2 . In March 2022, I was recovering from an operation for breast cancer and going through a terrible time. I spent my days at home ________ everything to myself. Then one of my colleagues suggested ________, “Why don’t you pick a couple of days and go to Ireland and escape?” I ________ the tip.

The trip was fun, but when I got on the ________ to go home, I wasn’t feeling well. My plan was to sleep for the ________ journey, but the guy next to me looked ________, eager for a conversation because he had kind eyes.

“I had an operation,” I said ________. “I had breast cancer.” He paused for a moment and said, “What’s wrong with that? Breast cancer is just a small ________ of your life, like going to college or getting married.”

I could feel my eyes ________ up with tears.

“Don’t think too much of your problem,” he said. “Instead, think about how many people you could help.”

I had tears coming down my face, and said, “I can’t ________ I’m crying in front of you. I don’t ________ know you.”

“Look, you have a ________ in life,” he said. “You can either ________ your things deep in your pockets and take them to your grave (坟墓), or you can help someone.”

I’ve not been a very outgoing person, and except the few people who needed to know, I’d kept my illness ________. I didn’t want to be ________ as a defective (有缺陷的) person.

But this man, whose name was Ken Duane, showed me that my illness gave me ________, because it gave me the ability to ________ someone else’s load. I decided at that moment that I was going to try to help others by sharing my story ________, in the hope of inspiring those who were in the same or similar situation. Later that year, I talked about my illness and my ________ with Ken on air.

I am forever ________ that I never took a nap on the flight over the Atlantic.

It was a few years ago. A friend sent me a restaurant gift card for Christmas and I picked a pretty, sunny Sunday afternoon to use it. It felt good taking my two grown sons and daughter to a nice sit-down restaurant instead of the fast food places we usually ate at. The meal was delicious and we all had a good time. When the waitress brought the check, I looked down at it. The gift card covered almost all of it. I reached into my wallet to get enough cash to cover the rest. I saw two bills in my wallet. The first would cover the rest of the bill and give the waitress a nice tip. The second bill was much larger, so I reached down to pick out the first one.

At that moment, my mind flashed back to 30 years ago. I was working as a waiter in a restaurant much like the one we were in now. It was long hours of hard work for low pay. I went home just only making enough to feed my young family. I also remembered how more than once I saw the waitresses counting their meager tips while worrying about how they were going to pay the rent and buy their kids things they needed. I remembered the pain in their eyes and sadness in their faces at the end of the day.

I blinked (眨眼) and was back in the present again. My fingers touched the smaller bill in my wallet. I smiled, pushed it back down, and picked out the much larger bill. I folded it around the gift card and covered both of them with the check. As we all got up from the table, I handed them to the hard-working waitress. “You keep the change,” I said with a smile and a happy heart.

We are all one family in this world. We live together, laugh together, and suffer together. Do your best to be a good person and love others. Replace the suffering with joy.

4 . I was scared when a loud noise in my apartment woke me in the middle of the night. I rushed to turn on my bedroom light and discovered it was a cat. Here’s the thing — I do not have a cat. And this was not the first time this particular cat had demanded my attention. I immediately calmed down and realized my mistake — I had left a window open. I approached my house guest to entertain her by giving her some treats and scratches under her collar.

Just like many others, I shifted from working in an office to working from home. Living alone can be separate from outside at the best of times. It was around the one-month mark of the lockdown when I heard a meow outside my window. Sitting outside on the grass was a long-haired, golden-colored cat. I opened the window, and this beautiful cat jumped into my home. Her short visit lifted my spirits for the day.

A few days later, I heard a familiar meow. I saw a name tag on her collar: Mika. On this second visit, I also noticed Mika was cross-eyed, which only made her more lovely.

Over the next few weeks, Mika would drop by occasionally. Sometimes, she only stayed for a few minutes; other times, she would wander around my apartment much longer. Each visit cheered me up. Mika even served as my social bridge, helping me connect with some new neighbors, who, as it turns out, had also received visits from her.

While the lockdown has been awful, I doubt I might not have ever met Mika if it had not happened. But perhaps she came by at this time because she sensed a need for connection on my part.

While dogs are said to be man’s best friend, a good cat can be everyone’s best friend.

5 . The mission of Faces of Santa Ana is to lovingly engage the homeless through art. In July 2015, Brian Peterson and his wife had just moved to Santa Ana, California with a burning desire in their hearts to love their neighbors. Outside the couple’s fourth-floor apartment, a(n)____ man was often yelling on the street corner, sometimes keeping them ______ at night. Peterson, 28, would pass the guy on his way to work as a car designer, but they never _____ .

One day, Peterson was relaxing in his living room, reading the book Love Does, about the power of love in action, when his ____ disturbed by the homeless man. _____ by the book’s compassionate (有同情心的) message, Peterson made a(n)_____ decision: He was going outside to introduce himself.

In that first _____, Peterson learned that the man’s name was Matt Faris. He’d moved to Southern California to pursue a career _____, but he soon fell on hard times and _____ living on the street for more than a decade.

“It was a strange thing to me,” Peterson recalled later. “I saw ______ on the face of a man who hadn’t shaved in probably a year. And the ______ inside of him inspired me. ”______ Peterson, a graduate of the Cleveland Institute of Art, hadn’t picked up a paintbrush in about eight years, he found himself asking if he could ______ Faris’s portrait. And Faris said yes.

Peterson’s _____ with Faris led him to form Faces of Santa Ana, a nonprofit organization focused on _____ and painting portraits of members of the community who are unhoused. Peterson sells the 30-by-40-inch canvas(画布) — signed by both subject and artist—for a few thousand dollars, and put half into what he calls a “love account” for his _____.

