3 . “Medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits, and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. ” This is dedicated to my first-year self four years ago, who was addicted to getting good grades, and failed to seek the happiness found in everything else that college has to offer.

Like some people, I grew up with a family that valued academics over all else, who gave you a little extra love when you were doing great in your classes, and took it away when you didn’t. As a result, my self-worth became tied to my academic success. As an international student, I sometimes felt our parents didn’t quite understand the heavy academic weight.

There is a difference between trying to always better yourself for yourself, and simply putting too much on your plate until you burn out from attempting to live up to certain expectations. We should all strive to do the former, but unfortunately our mindsets have been always wired to follow the latter.

I used to believe school killed the creative spirit inside all of us, but as I get older and further into my academic career, I find that it is we who make the choice to kill that creative spirit. I am definitely not saying that you should throw your GPA out of the window and go painting all day. However, we should all try to develop a long-sighted perspective on how we want to shape our lives. Take some classes on topics that you’re genuinely interested in learning about, not just passing. Join clubs or work on projects that resonate with you and push you beyond your boundaries. And most of all, accept the fact that failure and loss are sometimes inevitable in life.

I promise you, when you look back at these four years, you will not remember the good grades or the bad grades, but you will hold in your memory the connections you made with people, the things that inspired you to create and the times you learned something special. And so I ask you now, what do you want to get out of college?

6 . When my son first began competing in school chess tournaments, I often chatted with other parents. Occasionally, I would ask if they played chess themselves. Normally, the reply was no. When I volunteered that I was learning to play, their tone was cheerfully joking, “Good luck with that!”If this game is so good, why are adults ignoring it? Seeing someone playing smart phone games, I preferred to say, “Why are you having your kids do chess while you play?”

Sure, we parents had work to do, work that helped pay for the lessons our kids were enjoying. But I was also wondering if we were sending an unnoticeable message that learning was for the young. During one tournament, I saw a group of parents playing chess! Just then, a group of kids passed me “Why are adults learning chess?” One asked, in an apparently joking tone.

I was tired of sitting on the sidelines. I wanted in, and that is why I got a membership card and started throwing myself in.“Early on,I was nervous, even the master can sometimes play badly, ” as one Grandmaster put it “a fan never” . And a fan I was. It was three hours of concentration and thinking with my phone off. It felt like a gym where I was trained to solve problems with focus, memory, logic, and occasional headaches. And of course hours of absence of digital devices would never be no good for thinking sharply.

Being a beginner can be hard at any age, but it gets harder when you are older. The phrase “adult beginner”has an fairly gentle pity. It implies the learning of something that you should have perhaps already leaned.

7 . On a freezing January evening, Ashley Austrew sat in her car in parking lot, working up the courage to go into a comedy improv (喜剧即兴表演) class. For 20 minutes, the 33-year-old journalist and mom of two sat with thoughts of _________, “OMG, I can’t do this. I’ll be the _________ one.” Then she turned off the _________, took a few deep breaths, and went inside.

For Austrew, trying improv was the first small step to _________ her self-esteem. “All my life, I’ve _________confidence,” she says. “I didn’t have the _________ to try anything new.” So she made a list of all the things she was afraid to attempt and then asked herself, “What if I didn’t let my excuses win?” Improv was her biggest target.

Her fear disappeared as soon as she _________ the class. Her classmates were also _________, and she discovered that she was perfectly capable of earning a few laughs and making new friends. Over the next two years, Austrew went on to _________ with other what-ifs, including writing a book. “Self-esteem is like a muscle — you have to work it __________,” she says.

Some people are blessed with a seemingly unshakable positivity, but most of us need to __________ how to pull ourselves up with our own efforts. Psychologists say we tend to experience our __________ self-esteem in adolescence and spend much of our adult lives slowly building it up. Staying __________ has been tough in the past few years since the pandemic. __________, like Austrew, we can learn to feel better about ourselves and __________ our feelings of hope. Thus, we should try our best to improve our relationship with the person in the mirror.

8 . One day, my uncle brought home a parrot. My cousin and I called it Mitthu. My family were so _________ strongly that they trimmed (剪掉) its wings. They said if it left home, it wouldn’t _________ outside without us.

As time went by, we grew and so did Mitthu. Its wings grew quite a lot. Mitthu wasn’t kept in a cage. I sometimes wondered why it didn’t _________. Maybe it was quite attached to us and didn’t want to leave us, or it didn’t want to leave the luxurious life and _________ the harsh reality of life.

As I grew older, I _________ that Mitthu’s life wasn’t very different from mine. I was pampered(溺爱) and _________ carefully. I was prohibited from really _________ the outside world. My house became my whole world, which was like an invisible _________ that had bound my spirit.

Now I’m sent out to study and told that I have the whole sky to fly, but _________, just as Mitthu, I am not able to do so. Mitthu and I might be two different beings but we are __________ in a similar situation. I am afraid of flying. I am afraid my behavior might hurt my parents’ feelings. These emotions and __________ will never really allow us to fly independently!

It’s good for parents to love and __________ their children, but, sometimes, over-protectiveness from parents might harm their children’s future and __________ children’s decisions. True __________ is to allow kids to grow freely and let them try __________ things. Thus, they will be brimming with confidence and courage.

9 . Laurie Horam never thought of himself as musical. At home, his dad never listened to music, while one of his boarding school teachers labelled him tone-deaf. But last month he started to play the harmonica (口琴) on the streets of Bradford. People clapped, danced and threw coins into his case for the local food bank.

Eight years ago, Horam, a retired civil servant, was on his way back from a trip with his family. Gavin, one of his sons who cover a range of instruments, stopped at a music shop. He walked out and said: “Here you are. I bought this for you, Dad. We must have got our musical abilities from you. It’s a harmonica. I’ll try to show you how to play a bit.” Horam was surprised and confused.

They went to their local pub. Gavin played the guitar and Horam sat in the corner with his harmonica, trying to make a sound that no one would hear. After six months, he was invited into the group. He discovered a talent for improvisation (即兴表演) , responding to a note within a millisecond without batting an eyelid. “I don’ t play by ear. I play by heart.” Actually, Horam says, “My harmonica plays me — how I feel what I am, and what I’ve been.”

Music has enriched life with friendship and made Horam feel “part of something much bigger” than himself. “At a time when the circle of life might be shrinking, mine is expanding,” he says. “Maybe we never know completely who we are or what we can do.”

10 . My brother and I were driving home together and we were deep in conversation. Because of his _________, my brother took a wrong turn, taking us towards a _________ and we had no way to turn back. _________, my brother paid the bridge fee and drove on. He was clearly frustrated by the mistake and the _________ waste of $4.

We eventually reached an exit slipway and, as we took it, my brother _________ a beat-up black car parked by the side of the road. A young guy was standing nearby _________ someone. I was busy trying to figure out which _________ we went next but my brother _________ and asked the guy if he needed any help. And he did. He had a(n) _________ tire and needed a tool to get it off. My brother gave it to him, then proceeded to help him __________ the tire. After we had finished the job he thanked us again and again, pulled out $20 and tried to give it to us. “No,” my brother said. “We were never __________ to even get on that bridge. We took a __________ turn. But now we know why we did. It was to help you. Thank you for turning our mistake into a(n) __________ to serve.”

What I loved most was watching my brother throughout this __________. He was able to see a chance to help even in an otherwise __________ situation, which can only come from a calm mind and an open heart.