1 . Do We Miss Something in Life?

“In this life what did you miss?” The wife asked the husband when she was 25. Sadly, the husband replied: “I missed a new job opportunity.” When she was 35, the husband angrily told her that he had just missed the bus. At 45, the husband sadly said: “I missed the opportunity seeing my closest relative     1     his last breath.” At 55, the husband said disappointingly: “I missed a good chance to retire.” At 65, the husband hurriedly replied: “I missed a dental appointment.” At 75, the wife did not ask the husband anymore. At this moment, the husband     2     (kneel) in front of the very sick wife.     3     (remember) the question the wife used to ask him, this time he asked the wife the same question. The wife, with a smile and peaceful look, replied: “In this life, I did not miss     4     (have) you!” The husband was full of tears. He always thought that they could be together forever. He was always busy with work and trifles. So much so he     5     (not be) thoughtful to his wife. The husband hugged the wife tightly and said: “Over 50 years, how I had allowed myself to miss your deep love for me.”

In the busy city life, there are many people     6     are always busy with work. These people revolve their lives around their jobs, these people sacrifice all their times and health     7     (meet) the social expectations. They are unwilling to spend time on health care.

They miss the opportunity to be with their children in their growing up. They neglect the     8     (love) ones who care for them, and also their health. But     9     knows what is going to happen one year from now.

    10     life is not permanent, always live in the now. Express your gratitude to the ones you love in words. Show your care with actions. Treat every days as the last episode of life. In this way, when you are gone, those you love would have nothing to feel sorry about.

4 . One summer night in a seaside cottage, a boy felt himself lifted from bed. Then, with the swiftness of a dream, he was held in his father’s arms out onto the nearby beach. Overhead the sky blazed with stars. “Watch!” Incredibly, as his father spoke, one of the stars moved. In a line of golden fire it flashed across the astonished heavens. And before the wonder of this could fade, another star leaped from its place, then another, plunging towards the restless sea.

“What’s this?” the child whispered.

“Shooting stars. They come every year on a certain August night. I thought you’d like to see the show.”

That was all: just an unexpected glimpse of something mysterious and beautiful. But, back in bed, the child stared for a long time into the dark, knowing that all around the quiet house, the night was full of the silent music of the falling stars.

Decades have passed, but I remember that night still, because I was the fortunate boy whose father believed that a new experience was more important for a small boy than an unbroken night’s sleep. No doubt I had all the usual childhood entertainment, but those are forgotten now. What I remember is the night of the shooting stars, and the day we rode in a caboose (列车末尾的职工车厢), the telegraph we made that really worked, and the “trophy table” in the dining room where we children were encouraged to exhibit things we had found — anything unusual or beautiful — snake skins, seashells, flowers, arrowheads... I remember the thought-provoking (引人深思的) books left by my bedside that pushed back my horizons and sometimes actually changed my life.

My father had, to a marvellous degree, the gift of opening doors for his children, of leading them into areas of splendid newness. This subtle art of adding dimensions to a child’s world doesn’t necessarily require a great deal of time. It simply involves doing things more often with our children instead of for them or to them.

6 . Growing up, I understood one thing about my dad: He knew everything. This was our relationship, in sum: I asked him questions and he told me the answers. When I moved out on my own, I called him at least once a week, usually when something broke in my apartment and I needed to know how to fix it: the toilet, the air-conditioning…

But then, eventually, I needed him less. I got married, and my husband had most of the knowledge I lacked about water heaters and nondestructive insect removal. For everything else, we had the Internet. I don’t know when it happened, but our conversations when I called declined to six words. Me: “Hi, Dad.” Him: “Hi, sweets. Here’s Mom.” I loved my dad, of course, but I wondered at times if maybe he had already shared everything I needed to know.

