2 . My wife and I parked by a rough path the same time as a young man covered in tattoos (纹身). I ______ he was unfriendly，so we tried to ______ ourselves from him. But he struggled hard to ______ and wanted to talk some. We slowed down. He said he was recovering from a bad time in his life. We ______ left him in the dust，heading up the river.

Hours later we turned back ______ a flash flood had taken out the bridge. There he was again, following to ______ us. He shared a little more of his ______. He lost his mother and sister in a car accident and he was permanently ______ too. We slowed down to the pace he could ______ for the whole way back.

He continued, “During much surgery and ______ I came to hate life...” Then he pulled up his shirt to show us a ______ life size tattoo from neck to waist. It was two ladies in a ______ light waving to him. “This is my mom and this is my sister,” he pointed, “They told me to stop hating everything. They loved me just as they always had and ______ me to live in love too!” He explained the brightly colored tattoo was the exact dream he had that day.

My ______ went away. It had painted a wrong picture of this wonderful person with a beautiful ______ . I learned more than he hoped to tell.

4 . In the summer of 2015, Brian Peterson and his wife, Vanessa, had just moved to Santa Ana, California. One day, Peterson was reading the book Love Does, when his quiet was ________ by a homeless man. Encouraged by the book’s sympathetic message, Peterson made an conversation with him, and ________ that the man called Merda had moved here to ________ a career in music, but he ended up living on the street for years.

“It was the ________ thing to me,” Peterson recalled later on the podcast Top Artist. “I saw the ________ on the face of a man who hadn’t ________ or showered in probably a year. But his story, the life inside of him, ________ me.” And even though Peterson, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, hadn’t ________ a paintbrush in about 8 years, he ________ himself asking if he could paint Merda’s portrait．

Peterson painted Merda’s portraits, ________ his traits and life experiences．________, the painting was sold for a few thousand dollars, and the money was put into a “love account” by Peterson for his model. Merda used the funds from his portrait to ________ an album, fulfilling his musical dreams.

Peterson’s ________ with Merda led him to form Faces of Santa Ana, a nonprofit organization focused on befriending and painting portraits of members of the community who are ________. Up till now, with 41 portraits painted and sold, Perterson has helped many people get back on their feet, and established the friendship with someone people might have ________.

5 . Nothing in life is more exciting than the sudden insight that leaves one a changed person - not only changed, but changed for the _______. Such moments are not many, but they come to all of us. Sometimes from a valuable book, and sometimes from a (n) _______ friend.

One cold afternoon I was in a restaurant feeling extremely _______. Because of several _______, the research of great significance in my life had failed.

Then my neighbor, an old psychiatrist (精神科医生), _______ in the restaurant. “What’s troubling you?” he asked. I told him what had happened and _______ blamed myself for the failure. Hearing my words, he said nothing but _______ me to his office, where he took a tape out. “On this tape,” he said, “there are short _______ made by three of my patients. Listen and pick out the two - word phrase that appears _______ in all the three cases.”

The three voices all ________ themselves, and the phrase “if only” was said out loud at least six times.

“That is poisonous,” the old man ________. “The trouble with ‘if only’ is that it doesn’t ________anything. But if you let it become a habit, it can become a real ________ so that you won’t want to try more.”

“What should I do?” I inquired.

“Change ‘if only’ to ‘next time’,” he smiled. “This phrase will help you to ________ the past, learn a lesson from a failure, move forward, and take ________.”

6 . I’ve always been attracted by scars (疤痕). I find it ______ when people are ashamed of the scars they have on their bodies. To me, scars ______ a light on who a person truly is.

I was born in the year 2000. My parents ______ before I was born that I’d be a sick man because I was diagnosed with a variety of medical issues while still in the womb (子宫). Then days after I was born, I had my first surgery, ______ my first of many scars. I ______myself to be quite different because it is ______. Then, after several more months of going in and out of the hospital, I received my biggest and most meaningful scar from a six-hour open-heart surgery. This one______all the way down my chest. Typically, the heart is a symbol of ______, so I view this scar as representative of my ability to be a strong-willed person. Today, I am ______healthy. Although I still go to the hospital for yearly check-ups, my heart condition does not cut off my abilities in any way. I’m able to take part in any physical activity that I ______without worry. I love my scars. I______them as badges (徽章) of courage and survival. They are conversation starters. I often feel annoyed when people ______ their scars and I wonder why they would want to ______ their best stories. I wonder why they call their survival an______. If you have a scar, big or small, be______ of it. It’s part of who you are.

