【推荐1】People often drop into a gloomy life and are unable to get rid of the mood.

There once was a poor and discouraged salesman, _________ every day that there was no platform for him to display his ability and the fate was often pulling his legs.

On Christmas Eve, every family decorated their houses _________ lanterns. But he was alone sitting on a bench in a park and _________ the past. It was on the same day last year when he was also drinking his Christmas day away _________, without new clothes, new shoes, _________a new car and a new house.

“Damn! I have to spend this Christmas day with these old shoes again.” he _________ and began to _________ the old shoes. Suddenly, he found a young man in a wheelchair passing by him with his hands painfully pushing the _________ forward. It _________ him that he was so lucky to have shoes to wear while that man did not even have the __________. Afterwards, the salesman did everything with a calm mood and cherished every opportunity to __________ himself. He worked hard and tried his best to make progress every day. Several years later, he __________ changed his life totally and became a millionaire.

If you look all around, you will __________ there are so many people who were born disabled in the society but they are __________ in life and never complain about the unfair destiny. They are also not to beg others’ alms(施舍). __________, they constantly strive to make themselves stronger and more __________to serve the society. __________, we should feel ashamed. We are born __________, but we complain about our colleagues and — dissatisfied with our jobs.

Maybe all of us would feel afraid when we __________ we have fallen into such discouraging state of life, but worse is that you even do not realize you have fallen into such a __________ situation.

【推荐1】A group of graduates, successful in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaining about stress in work and life.

Before offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and a variety of _________ — porcelain (陶瓷), plastic, glass, crystal (水晶), some plain-looking and _________, some delicate (精致的) and expensive — telling them to _________ themselves to the coffee.

When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you _________, all the nice-looking and expensive cups were _________, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is _________for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the _________ of your problems and stress. It is definite that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. _______ all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you all went for the _________ cups. And then you began __________ each other’s cups.

Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and __________ in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and __________ life, and the type of cup we have does not change the __________ of life we live. Sometimes, by __________ only on the cup, we fail to __________ the coffee.

【推荐2】A man landed on a deserted island after a shipwreck (船只失事). Every day he prayed, ________someone could pass and save him, but to his ________, no one ever came.

Months went by and this man learned to ________food and firewood from the island and stored them in a hut (小屋) which served as a ________ for him on the deserted island. One day when he returned to his hut after hunting for food, ________, he saw his hut was on fire, along with almost everything he had! The only thing________was the clothes on his back. The man grew so ________that he fell on his hands and knees crying heavily when he happened to look up and ________a ship coming in his direction. The man was ________. As they were heading back to civilization, the man asked the captain, “How were you able to __________me?” The captain __________, “We were voyaging across the ocean __________a cloud of smoke going up __________our attention. We decided to go to check it out and that’s why we found you!”

In life we will always be __________with challenges, problems and disasters. Always keep in mind that a disaster can sometimes be good __________.

【推荐3】Once there was a farmer who had a fine olive orchard (橄榄园). He was very hard-working, and the ________always prospered (繁荣) under his care. But he knew that his three sons looked down upon the farm work, and were eager to become rich.

When the farmer was ________ and felt that he would die, he ________ the three sons to him and said, “My sons, there is a pot of gold ________ in the olive orchard. Dig for it, if you wish it.”

The sons tried to know in what part of the orchard the ________ was hidden, but their father would tell them nothing more.

After the farmer was ________, the sons started to find the pot of gold. Since they did not ________ where the hiding-place was, they agreed to begin in a line, at one ________ of the orchards, and to dig until one of them should find the money.

They dug until they had turned up the soil from one end of the orchard to the other, around the tree- roots and between them. ________ no pot of gold was to be found. It seemed as if someone must have stolen it. The three sons were bitterly ________ to have all their work for nothing.

The next olive ________, the olive trees in the orchard bore more fruit than they had ________ given; when it was ________, it gave the sons a whole pot of gold.

And when they saw how much money had ________ from the orchard, they suddenly understood what the wise father had ________ when he said, “There is a pot of gold hidden in the orchard. Dig for it if you wish it.”

【推荐1】It was a sunny but cold winter here in the mountains. I was _________ home along the clear roads. The last_________ had been over a week ago but down the sides of the hills lining the highway there were still _________ walls of ice. As I started to round a sharp turn, I_________ that a large piece of ice had broken off and fallen onto the road. I _________ turned my car to the other lane (车道) to _________ it. After I did it, I noticed a small dog was walking in my former lane just beyond where the ice had _________. If I had still been in that lane, I would have surely _________ him. Slowing down, I honked (按喇叭) and the dog was_________. He looked at me for a moment and then __________ the road and got into the safety of the woods.

I pulled over to a __________ place and parked. Then I walked back to the ice and moved it __________ the road so that no one would hit it. As I walked back to my car, I looked up at the__________. The clouds had just parted again to__________ the sun to shine through. I smiled and__________ fate (命运) for putting that ice just where it needed to be to keep me from hitting that little dog.

As I__________ driving home, I started thinking of all the times that the traffic in my life must have been redirected (重新定向). How many times had I been the small dog walking into traffic only to have the “ice” so I wouldn’t be__________? How many times had fate given me another __________ to find my way back to the right path without being __________?

Fate __________ us all so much. So let’s live wisely and thankfully.

【推荐3】A psychology（心理）professor walked around on a stage while teaching stress management principles to students. As she _________ a glass of water, everyone _________ they’d be asked the typical “glass half empty or glass half full” question. _________, with a smile on her face, the professor asked, “How _________ is this glass of water I’m holding?”

Students shouted out answers _________ from eight ounces to a couple pounds.

She replied, “In my _________, the absolute weight of this glass doesn’t _________. It all depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute or two, it’s fairly _________. If I hold it for an hour straight, its _________ might make my arm ache a little. If I hold it for a day straight, my arm will likely cramp up（抽筋）, forcing me to __________ the glass to the floor. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn’t change, but the __________ I hold it, the heavier it feels to me.”

As the class __________ their heads in agreement, she continued, “Your stresses and __________ in life are very much like this glass of water. Think about them __________ and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and you begin to ache a little. Think about them all day long, and you will cramp up—__________ of doing anything else until you drop them.”