1 . On a clear afternoon in late October a few years ago, I stood underneath a giant overhanging cliff near my hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The scenery that day was particularly ________, with deer chewing on the brown grasses by the river below, and hawks ________ the wind.

I was tied in, ready to ________. I was attempting to do a tough route for the first time. “Onsight” (首次攀登), as we call it, means I didn’t know where I was climbing to. It would be a hard try for me to onsight such a difficult route. What I need is focus. No ________.

Just as I was about to climb, ________ in my body, which I hadn’t felt yet, woke up and said hello to me. That was a terrible sign for any athlete. Desperate as I felt, I painted a coat of ________ on my inner walls of doubt to ease my tension. I ________ myself at the top, celebrating. “You can do this,” I ________ told myself. “If you believe, success is for sure.”

It didn’t work. ________, I fell near the top. Defeated, I lowered myself to the ground and realized immediately that the too strong desire to climb the route had ________ me from doing it.

My self-worth was closely ________ at that unnatural moment with my success or failure, which ________ a chain of reaction: unnatural desire, pressure, performance anxiety. I had just climbed with a mind fascinated with the top but a body ________ below with irregular and unnatural movement.

I told myself that on my next ________, success or failure didn’t matter. “Just make one move at a time.” I gave myself a pass for whatever would happen. Case closed, it ________. I floated to the top with grace, clarity and ________.

That moment got me thinking, and then researching. At some point, I concluded this experience ________ simple arithmetic (算术): When I ________ (determination, self-confidence, desire), I failed; when I took away (the desire for success); my body moved with greater ________ and I made it. As an athlete of 30 years, I discovered the ________ of subtraction (减法) for the very first time.

2 . When people ask me how I started writing, I find myself describing an urgent need that I felt to work with language. With some _______ from my colleagues, I had one of my poems published. This bit of _______, however, was the point where my problem began.

Back in 1978, I had to _______ between three different campuses in the morning, _______freshman composition. Afternoons I spent _______ my daughter to her ballet and horse-riding lessons. I _______ my lectures on the way, and that was all the thinking time I had. When I returned home, there was not enough of me left for writing after a _______ working day.

As a way out, I decided to get up two hours before my _______ time. My alarm was set for 5:00 A.M. I had to jump out of the _______and run to silence it before my family was ________. This was when my ________ writing began. I wrote my poems in this manner for nearly ten years before my first book was ________published. When I decided to write a novel, I ________my two hours: the first for poetry, the second for ________. Well or badly, I wrote at least two ________ a day. This is how my novel, The Line of the Sun was ________. If I had waited to have the ________, I would still be waiting to write my novel.

What I got out of getting up in the ________ to work is the feeling that I am in control. For many people, the initial sense of urgency to create easily ________ because it requires making the ________ decision: taking the time to create, stealing it from yourself if it’s the only way.

3 . My name is Alice. Early last year, I was _________ by an anxiety that lowered my ability to do anything. My perfectionist tendencies were the main root of this: I wanted to be _________at whatever I did, which_________ in life is not possible, but it consumed me.

One day, I _________ a presentation by wildlife conservationist Grant Brown at my high school. His presentation not only _________ me, but also helped emerge an inner desire to _________ in the world. I joined a pre-presentation dinner with him, which built up my _________ to speak one-on-one with him — an idea that had seemed completely impossible.   

A month later, Brown _________ me to attend the World Youth Wildlife Conference. Looking back, I now see that this would be the first in a series of timely _________ that my old self would have let pass, but that this __________ and more confident Alice enthusiastically seized. Shortly after I __________ his invitation, applications to join the Youth for Nature and the Youth for Planet groups were __________ around through my high school. I decided to commit to completing the __________, and soon I was a part of a growing global team of young people working to protect __________. Each of these new steps continued to grow my __________.

Six months passing, I’ve realized that my __________ obstacle (障碍) this whole time was myself. It was that voice in the back of my head telling me: I can’t. They say __________ things come to those who wait; I say: __________ every opportunity with everything you have and be __________. After all, nature does not require our patience, but our__________.

