3 . When we moved into our home in Maui, Hawaii, 16 years ago, one good thing about this house was the huge avocado (牛油果) tree growing in the _______ .

This tree gave the most delicious avocados I have ever _______. I lived on these avocados when _______ my first child. Fresh avocado was the very first food for my kids. This tree was so huge that it _______ a massive shadow over our backyard. It was truly our magical tree.

Until one day, someone from the Health Department came to tell us that our avocado tree was too _______ and needed trimming (修剪). In New York, you get into trouble if you don’t _______ the snow on your sidewalk. _______, it’s when your trees are too high that you will get into trouble. So along came the trimmer, leaving just the _______ and a few branches. I was sad. The kids were all sad. Some friends who knew it would say, “It’s going to grow back. Your next avocados will be crazy!” Yeah, whatever. The tree is _______. So stop doing that. It just didn’t work.

But a few days later, I noticed some unusual ________ flying around the yard. And then, the sun came into the kitchen, creating this pleasant warmth once ________ by the huge tree. After about a month, I started to notice some tiny green shoots coming out of the cut branches, which ________ turned into full on bright green leaves.

I started to feel like all was going to be fine, kind of like life. Little do we know what seems really ________ is actually life’s way of making us stronger. It’s life’s way of bringing in the butterflies and the ________. We all know that saying, “It will be OK in the end. If it’s not, it’s not the ________ .”

4 . It was early winter several years ago. I had pulled out my old winter coat for another year’s use. It was still in pretty good shape although it was looking dirty from so many winters’ wear. I didn’t really need a new one but I wanted one and casually mentioned it to my daughter one day. She was such a sweet, loving girl that I should have guessed what would happen next. A few weeks later she gave me a new winter coat as a gift.

I put the old one in my closet and started to wear the new coat every day. Each day, though, when I opened my closet, something troubled me. It seemed a shame that my old but still good coat should just sit there keeping no one warm during the cold winter days. After a few weeks, I took it out and drove to a local charity shop. I knew that there was someone who couldn’t afford a coat but could get my old one.

My new coat is my old coat now. It is getting a little dirty and worn, too. It has black marks on the sleeves. It is in too bad shape to even donate to charity. I wonder if I should buy a new one soon, but I think I will wait for a while. I don’t really need a new one and maybe I can find something else to give to the charity shop instead.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Want is a growing giant whom the coat of Have was never large enough to cover,” Perhaps the best way to deal with our wants then is to give instead. Love, after all, brings us the most joy. And the more of it you give away, the more of it you have.

6 . “The pursuit of perfection is the tenet (信条) of my. life.” Magee rushed home crying after seeing that she’d received an A-minus on her grade report. Growing up she had learned that the way to receive confirmation and love from family members and teachers was to be a high achiever. So to Magee, that A-minus felt like a failure. “I was shattered,” she said. “In that moment, I felt like my self-worth as a human had fallen far below what it would have been if I’d gotten an A or an A-plus.”

Magee’s turning a good grade into a cause of her inferiority (自卑) is a textbook example in recent years. Perfectionism is a universal cultural phenomenon. High levels of perfectionism were linked with depression, anxiety, and deliberate self-harm. The constant stress of competitiveness and comparison can also leave people stressed and suffering from headaches and insomnia.

If a person is only rewarded for high achievement, over time they learn that their value as a person depends on being perfect. Instagram, Facebook and other social media platforms also fuel unhealthy comparisons. “It’s a real problem — those social media images end up serving as yardsticks that people can compare themselves to and a perfectionist is always trying to keep up with the Joneses,” Sherry, a clinical psychologist, said. And it’s never been harder to keep up with the Joneses, because today we are constantly bombed with seemingly perfect images of other peoples’ lives.

Eventually Magee learned that she had to let go a little and allow herself to show up with all her imperfections. She eventually learned to trust that she could show up, not being perfect, and still feel valued. “I can be imperfect and everything can be fine!”

