaw (下颌) over and again. I _______ my jaw: No pain. Nothing unusual. But it was so out of _______ for my dog that I decided to just trust him. I went to see a(n)_______ to clear my doubt but still felt ________ telling her I came just because of a dog. The doctor ________ to do some tests. Well, it turned out that there was a tumor (肿瘤) in my jaw. It couldn’t be felt from the outside but ________ Rudy knew it was there. Though I have got ________ now, the doctors said if I’d waited until the tumor was ________ enough to be felt, it would probably have been deadly. ________ my dog saved my life!

【推荐2】During my stay at the University of Michigan, one of the senior professors asked me to join a seminar on culture and emotion. In a general ________ of self-introductions, I introduced myself in a(n) ________ Dutch way as one of those who are “interested in culture and emotion”. The professor supplemented (补充) my self-introduction to________ American standards, saying I was one of the world’s experts on the________. In response, I looked down in________, and thought that “expert” was a big word.

When I lived in North Carolina, my new friends came over to________. Conversations were full of interest and energy, and there was a lot of________. At the end of the evening, when my guests left, they thanked me for the dinner. My heart________, because I was born and raised in the Netherlands, where “thanking for dinner” means the relationship is ________. Emotions are different enough to feel out of________ when you move from one culture to another. The professor at the University of Michigan meant to make me feel________, but instead made me uncomfortable. My friends meant to show ________, but they made me think they were distancing themselves from me.

We think about emotions as feelings deep inside us, but in________, our emotions happen in interactions with others. In my own culture, it was hard to observe the________ emotions of others, but I was able to see them when I moved to the US—a different________ from where I was raised.

【推荐3】I have a friend who says that every day she tries to do a good deed and not get “found out”. The friend tells a(n) _______ story about how this started. She was assigned to take a bouquet(束) of flowers into a nursing home and walk out before the receiver can express _______.

She did it and made a _______ escape, saying the receiver looked pleasantly puzzled. Feeling excited, she _______ took out her phone, eager to tell her friend the _______. Luckily, she prevented herself before she made the _______ and put the cell phone away.

This is where the exercise took on an unexpected dimension. She _______ that when we tell others about the “good deeds” we do, we are getting the _______ right there. But, by keeping it _______ and not telling anyone, we are training a feeling inside ourselves that she ________ “a ray of sunshine inside our hearts”.

I tell my students this story every year and ________ them to do a good deed and not get ________. During our class discussion, a truly ________ student commented that my friend should have ________ and asked to talk to the receiver of the flowers, letting him know ________ the flowers were left for him. The student said that if someone really wanted to help ________ people, they should visit them once a week and get to know them.

________ with the idea, the students asked if we could try this as a class. We actually found an organization that helps ________ students with seniors who need companionship. ________, we are moving forward to try this ________, thanks to the student taking this story in a new and powerful direction.

【推荐1】Great things happen the minute we step outside of our comfort zone. For me, one of the most important things we should always remember is that growth and _______ can’t coexist.

Personal development expert Napoleon Hill once said, “Whatever the mind can believe, it can achieve _______ how many times you may have _______ in the past or how great your aims and wishes may be. ” This statement is _______ because it reminds us that we’re the only ones who can be _______ for how far we’ll go. To reach any _______ , we’re usually required to _______ the way we do things.

However, stepping outside of our comfort zone is probably the most important step toward _______ real changes. But perseverance and continuing to move forward are _______ important, as it’s extremely easy to slide back into old ________ without realizing it.

For long, I wanted to live in Argentina, so halfway through my bachelor’s degree, I bought a one-way ticket there. While I was there, I was able to ________ the last two years of my degree online before flying home for graduation. I still live in Argentina now, and I can proudly say that taking the ________ steps to make it a ________ was one of the most important things I ever did. Certainly, I’m not suggesting we should all buy one-way tickets to foreign countries and just see what ________. But it’s important for us to ________ what we want and try to bring our ________ to life.

Living in a comfort zone can trick us into ________ we have enough time, when years can fly by without having accomplished what we really wanted to. We won’t ________ have tomorrow to do what we could have done today. So, accept the discomfort and allow it to ________ you to try new things. You never know what you could be missing out on by remaining ________ .

【推荐2】As a teenager, I was pretty lazy when it came to doing things for my family. I found myself refusing to _______ out at home with even the simplest things.

Every Wednesday afternoon, for example, my mother _______ me to another town for a piano lesson. During my two-hour lesson, she’d rush to the nearby store and buy a week’s worth of_______. Given the fact that my mom had driven me twelve miles there, twelve miles back, and _______for my lesson, you’d think I’d be very _______ to help her bring the groceries into the house. But I wasn’t. I generally just brought in an arm-load and disappeared into my room, leaving the _________ for my mom.

Don’t get me wrong. Back in my room, I felt _______ about not helping my mother more. Deep inside, I wanted to change my _______. But I also realized that once I took on more responsibility, my parents would start _______ more from me. At age fifteen, I ________ that this one small change would mark something much bigger: my personal change from a spoiled child to a more ________ young man.

I’ll never forget the Wednesday when I made a decision to ________ and see what happened. Returning home from the lesson I disappeared into my room as usual. But once inside, I felt that deep ________. I headed back to the garage to help my mother. How happy I felt that day!

Surely, over time, I continued to help out with more housework. As Mom and Dad realized they could depend on me more, our trips became far less ________, too. Sometimes the little things we put off doing the longest ________ to be the simplest things to complete.

【推荐3】From the time when I was seven, I had a dream of becoming a member of the students’ union. I always _______ my school leaders for being responsible for all of us. So I dreamed of being a leader. Years flew by, and soon I was able to _______ the election (选举), praying I would win. But the reality struck that I hadn’t had the _______. I wasn’t pretty. Girls across the school _______ knew me. I just did not have what it _______ to win a school election. I was _______. As I cried in my room that evening, I suddenly took a deep breath and decided I wouldn’t stop _______. I decided that I would join in the election _______ in my final year at school—and I would win.

I recognized that my _______ had a lot of things in their favor. What were the ________ that would work in my favor? I had good grades, and I was friendly and helpful. And my biggest ________ was the faith I had. I would not allow my ________ appearance to hold me back from putting my best foot forward. That evening, I ________ my election plans a whole year in advance.

I realized that I should let girls get to know me and recognize that I had the ________ to represent them. I loved making friends and I liked being helpful, so I decided that perhaps I could use these qualities to work to my ________. In order to learn how to present a great election speech, I also attended a course on effective (有效的) public speaking.

The day after the election, when the principal announced I won the second highest number of votes, the students cheered. That joy on the faces of all my friends showed me that my victory was also theirs.