5 . I come from one of those families where you have to yell at the dinner table to get in a word. Everyone has a strong______, and talks at the same time，and no one has a ______ leading to potentially heated arguments. We often talk or even debate with each other on different topics. ______a family like mine has made me more ______ about the world around me, making me tend to question anything anyone tells me．But it has also made me realize that I’m not a good listener. And when I say “listening”, I’m not______ the nodding-your-head-and-politely-answering-Uh-huh-or-Ooh-I-see variety. I mean the ______of listening where you find yourself deeply______with the person you’re speaking with，when his story becomes so______that your world becomes less about you and more about him. No, I was never very good at that．

I spent summer in South Africa two years ago. I worked for a good non-profit______called Noah，which works______on behalf of orphaned(孤儿)and fragile children______by AIDS. But if you asked me what I really did in South Africa, I’d tell you one thing：I listened，and I listened．Sometimes I______，but mostly I listened．

And had I not spent two months______, I might have missed the______moment when a quiet little girl at one of Noah’s community centers，orphaned at the age of three, whispered after a long______, “I love you.”

______that summer, I knew a little how to hear. I could sit down with anyone and hear their ______and nod and respond at the______time—but most of the time I was_______ about the next words out of my own mouth．Ever since my summer in South Africa，I have noticed that it’s in those moments when my mouth is closed and my______is wide open that I’ve learned the most about other people, and perhaps about myself．

6 . My most extreme case of envy happened at camp this summer with a girl named Megan Martin. We _______ on the first day of archery(射箭) _______. Most of us in my group had completely missed our _______. Except Megan. No matter the activity, Megan was the best. And by best, I _______ beyond the best!

_______ the people who get all braggy(自夸), Megan was modest and _______. So I felt extra terrible the way I did. Then, one day at lunch, Megan sat down next to me. And then she told me a(n) _______ riddle, I laughed heartily. And then we spent a lot of time telling _______. Later I knew we both had five-year old twin brothers. And it wasn’t the only thing we had _______ ! The more we talked, the more I realized how ________ it was that I’d been ________ energy feeling envious when I could have been building a ________.

Megan told me that she ________ she had my creativity in telling stories. That comment ________ me. Hearing that I couldn’t get over how good she was at everything, Megan ________ and suggested we invent a machine that would let people ________ skills for a little while. It was a(n) ________ idea and we spent the rest of lunch ________ the details of the invention.

It’s probably impossible not to feel a tiny bit envious at least once in your life. But try to remember that you have your own ________ unique that makes you special. And I know for a fact that putting more energy into ________ thing like building friendship, and less energy into negatives thing like feeling envious, helps make for happier days all round.

9 . In January 2023, I was commuting (通勤) from Brooklyn to New Jersey. With two little kids and a busy business, a quiet train ride felt like a mini_________ . Yet I found myself spending that _________ time scrolling (浏览) through social media feeds.

One day, I _________my phone and started writing thank-you notes to people who had _________to a money-raiser I had organized. Getting off the train, I was in a noticeably _________ mood. The next day, I wrote more _________ and felt the same. Something _________ . What if I kept it up?

I decided to write one thank-you note for every day. I had no shortage of people I was _________ to. I picked out a different _________ for each month. January was charity. February would be neighbors, and I thought of a dozen names immediately. I remembered when the owners of our __________ bookstore let me and my son, Henry, __________before the store opened and __________to play his favorite soundtrack. I __________when our babysitter dropped off some board games for our __________.

Writing the notes wasn’t that __________: Each was two or three sentences long, taking just a few minutes. I __________ on the person I was writing to and what I wanted to say, and the words came fairly __________ . That focus felt refreshing.

I eventually __________ why this task was the perfect cure to my social feeds. Scrolling through Instagram, I was admiring others’ __________ . However, writing thank-you notes was an act of __________and honoring my own life.

10 . I walked into a restaurant and ordered some food. After 20 minutes a group of guys came in and ordered theirs.

To my _________, these folks got served first. I watched as they began to eat and laugh _________. I even overheard one of them bragging (吹嘘) about how he was _________ to everyone in the restaurant and I felt _________. Unable to stand it anymore, I called the _________.

He explained to me, “Yours is a special order, being prepared by the _________ chefs themselves. Their orders were _________ prepared by students on assignment; please have some juice as you wait.”

I _________ and waited. Shortly after that, my meal was served by six chefs. Unknown to me, the owner of the restaurant, who _________ to be an old long lost friend of mine, __________ me when I entered and decided to __________ me. She changed my simple meal to a five‐star meal. The group at the other __________ were shocked. They couldn’t stop __________. Suddenly they were the ones __________, asking why they didn’t get that kind of __________ and meal.

Such is life! Some people are __________ you, eating and laughing at you. You __________ mockery (嘲笑) and are waiting __________, wondering why it takes so long to break through. The owner of the world has seen you and doesn’t want you to be served a quick meal like those __________ of you. You are waiting long because yours is a(n) __________ meal, which costs time to prepare.