1 . A few months ago, a friend gifted me a robot sweeper that’s programmed to move around a room and clean as it goes.

When the box arrived, I was afraid the device would detect me and suck up (汲取) data along with the dog hair and dust. But the instructions were easy, and I finally decided not to care.

I powered up the sweeper, watched it leave its docking station to work, and quickly fell in love with my newly shiny floors. I kept shooting its working videos. “I think you’re giving more attention to it than to us,” joked my son.

One day, I returned home and discovered that our front door had blown open and the robot rolled into the yard, trying to clean the flower beds. Even when its brushes were blocked with leaves, bugs and mud, its little wheels bravely kept turning.

The robot acted properly as it was programmed to clean “dirty” things. In a kitchen, dirt can be garden debris (碎片) such as leaves and mud. In a garden, this kind of dirt does not need to be removed. The context is important. The problem for robots is that reading this context is difficult.

This accident inspired me to think more about AI (artificial intelligence). As far as I am concerned, AI is simply well trained and reproduces what it has learned. And it is undeniable that robots are increasingly being given powerful intelligence. Some experts even predict that we will soon see not only AI-enabled robots designed to solve problems according to their instructions, but also those with the ability to judge how they should respond when they are in a different setting.

Maybe this will happen in the near future.

3 . When you think of the strong actor and politician Arnold Schwarzenegger, what comes to your mind first? Perhaps it’s his roles in movies like “The Terminator” or his _______ bodybuilding career. Or maybe it’s his _______ journey from a small Austrian village to _______ the Governor of California.

While Schwarzenegger’s life story is nothing short of extraordinary, he recently _______ an inspiring speech that _______ challenges the idea of being a “self-made man”. In a world that often celebrates individualism and the _______ that success is entirely the result of one’s _______ , Schwarzenegger’s speech was a breath of fresh air. He _______ that he didn’t achieve his success on his own. He _______ his success to those who had offered a ________ hand whenever he was in need.

“Please don’t ever, ever ________ me a self-made man,” he said. “That will give the wrong ________ that we can do it all alone. In reality, none of us can ________ it.” Schwarzenegger’s message ________ beyond his personal story. He encouraged the audience to reflect on the people who have ________ us in our lives and to pay it forward by offering ________ and assistance to others whenever it is possible.

In a society that often ________ individual achievement above all else, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech is a ________ reminder that we are interconnected. And our success is often a result of the support we ________ from those around us. It’s a message that urges us to be ________ to those who once helped us and to offer help to those in need.

5 . I had to leave school at a young age because of my poor family. I decided to go back to college to ______ my dream at 42. Could I balance the ______ as a student, mom and wife? I managed to ______ enough money for my first semester though our budget was ______. But I had no idea how I would pay for anything beyond that. With a step of faith, I ______.

Studying with kids half my age, I had to ______ myself to learn new things. After the initial first weeks passed, however, a balance was ______ between my studying and living.

How to make ends meet at home was still my ______. But one day, a professor mentioned that grant money (助学金) was ______ to students like me. So I began the application process. ______, I received a call from my professor telling me that I was selected weeks later. I’d have to ______ some volunteer hours as required by the grant program, but the remainder of my college expenses would be ______. I hung up the phone with teary eyes. I couldn’t believe my dream was becoming a ______.

For another two years. I continued taking summer sessions. For the next eighteen years, I taught in a primary school. I told students my ______ of how I achieved my dream all my life.

If you’re working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be ______. The dream pulls you.

6 . Mark is leaving, and I’m feeling kind of sad.

You probably don’t know Mark, but you might be _______ enough to know someone just like him. He’s been the heart and soul of the office, combining professional skills with a sweet nature. He’s never been all that interested in getting praise for the _______ work he does.

And now he’s moving on to an exciting new opportunity which sounds like the chance of a lifetime, and we’re _______ pleased for him. But that doesn’t make it any easier to say goodbye to a dear friend and _______ colleague.

Life has a way of throwing these curve balls (曲线球) at us. Just when we start to get comfortable with a person, a place or a situation, something comes along to _______ it.

But how do we deal with change? There’s Chris, who once told me that the answer can be expressed in four words, “Go _______ the flow.”

“It is like surfing,” Chris explained. “You can’t organize the ocean. _______ just happen. You ride them _______ they take you, and then you go back out there and catch the next one. Sure, you’re always hoping for the perfect wave. But _______ you just take them the way they come.”