Many of Peterson’s new friends use the donations to secure immediate ____ — medical care, hotel rooms, food. Faris used the funds from his portrait to record an album, realizing his ____ dreams.

Peterson has painted 41 of these portraits himself. He’s discovered that the buyers tend to connect to the story of the person in the painting, finding ______ and often friendship with someone they might have otherwise overlooked. “People often tell me, ‘I was the one that would cross the street. But I see homeless people ____ now,” Peterson says. “I didn’t know that would happen. ”

6 . At the age of 17 years 64 days, Mack Rutherford has become the youngest person to fly around the world alone! Mack’s journey around the world lasted five months and he flew across 52 countries in total. His record-breaking flight began in Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, on 23 March, 2022. He was 16 years old when he took off and celebrated his 17th birthday by himself in his plane.

Mack faced many challenges during his adventure. Because of his small-sized aircraft, he had to land whenever the weather got too rough. However, at some points he literally couldn’t land, such as when flying non-stop for 10 hours over an ocean. At other points, he faced extremely hot weather, such as in Dubai. In Sudan, a country in Africa, Mack also faced sandstorms which made it hard for him to see where he was going. Mack battled strong winds and pouring rain during his flight, but he never stopped smiling, joking and updating his flowers on his social media account along the way, and managed to expertly pilot his plane to safety.

And if Mack’s surname “Rutherford” sounds familiar, it’s because his elder sister Zara also flew around the world earlier this year, and still holds the female version of the record! The Rutherford siblings (兄弟姐妹) were inspired by their parents to become pilots. “I have known for certain I wanted to fly since I was eleven,” Mack said, “My dad Sam is a professional ferry pilot, my mum Beatrice is a recreational (娱乐的) private pilot.”

Mack hopes to inspire young people to begin working towards their own goals, “No matter what background you have, I believe it is never too early to work towards your dreams and you shouldn’t limit yourself by others’ expectations.” With both feet firmly back on the ground now, it’s time for Mack to turn his attention towards catching up on his schoolwork!

8 . When I was in middle school, I was on a family vacation in Washington DC. I found there was a homeless man down the street.

On our final day in the city, when my parents went for an evening walk, I went out of our hotel room and ran down the street to the homeless man.

He looked at me, surely not expecting anything from a middle school girl. I asked him what he wanted to have for dinner. He replied “Bread and water”. I ran into the store and bought a big bag of bread and a bottle of water. I ran back with a smile on my face and handed the bag and the bottle to him. His smile has been in my mind ever since.

I came back to the hotel room and when my parents returned, my dad told me he had a story for me. He asked if I remembered the homeless man down the street from our hotel and I shyly nodded. He then told me a story. As they were returning from their walk, they saw the homeless man was sharing a bag full of food with other homeless people around. They were all smiling and laughing as they ate.

I smiled at my dad but I have never told him to this day the other half of the story. Till today, I still haven’t forgotten that man’s smile but I wish I had the courage to do this more often. One small kind action can begin a ripple effect (连锁反应) of kindness. So please, share a smile and do something kind for the people in need.

9 . When my dad finally finished the triathlon (铁人三项)in Montauk, the crowd cheered. It showed me how his hard work paid off and it excited my_________ . I wondered whether a small boy of my size could _________ something like that. I found myself _________this out loud and my father overheard me. He _________me and said I could train with him.

Training with my clad turned out to be very_________. We would get up very early for a morning jog or go for a swim in the pool after school. After a few weeks of training, I _________ my first triathlon. Before the competition, I nervously waited for the_________.

When someone fired the gun. I was off,_________towards the distant buoy (浮标)that marked my turn. I finished the half-mile swim and ran towards my _________. I was dripping wet,trying to __________it. Once on the bike, I experienced an excitement specific to __________. I went through the transition zone and__________ my running shoes. At the start of the run part of the triathlon, my__________ already felt like they were made of cement (水泥).

For me, the real competition began during the run, because now I could see each competitor as a target. No matter my__________in the field, each racer was either following me__________ being followed. The run part of the race was in fact__________tolerance.

“Shut up, legs”, one of my favorite sayings, kept me from thinking about the__________feeling. Then I crossed the finish line. I took a breath and then began a(an)__________with the other finishers. The sense of__________was there for all of us.

Looking back, I remember the small boy on that day in Montauk who doubted whether he could__________it, like his dad. Now, that same boy is not only a huge fan, but also a training partner as well.

In March 2019, when Sara Cook first got a letter in the mail telling her that someone had paid off a large amount of her medical debt, she simply couldn't believe it. Cautiously, she called the number listed on the letter. What she learned was that this was not a scam. It was 100 percent real.

A remarkable nonprofit called RIP Medical Debt had indeed paid $5,000 toward her bills. The organization didn't take care of all the debt she'd accumulated from several back surgeries, but the former nurse was still moved by the gesture. “I felt really loved and blessed,” she says, “knowing that complete strangers just did that out of the goodness of their hearts.

Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton do have good hearts. They're also former collection agents who have seen how heavy health-related debt has destroyed lives. “I never thought about all the hardship of the people who couldn't pay. Now I'm trying to find the people who need help.” said Antico. They got their money from individuals and charities that support RIP's mission.

RIP researches potential receivers based on three criteria. First, they look for people who make no more than two and a half times the amount established as the federal poverty level. Then they screen for those whose debt is equal to 5 percent or more of the gross income (总收入). Third, they look to see whether a person can pay off debts.

For the people who do qualify, RIP's help is life-changing. “After their letter, I realized that my life really wasn't so hard,” says Cook, “I may never be able to work as a nurse again but I can sit at the school library and help kids read or serve up food in the soup kitchen. When people do something out of the kindness of their hearts, sometimes they may wonder: Does it really make a difference? I want people to know that this has a positive impact.”