1 . At the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comǎneci made history. She performed a routine ______ on the uneven bars (高低杠), scoring a perfect 10. She pursued perfection in her practice, which led to remarkable ______ in the game.

Perfectionism is generally appreciated as a good quality. Therefore, it’s not ______ that perfectionism in society has been on the rise for years. And it is more common in certain ______ like top athletes and medical specialists. Perfectionism can be seen as a behavioral ______. Perfectionists usually set extremely high standards for themselves and others. According to researchers, such behavior is rooted in insecurity. Many perfectionists ______ that if they don’t pay enough attention to ______, it will hurt their performance. So they ______ their perfectionism even when it’s self-defeating.

Aiming for a high degree of success isn’t necessarily ______ as long as you behave reasonably. People with adaptive perfectionism work hard to meet ambitious goals, but are also able to ______ mistakes, changes, and problems that they didn’t anticipate. When encountering barriers, they stay flexible.

Maladaptive perfectionism, which involves an intense ______ for others’ approval, and a high level of concern over mistakes, is unhealthy. It tends to ______ individual confidence and affects relationships and overall well-being. To overcome it, it’s crucial to ______ your mindset. Start by being ______ and gaining a broader perspective. Give yourself permission to loosen up a bit on certain matters, enabling you to ______ what truly matters. Transformation can be challenging, but it is indeed attainable.

2 . In one of my teaching experiences, a colleague invited me to talk to his undergraduate class about being a clinical psychologist. Afterward, a line of students stopped me before I could go out. They didn’t have questions about the lecture.     1     The students’ enthusiasm showed the anxiety about navigating (找到正确方法) opportunity-seeking.

    2     We encourage people to earn a college degree. We cheer on people who seek raises. However, emotional difficulties in opportunity-seeking and -taking can lead to our feeling stuck in the process. Because you can’t control how an opportunity will pan out, making your self-worth contingent (依情况而定的) on it creates a ground for anxiety and fear.

There are two ways that people try to deal with these feelings: avoiding opportunities and seeking them excessively. Opportunity-avoiders are too hesitant to follow through with pursuing opportunities. Since they are afraid of failure, they avoid having a try at the opportunity.     3     They might also turn down opportunities that come their way because they don’t feel confident enough to pursue them.

Compulsive (难控制的) opportunity-seekers get excited by the idea of an opportunity itself rather than identifying what the opportunity will mean for their quality of life. They find it painful to pass up opportunities even when they don’t have time for them and might say “yes” to thankless tasks.     4    

These two ways are well-intentioned but they are also self-defeating. The healthiest way to go about opportunity-seeking and -taking is building self-awareness.     5     Additionally, have a sense of what you want, which will help you choose opportunities more purposely and carefully.

4 . We all lie. Although we’ve been taught that lying is wrong, everyone has lied at some point in their lives.    1    

Consider this situation: Your grandmother sends you a sweater for your birthday.You hate the color, but thank her anyway, and promise to wear it often.Or imagine you go to a friend’s birthday party.    2    If she asks you if you enjoyed your meal, you don’t want to offend (冒犯) her, so you say, “Yes, it was great.” We call these lies “white lies”—harmless and small lies.    3    

However, are there situations where lying is necessary? Imagine this: You have been late for school several days for a   week. Your teacher has told you that if you’re late again you’ll be suspended (暂时停学).     4    Your only hope of not   being suspended is to lie and say that your bus broke down on the way to school. Would you lie, or tell the truth and receive the punishment? Now, imagine something more serious: You’re walking in a street and a frantic (慌乱不安的) young man runs by you and hides in a corner. Seconds later, an angry-looking person comes in asking if you’ve seen a young man run past. What would you do? If you tell the truth, the young man may get hurt.    5    

So the question remains: Is it OK to lie or not?

6 . The world is experiencing a major health crisis. As the new coronavirus spreads, many countries are limiting their citizens’ activities. Travel has been ________ . Many schools are closed. In major cities around the world, restaurants and other businesses are shut down.

Public emergencies ________ a certain type of person—the panic shopper. Some people fear not being able to find basic needs for survival. ________ , they buy everything off supermarket shelves in preparation for the days to come. Bread is often among the first products to disappear in emergency situations.

So, if you have never made bread, now may be a good time to learn. Bread making is a ________ skill. With very few simple things—such as flour, salt and yeast—you can ________ a fresh loaf of bread for your family, neighbours or coworkers.

Baking is not just a useful survival skill. It can make you feel better at ________ times. ________ , baking and cooking have been used to treat people with mental health issues.

Julie Ohana is a(n) ________ worker. She offers what she calls culinary therapy to her patients in New York City. “I say’ therapy’ because to me cooking is so therapeutic. And ‘therapeutic’ really means something that makes you feel ________ , something that is helpful and beneficial to the person doing it.” Julie Ohana uses culinary therapy to help people overcome many kinds of issues. She explains that culinary therapy ________ on many levels.

