2 . For a period of time in the early 80s, I watched I Dream of Jeannie reruns every afternoon in the empty time between school and supper. But I always felt a little deflated when the closing theme came on, since it meant that I had to wait an entire day for the next episode.

Decades later, thanks to the modern technology, on-demand viewing and an endless supply of content now allow us to find exactly the entertainment we want, when we want it. My own kids happily binge-watch Fresh Off the Boat, just as I dreamed of doing with Jeannie.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about a disadvantage of our just-for-you world. My kids miss out on all the things that are not just for them. Looking back, some of my more memorable discoveries as a child came about only because I didn’t have access to entertainment that I would have preferred.

When we would visit our aunts, my sisters and brothers and I didn’t have tablets to keep ourselves occupied while the adults chatted. So we would read whatever we could find. I looked forward to Sunday afternoons at Aunt Rose’s so that I could catch up on aliens and Hollywood stars in Weekly World News. These things—none of which were aimed at my tastes—were all that was on offer. However, they brought me so much enjoyment.

Electronic searching now takes us directly to what we seek. We are less likely to come across things that have nothing to do with what we are looking for. But finding something by accident is powerful in its purposelessness. It’s nature throwing things up against a wall to see what sticks. It’s the force that drives evolution.

Getting exactly what you want all the time sounds great. But as anyone who is familiar with fantasy stories knows, there’s always a catch.

4 . I’m Andrew Siegel and this is my garden. This is where my family and I grow a lot of different vegetables and flowers. Gardening has been really important to my family because it gives us a chance to spend time outside together, away from all the electronics.

Especially for my five-year-old, it really gives her a chance to be in touch with nature-all the little animals, insects and things that come out here.

We find that a lot of the things that we plan for in the garden don’t always go the way that we’d like them to, and some of the things that we don’t plan for become what we enjoy the most that year. So it’s something that my family and I have learned: To appreciate (欣赏) all of it.

My advice for gardening beginners is to just start. Get a pot, get a little bit of dirt, get a tomato plant or whatever plant you want and just get started. I think sometimes it seems challenging. Trust me, it does not need to be perfect. You will enjoy every little thing you get out of it.

Gardening has taught me patience, something I don’t naturally have a lot of. It takes weeks, takes months for you to put into your work and the patience comes out in the end. You learn not only to be patient in that end product, but you’ve also learned that, after years of gardening, the end product is just part of it.

The journey of growing has become much more important to me than the actual product that we get in the end. Nothing has been so valuable as the time I spend out here. I’m by no means in a farmland, but I do have my own little piece of what I consider heaven, and I’ve really learned to appreciate every little moment — every insect, every plant, every flower — and when you can appreciate it in that way, there’s nothing better.

5 . Lewis B. Smedes once said,” To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. “For years Tom Anderson’s life was withered (枯萎) by the memory of his ______ in an adventure that ______ the death of one of his classmates. He and his wife ______after six years of marriage. Then the news about Tom Anderson changed. His wife Betty came back; he ______ a fine position.

One day he told me what had changed his life,” I used to think nothing could ______ what I had done. The thought of my ______ would stop me in the middle of a smile. It put a ______ between my wife and me. Then I had an ______ visit from the person I dreaded(恐惧)most to see —the mother of the college classmate who died. ‘Unless you forgive, you cannot love,’ she said. ‘And without love, life has no ______. She paused, and then said ______, You are the only person who hasn’t forgiven Tom Anderson.’ I found there in her eyes ______ to be the person I might have been if her boy had lived. For the first time in my life, I felt ______ to be loved. ”

Forgiveness is truly ______, through which we gain the freedom to learn from experience. But forgiving our shortcomings doesn’t mean ______ that they exist. On the contrary, it means facing them ______.

7 . I never imagined that an interstate trip could be so exciting. But when your world has become smaller since the pandemic hit two-and-a-bit years ago, and then slowly ______, the most ordinary experience gives new ______ to life. And so it was with me when I was ______ given the chance to take my first flight in more than two years.

I’d forgotten how it felt to be among the people coming and going I got to the airport two hours before boarding. Time for the bar and, of course, ______.

That group of young Arab women laughing and posing for photographs by the expansive windows, aircraft in the ______, lighting up the place with their happiness.

The man in the corner drinking alone. Just another one of the 70, 000 or so stories that would pass through the airport ______.

I couldn’t be calmer as a flyer. But when the plane took off I was ______, in that moment of weightlessness as the wheels ______ Earth, leaning towards the window to watch everything below becoming smaller and smaller.

Is it possible that the denial of so much during the pandemic lockdown had added new ______ to what was the ordinary? I think so. The plane ride, the hotel stay, and the social occasion all now gave me a sense of ______ that might have previously only aroused in me nothing more than a certain nonchalance (若无其事) or even ______.

Last June, just ahead of the long Sydney lockdown, a friend ______ a birthday party. That experience for me would continue happily through some of the ______ months of the lockdown that would follow. ______ the repeated fear that the pandemic holds over us, the memory of that celebration still keeps its bright, warm light in my mind. That’s what happens when everything old is new again, when ______ is rediscovered as a virtue.

8 . I had reached the age of twenty-eight. Still, I _________ whether the letter from my past would make it to me, all these years later. It sounded ridiculous, but it was a _______ writing task when I was eighteen. The teacher collected our letters to our future selves in self-addressed envelopes with stamps and promised to _______ them ten years later. But since so much time had passed, would he even _________?

Thinking back on the _______ I recalled giving my future self some advice. When you’re eighteen years old, twenty-eight seems like a   _______ age, but I wasn’t feeling as mature as I believed my younger self had _______ me to be.

When the letter finally reached me, I opened it _______ . It began, How much do you bet this letter will never get to you? It continued to greet me casually as if we were having an IM (instant messaging) chat. As a senior in high school, facing the _______important exams and college application, my eighteen-year-old self was so ________! She was apparently not quite happy and hoped I wouldn’t worry so much in the future, and that I would live in the present and __________ my life!

________ to my belief, my eighteen-year-old self did not have any demands on me, expectations I might have failed to meet. Instead, she wrote, “I’ll ________ whatever you do. Even if you are not the one I’m imagining now, I’ll support you, because maybe who I’m imagining is someone else, but you’re not someone else — you’re me.”

I was touched, and tears came to my eyes at this ________ time. I had put a lot of pressure on myself to be the best version of myself that I could be. ________, I came to realize what I would have accomplished in ten years would pale in comparison to how feel and who I’d be.

9 . Some of us regret that we no longer have parents to serve after their passing away (去世). Then why not pay more attention to them when they were _________ 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 tired after a long way, I’m _________ 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 tend to care _________ 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 (毯子) 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.”