7 . “I have no idea what to do with 1,000 tennis balls!”

My student Nick was discouraged with the assignment. I’d asked the students to imagine they were working at the U.S. Open Tennis Tournament. After the tournament ended, a supervisor offered them the lightly used tennis balls hit during the event by stars like Serena Williams and Roger Federer. Their job was to sell the balls for a profit.

“I had a couple of good ideas at first,” Nick said. “I could sell them as dog toys or to hospitals that could put them on the bottom of walker frames to keep them from slipping.” Then he struggled to think of more options and decided that was the best he could do.

Most people believe that good ideas come quickly or not at all — but it turns out that’s not the case. Researchers call this “the creative cliff illusion (错觉)”, the sense that we’re unlikely to get good ideas if they don’t appear the minute we start thinking.

The truth, though, is that the best ideas often come later. Your first ideas tend to reflect common wisdom, and thinking like everyone else isn’t a recipe for creativity. The solution is to persist, even though persevering feels hard. If you continue working, more interesting and original ideas will emerge.

I explained this to the class, and we spent another 10 minutes thinking together. Nick realized that he could sell the balls using two different strategies: selling a small portion for a lot of money as signed souvenirs to tennis fanatics and the rest at a discount to tennis schools serving under privileged kids.

Finally, I, together with my students drew a conclusion after discussion: don’t assume your first ideas are always your best ones but do keep brainstorming after you think you’re out of new ideas. It’s worth spending 10-15 minutes longer on a task, because the best ideas are likely just around the corner.

8 . Sometimes life can seem challenging (挑战的) and we usually get the feeling of “the grass on the other side is always greener”! We usually feel ______ with the troubles that life throws at us.

The best thing to do at that point of time is to ______ our eyes and start counting of all the ______ in life that God has given us.

If we think ______, our life is full of blessings that we hardly ______. Listening to the singing of birds early in the morning, we realize that there are many people who spend their life in a world that is ______ while many others spend their lives in a world that is dark and may have never ______ a rainbow or the setting sun.

When you go out for a drive, pull down the window and look at the poor ______ standing under the hot sun, begging for filling his hungry ______. We get three ______ a day without realizing its importance. Isn’t that a blessing?

Whenever you are sad, look at the eyes of your parents and family filled with love and ______ for you. There are many people who have never ______ the love of a family. Isn’t that a blessing?

As Mother Teresa once said, “We don’t need to do ______ things. We need to do small things with great ____”.

The key to a happy life is when we ______ others problems to be our own and try to help them. When we love people without any ______ and help them, our heart is filled with a ______ of happiness and peace seeing the ______ on their face.

So the next time whenever life ______ you down, close your eyes and…start ______!

10 . Some of us regret that we no longer have parents to serve after their passing away. Then ________ not pay more attention to them when they were alive and with us?

A few days ago, when I went to a park for my evening walk, I came across an old couple sitting on a bench and talking to each other. Feeling a bit _______ after a long way, I’m curious to know about their ________ of discussion. So I went over and sat on the bench next to them. After a few moments, from their conversation I could _______ that their only son had moved to America. And they were ________ alone here.

Every sentence they said to each other conveyed to me their desire, their loneliness and their selfless ________ for their son. My eyes were filled with tears and I realized just how _______ we have become as children.

To achieve our goals and purposes we _______ to care little about the two most important persons of our lives: our parents, who ________ us when we were young, raised us heart and soul and guided us patiently on each step of our lives.

What has the life of these parents become now? Most of them are staying in old houses and leading a ________ life. Most of them even couldn’t be taken care of when they fall ill. Why do we always ________ that we are what we are now just because of these two special people who brought us into this ________?

Finally, I would like to use a few words written by a wise man which say, “When you were ________ and just a little way off, I ________ you with blankets against the cool night air, but now you are tall and out of ________, I hold out my hands and cover you with my best wishes.”