Baking requires mindfulness. “So when you’re in the kitchen —whether you’re cooking or you’re baking—it really requires a certain level of mindfulness, of being ________ in the moment. Specifically, when you’ re baking. And baking really requires step-by-step, following a ________ , being more precise. Kneading the dough or rolling something out, you really get the full benefit of being present in the moment and being able to relax and ________ all the other thoughts and just focus on the here-and-now. And there really are very strong benefits of being able to do that, to be able to relax, to decompress, destress, and really ________ one’s level of life satisfaction.”

Baking is a labour of love. Ohana also says baking is a process filled with love. It not only makes you feel good, it produces something tangible—something you can touch and eat!

Baking is emotional. Often our food experiences are ________ to family memories and stories. We remember meals our grandmothers made. We teach our children important recipes for family favourites.

Ohana says something that all bakers know—giving delicious, baked goods makes the giver feel as good as the receiver. So, she calls baking a win-win.

8 . Self—acceptance leads to happiness

Finding acceptance is a natural desire of most people. When we are young, it is important to us to be_________by a group and to be seen as “cool” by our peers. To do this, we will often adopt the views and interests of the group_________develop our own.

Over time, _________, we have the opportunity to learn to accept ourselves. People who have done this are confident in their true abilities; they do not feel the need to create a facade(虚假的外表) to_________other people. They are concerned with whether their actions produce_________results rather than with how they are seen by others.

Less secure people are quite different. Instead of finding security in themselves, they look for other people to provide it. This kind of person_________agrees with everything others suggest, for fear of having their own ideas_________. Arrogant or defensive people are also usually insecure; in an attempt to hide their_________, they belittle or blame others.

Secure people do not_________when faced with a difficult situation; they say “I can” rather than “I can’t”. Knowing that each day is an opportunity to use their talents to acquire good health, good friendships, and great happiness, they always put their best foot forward. __________people do not judge others, nor do they judge themselves. They can__________ the differences between themselves and other people.

Recognizing the details that we cannot change about ourselves is also a sign of personal__________. We cannot change our height, so why waste energy complaining about being__________? Our energy would be better spent on more constructive projects. Instead of__________personal characteristics we are not satisfied with, we ought to focus more on what we are good at.

Such expressions as “love thyself” and “to thine own self be true” are about self-acceptance and confidence, as well as honesty and morality. We should consider them to be good advice, and treat them as__________showing the way to happiness within.

9 . There are a few personal qualities we can all develop to bring more success into our lives. They come from small changes we make throughout our lives, one step and one day at a time.     1    

· Patience. This is probably one of the most difficult of the personal qualities to develop.     2     To achieve true success and happiness in your life, you need to cultivate (培养) patience. Only through patience will you gain the clarity ( 清晰的思维能力) required to overcome the problems that you face in life.

· Courage. Far too often I see people fail to reach their potential ( 潜力) because they’re afraid. They aren’t afraid of growth, but they’re afraid of taking risks.     3     So stop fearing what could go wrong and begin focusing on what could go right.

· Self-confidence. You need to believe that you have what it takes to achieve your goals.     4     It truly is that simple. To be successful, you first need to have belief in your abilities. If you don’t, you may not take action to move forward or improve yourself fully.

· Integrity ( 正直). Integrity is super important.     5     Practice this quality daily. The best way to cultivate integrity in your life is by being honest, and open in everything that you do.

10 . What a comedian can teach you about managing stress

We often accept stress as part of the cost of modern life, but it really doesn’t have to be. We all know that laughter is the best medicine.     1     People who can laugh at their own misfortunes bounce back faster and stronger. Here is what a comedian says about coping with stress.

You can try to find a different perspective.     2     Once a friend of mine fell asleep in the middle of a class. His teacher decided to make fun of him by inviting students to applaud, wondering whether my friend would applaud along when he woke up. He did and the whole class burst outlaughing. After learning everything, he was both embarrassed and ashamed of course but after a while, my friend laughed. “If this had happened to someone else, it would have been amusing. So it’s no less funny, just because it happened to me. “

    3     There’s no doubt that we all experience great stress now and then. We’ve all been personally affected, in some way. You might not have felt like laughing at the time But now, looking back, you could consider all of the strange aspects of the experience and all of the things you did to keep active or simply stay sane (神志正常的) .

When you share stories with your friends, you can choose to share stories of trauma (创伤) and pain, or you can choose to lift their spirits with stories of hope and growth.     4     Take the exact same story and change the focus from “feel sorry for me” to “laugh with me”. Keep in mind that we’re all in this together, that we all share the same ridiculous experiences, and that we can laugh together at whatever life throws at us.     5