Then, this past summer, my husband, our four kids, and I moved in with my parents for three weeks while our house was being repaired. They own a lake house, and Dad asked me to help him rebuild the bulkhead at their dock (码头的舱壁). It was hard labor. But as we put the new bulkhead together piece by piece, my dad knowing exactly what went where, I looked at him. “How do you know how to build a bulkhead?”

The heavy mallet (木槌) he was swinging paused in midair. “I spent a summer in college building them on the Jersey Shore.” “You did?” I thought I knew everything about my dad—all his random jobs. I knew about the apple farm, the summer at the hot sauce manufacturing plant, and even the diner line-cook position, where he learned how to make the best omelet in the world. But I never knew this.

“Yep. Now let me teach you how to use this saw.”

As he explained the importance of not bending too low, I realized that maybe it’s not that there’s nothing left to say. Maybe it’s just that I’ve spent my life asking him the wrong questions.

A few weeks later, after my family and I moved back into our renovated house, I called my parents. Dad answered. “Hi, sweets,” he said. “Here’s Mom.” “Wait, Dad,” I said. “How are you?” We ended up talking about the consulting job he was working on, a new battery he’d bought for his sailboat, a refinance my husband and I were looking into to relieve our home loan. Nothing life-changing. To anyone else, it would sound like a normal conversation between a dad and his daughter.

But to me, it was novel. A new beginning. I spent the first part of my life needing to talk to my dad. Now I talk to him because I want to.

8 . The quality of patience goes a long way toward your goal of creating a more peaceful and loving self. The more patient you are, the more accepting you will be of what life is, rather than insisting that life be exactly as you would like it to be. Without patience, life is extremely frustrating.     1     Patience adds some ease and acceptance to your life. It’s important for inner peace.

    2     If you are stuck in a traffic jam, late for an appointment, being patient would mean keeping yourself from building a mental snowball before your thinking gets out of hand and gently reminding yourself to relax. It might also be a good time to breathe as well as an opportunity to remind yourself that, in the bigger scheme of things, being late is “small stuff”.

Patience is a quality of heart that can be greatly enhanced with deliberate practice.    3     They are the periods of time that I set up in my mind to practise the art of patience. Life itself becomes a classroom, and the curriculum is patience. You can start with as little as five minutes and build up your capacity for patience over time. What you’ll discover is truly amazing. Your intention to be patient, especially if you know it’s only for a short while, immediately strengthens your capacity for patience. Patience is one of those qualities where success feeds on itself. Once you reach little milestone—five minutes of successful patience—you’ll begin to see that you do indeed have the capacity to be patient, even for longer periods of time. Over time, you may even become a patient person.

Being patient will help you to keep your perspective. You will see even a difficult situation, say your present challenge, isn’t “life or death” but simply a minor obstacle that must be dealt with.     4    

One day a professor entered the classroom and told the students about a surprise test. After hearing that, all students     1     (seat) and waited for the test to begin. The professor gave the test papers to all students with the text     2     (face) down at the desk. Once he handed out the test papers to all students, he asked them to turn the test pages and begin.

Students were confused to see there was not a question but just a black dot in the centre of the page. The professor     3     (notice) the students’ face expression and told them, “I want you to write about what you see there.”

The students were even more confused but started the test by then. At the end of the class, the professor     4     (take) all answer sheets and started reading each answer in front of all students. All of them described about the black dot,     5     position they tried to explain. After the professor finished reading, the whole class was silent.

The professor explained, “Don’t worry. I am not going to give you grades but I just want you to think about something. Here     6     focused on the black dot but no one wrote about the white paper, and the same is with our lives. The white paper represents our whole life and the black spot represents problems in our life.     7     our life is a gift given to us by God, with love and care, we have every reason to celebrate. Still we just focus on problems like health issues, problems in relationships etc., but we never see these problems are very small compared with     8     we have in our lives.”   

So there is the moral lesson: we     9     try to take eyes off our problems and enjoy each moment that life     10     (give) us. Be happy and live the life positively.