Yours,

Li Hua

4 . Forgiveness is often defined as a deliberate decision to let go of feelings of anger toward someone who you believe has wronged you.     1    . The following advice may help you learn how to forgive yourself.

Understand your emotions. Becoming aware of the emotions you are experiencing is an important part of learning to forgive yourself.     2     and can help you better regulate emotions.

    3     Forgiving yourself is about more than just putting the past behind you and moving is about accepting what has happened, which is the first step toward self-forgiveness. It’s also the hardest step. Do not make up excuses to make your actions seem acceptable.

Treat yourself with kindness and compassion (同情). The key to self-forgiveness lies in treating yourself with the same kindness that you would show to another person.     4    . Instead, be compassionate while still acknowledging that you made a mistake and want to do better in the future.

Express regret for your mistakes. As a result of taking responsibility, you may experience a range of negative feelings, including guilt and shame.     5    . They can serve as a springboard (跳板) to positive behavior change. Understand that making mistakes that you feel guilty about does not make you a bad person but help you do better in the future.

6 . It was July 15, 2021, and my friends had helped me celebrate my 31st birthday.

Earlier in the day I had prepared for the _________ event of a flood. We are about a third of a mile from the banks of the Ahr River. It had been raining heavily that week, and the government had issued a flood _________, though not for where I was. _________, I’d placed sandbags on the floor outside my garden door just in case _________ got through. Before my friends left, they _________ me for doing that, but I thought, why take a chance?

As I drifted off to sleep, I was awakened by the _________ of rushing water, as if I were lying beside a waterfall instead of in my bedroom. When I moved my legs off the bed, I was _________ by the touch of cold water lapping against my knees and rising fast. Trembling and in darkness, I _________ my cellphone and turned on the flashlight. I saw water was shooting through the gaps of the garden door.

I admit it, I began to _________. The Ahr, usually such a __________, slow-moving river, had violently burst its banks. And now I had to get out—fast!

Any effects of the celebratory drinks I’d had earlier were now gone. I heard the garden door starting to crack under the __________ of the flood. In bare feet, I started to move to my only __________: the door that leads to the hallway. All around me things were breaking, and the cupboards were being __________.

I tried to pull the door open, but the force of the water wouldn’t __________ me. Finally, I __________ to make a gap of about a foot, just wide enough to squeeze through and make it into the __________.

If I had __________ just a few minutes later, I would have drowned. Many of the houses around us were destroyed, including, __________, a home for the disabled. Not everyone got out.

I came close to drowning that day. But rather than keep thinking about that, I prefer to __________ what my mother told me afterward: “Christian, don’t remember the day when you lost everything. Remember the day you __________.”

7 . The two Greek words — “philo”, which means love and “Sophia”, which means wisdom, are the beginnings of the word we use today: Philosophy, the love of wisdom.

Most people have a philosophy on life. Everybody has an idea of what is right and what is wrong, and why things are the way they are, and who they are and who to trust. A lot of people believe somebody else’s philosophy. That person may be a religious or political leader, or anybody you look up to. Some people have their own philosophy on life which might be a mixture of theories. Others are philosophers: people who want to know the truth about life for themselves and spend their time studying, thinking and asking questions.

Today philosophers are still encouraging people to think. Schools in some countries teach philosophy to children. Reading books written by old philosophers can be difficult because the language is from the past. So stories are used to help schoolchildren make their own decisions about what is right and wrong and think about the best way to solve problems.

Why do we need philosophy? There are plenty of people who think that killing animals is cruel, but eating animals is fine. If you are one of these people, you should ask yourself why. Why is killing animals cruel? Why is it okay to eat animals? You might find that the answer to each question is very different and you could have an argument by yourself using your own ideas! Go on and argue — you will understand more about what you believe. You will begin to understand the subject more deeply. And this helps you to feel comfortable with it. And you might change something or you might not. When we ask ourselves questions, we start to understand ourselves and our lives, and it’s up to us to make changes or not. If the ideas in your head agree, this means you have integrity. What you say and what you do are the same. Everyone respects someone who has integrity!

By thinking and questioning, we can understand more and maybe prevent problems caused by misunderstanding. But philosophy can also cause problems and conflict when people don’t agree. When one group of people choose one philosophy to believe and another group of people choose a different philosophy, when they need to think or make a decision together, they start trying to change each other instead of working together on bigger ideas about life.

9 . New Year’s resolutions have a bad reputation, at least in part, because people tend to grade themselves pass or fail when, in reality, they’ve made key improvements in various areas of their lives by mostly sticking to a resolution, experts say.     1     Of those surveyed who made resolutions, about 16 percent kept all their resolutions and about 44 percent kept at least some but not all of them by the end of the year — meaning nearly 2 out of 3 people achieved some level of success. Try these tips to increase your chances of success.

    2    “When we plan for the future, there is often what we refer to as the ‘empathy gap.’ We don’t quite imagine what it would feel like to be hungry when we’re full or sweaty when we’re not sweating,” said Ayelet Fishbach, a professor of behavioral science and marketing at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and author of the book “Get it Done.” “If your New Year’s resolution is going to involve a lot of sweating, make the plan while you are exercising.”

Make a detailed plan for achieving your goal.     3     If your resolution is to exercise more, make a plan now for which days you will exercise, where you will do it and how you will get there, as well as how to deal with child care and meals.

Choose a goal you’ll enjoy. You’re more likely to succeed if you pick something you like to door if you can find a way to make it more fun. Research shows that people have more success achieving goals if they use a method known as “temptation bundling.”     4     If you’re trying to eat more healthfully, take a cooking class or make a plan to prepare a healthful recipe (食谱) with a friend.

Forgive failures. Don’t define success as pass or fail.     5     “If you’re setting tough goals, there will always be failure,” Milkman said.

10 . Authentic Is Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023

The Merriam-Webster word of the year for 2023 is “authentic.” Authentic food. Authentic voice. Authentic self Look ups for the word are routinely heavy on the dictionary eampany’s site but were put to new heights throughout the year, editor at large Peter Sokolowski told The Associated Press.

“We see in 2023 a kind of crisis of authenticity,” he said before the announcement of this year’s word on November 27. “What we realize is that when we question authenticity, we value it even more.”

Sokolowski said that this year interest in the word authentic did not increase suddenly at any particular time, but that the word was a constant object of interest. This was the year of Al, and also of a moment when ChatGIPT-maker Open AI suffered a leadership crisis. Taylor Swift and Prince Harry looked for authenticity in their words and deeds. Elon Musk, at February’s World Government Summit in Dubai, requested the heads of companies, politicians and other leaders to “speak authentically” on social media by running their own accounts(账号).

“Can we trust whether a student wrote this paper? Can we trust whether a politician made this statement? We don’t always trust what we see anymore,” Sokolowski said. “We sometimes don’t believe our own eyes or our own ears. We are now recognizing that authenticity is a performance itself.”

Merriam-Webster’s entry for authentic provides several definitions. There is “not false or imitation(模仿): real, actual.” There’s “true to one’s own personality, spirit or character.” There’s “worthy of acceptance or belief as based on fact.” And there is “made or done the same way as an original(原版).”