8 . I can’t miss the little old lady standing at a bus stop. With her kerchief(方头巾)on her head, a black umbrella ________all over, I can tell she is freezing. I’m driving by, late for my early morning shift(轮班). I decide to stop and offer her a________.

________ , she declines, but when I ask again and________, finally, she gets in the car. I take her to her________, and by the time she gets out of my car, she is smiling and thanks me.

I was________for work that day, but I was so glad that I stopped. That was 40 years ago, and the beginning of a new________, one that continues when I’m out driving in bad weather.

If there’s someone at a bus stop, especially if it’s an elderly person waiting at________hours and in bad weather, I will________and ask if they need a ride. Once a woman jumped in without hesitation, which made me feel good.

The best part of my ride offers is the________. I do tend to ask a lot of questions: where are you from, where are you going, family, background, pets and whatever else comes to mind.________, everyone wants to chat. We are usually laughing by the time the ride is over. “What a shame!” I often think when they hop out, as the stories were just getting ________.

As the years________, perhaps I will be the one standing at the bus stop. Perhaps there will be somebody who ________down a window and offers me a seat for a little ride. I will continue to take that leap of________in the kindness of strangers.

9 . When my mother told my father she was pregnant (怀孕的)，the first thing he did was buy a TV. It was 1957 and TVs were _______ technology back then. He thought that with a baby, they’d be going out a lot less and that he would need to find _______at home. That was the first _______ he gave me. But when I think of other gifts my father has given me, the first would be a love of _______ . He is not usually an observer of life, but he can be _______ and insightful (富有洞察力的)．He is always right in the middle of our study．He and my mother gave me a love of words and books. He has been totally deaf in one ear since he was two years old, so we _______ listened to music. In my childhood, storybooks were king-not songs.

The second is _______ all. Even when my sister and I were little, the conversation around the dinner table was _______ but adult-level. Your age didn’t matter. If you voiced an opinion, you had to _______ your case and give evidence. He ____________ everyone the same - child or adult, CEO or cleaner.

The greatest gift to his daughters was that he took interest in our ____________. Most successful women I know had fathers who ____________ their intelligence. My father said my mother was the wisest person he had ever met. They met at a dance in the early 50s, when she was a teacher. Wanting to ____________he told her about Jane Austen’s Emma, but misquoted (错误地引用) the book. My mother ____________ him and he was in love from that moment.

Over the years, my father taught me never to stand still and to ____________ for change. I continue to follow his lead.

10 . There are two things I hate about this time of year: out-of-tune caroling(圣诞颂歌)and bad Christmas cards. Or rather, holiday cards—bad taste isn’t limited to Christmas.

Why? I’ll get to that. But first, a little _______ . In the winter of 1843, Sir Henry Cole, a well-known English activist who helped reform the British postal system, _______ himself with a very large stack(堆)of letters and very little time. Rather than spend his days _______ over each response, Cole _______ a new idea: Why not send a small, decorated card instead? He enlisted the help of a friend to create a(n) _______ for the front of the card and then had a London printer make a thousand copies. Cole _______ had to fill in the “to” and “from” lines, and—ta-da!—the first Christmas card was complete.

So there you have it, a tradition _______ out of laziness. And not much has changed ever since, which brings us back to my _______ with holiday cards.

I’m a bit of a card snob(自命高雅). I make almost all my cards by hand and take time to write at least a few _______ paragraphs inside each. It’s a lot of work, but there’s a big ________ . These are cards you save for a ________ day when you need a kind word. There’s a reason that it’s polite to open a card before a gift—cards should add ________ to a present. And, if you’re doing it right, the words themselves are a gift.

Here’s my ________ : Instead of sending a human-filled, photo-edited holiday card, why not mail a simple, handwritten note to those you ________ but haven’t spent enough time with in the past year? This little note will mean so much more to them than the ________ mass-produced cards.