That doesn’t ________ that you don’t keep trying to make all your dreams come true. It just means that when things that aren’t exactly in your plan ________, you work around them and then you move on. Of course, some barriers (阻碍) along the ________ of life are easier to take than others. A rained-out picnic, for example, is ________ to deal with than the sudden death of a loved one. But the principle is the same.

We’re going to ________ Mark. But rather than on the sadness of our ________, we’ll focus on our hopes for a brighter future.

7 . We have all heard that if you talk to yourself, you’re crazy,     1     According to research, talking to yourself in a positive way is actually very healthy for your mind

My first exposure to positive self-talk was reading The Little Engine That Could. Do you remember that book from your childhood? While trying to make it up a big hill, the little engine keeps saying to himself, “I think I can, I think I can.” And of course, he makes it.     2    

Positive self-talk is one of the most valuable tools you can use to keep yourself physically and mentally balanced. Many Olympic and professional athletes use it every time they practice or compete.

    3     My own personal favorite is “I’m okay”. Back when I was in the movie business. I used to work with the stunt (特技) team. I was told that one of their simple but effective secrets was to stay loose and talk to their body. I had the chance to try it out one day. My apartment was on the second floor of a duplex (复式公寓), and one rainy day I slipped on the top step and started falling over. Then I just kept telling myself, “I’m okay.”     4     There were only a few scratches (擦伤) on my legs. I believe to this day that it was the simple positive self-talk that helped keep me from being seriously injured.

Positive self-talk can also help you calm down from anxiety and feel less sad. There was a period of time when I felt upset. Every morning, I woke up and said to myself, “Hi, Barton. You’re going to have a good day today.”     5     When I did it throughout the day, fewer things would bother me, and I became friendlier to myself.

9 . During the summer of 2021, I flew to Greece to learn more about the wildfires there. I wanted to hear people’s stories, to understand what it meant to be displaced by environmental disaster.

In a cafe for people surviving the fire, I met brave children who now have to live with terrible scars, physical and emotional. I met a man who could not even speak to me, his eyes filling with tears.

I was expecting to hear a lot about loss; I was not expecting to learn so much about the attribution (归因) of blame. I came to understand how desperately people needed to blame a tangible entity (实体) –a person, a group of people, the government. Indeed, this was understandable and reasonable. The outbreak and mishandling of the fire needed to be explored, looked into and dealt with.

What surprised me, however, was that the survivors were completely silent over any mention of the climate crisis and global heating. It was made clear to me that this subject was unacceptable. Survivors felt that these issues had nothing to do with what they had suffered, and that the people actually responsible needed to pay.

But when it comes to climate breakdown, blame did not come to just one person, one corporation, one country. In Greece, the fire didn’t rage so hard because someone had set off a spark—— it raged so hard because years of global heating had dried up the land, part of a set of unsustainable (不能持续的) practices and inaction that had set our planet on fire. And now the fires are even worse.

The more I spoke to people, including climate scientists, the more I came to see that there is often a gap that separates science from public awareness. In her book “Engaging With Climate Change” Sally Weintrobe says that “many people who accept global warming continue to regard it as a problem of the future”. To my astonishment, this seemed to apply even to people who had themselves been affected directly by wildfires.

10 . Looking out from my desk is a note. It’s a card from my mother, containing only four sentences, but _______ enough to change my life. In it, she _______ my abilities as a writer without qualification. Each sentence is filled with _______, offering specific examples of what my pursuit has meant to her and my father. The word “but” never _______, however, “and” is there many times.

Every time I read it, I’m _______ to ask myself if I’m doing the same thing for my daughter. Although she usually got all A’s on her report card, her teachers always suggested she _______ too much in class. I _______ forgot to ask them if she was making improvement in controlling her behavior. Instead, I would greet her with, “Congratulations! Your Dad and I are proud of your _______, but could you try to tone (调整语调) it down in class?”

The fact is that “but” feels bad “and” feels good. When children feel good about themselves, they do more of it, building their self-confidence and their harmonious _______ to others.

This is not to say that children won’t ________ to their parents’ expectations. They will ________ whether those expectations are good or bad. Amazing things ________ when those expectations are ________ positive, “I see you made a ________. And I know you are intelligent enough to ________ what you did wrong and make a better decision next time.”