1 . Right now I’m the age my parents were when they had the third baby. Unlike them, I don’t have any kids to feed, I don’t have a mortgage to pay, and luckily I have a higher income. In an outsider’s opinion, I should be very_________, but in fact I’m not. Here’s why.

Money is always a_________ thing. You think that by having it you’ll be happy.

Once you start making some and_________ it’s not making you happy, you think maybe it’s because you don’t have enough. So you exchange your_________ for money, sometimes working at a job you don’t even like to make more_________. As time goes on, you realize you’ve been spending more and more time at_________.You fail to keep a(n) _________ between work and family. Friends wonder why you don’t_________ them anymore. As you get a higher position, you feel more_________ than you did before. You find you don’t __________ so well anymore. As a result, your health begins to fail. Also, the cost of keeping up with a higher quality of life is starting to__________ and you’re not making as much as you__________ you would be. At the same time, you are worried about__________ the few friends you have because you’re earning more money than they are. Workmates think you earn very much and that you must be happy. If only that were__________.

Only you can__________ your happiness; money can’t buy that for you.

4 . I teach economics at UNLV three times per week. Last Monday，at the beginning of class, I cheerfully asked my students how their _________ had been. One young man said that his weekend had not been so good. He had his wisdom teeth _________. The young man then proceeded to ask me why I always seemed to be so _________.

His question _________ me of something I’d read somewhere before: “Every morning when you get up, you have a choice about how you want to _________ life that day.” I said, “I choose to be cheerful.”

“Let me give you an example,” I continued, addressing all sixty students in the class. “In addition to teaching here at UNLV, I also teach out at the community college in Henderson, 17 miles down the _________ from where I live. One day a few weeks ago, I drove those 17 miles to Henderson. I exited the freeway and turned onto College Drive. I only had to drive _________ quarter mile down the road to the college. But just then my car died. I tried to start it again, but the engine wouldn’t _________. So I put my flashers on, _________ my books, and marched down the road to the college.

“As soon as I got there I called AAA and arranged for a tow truck to meet me at my car after class. The __________ in the Provost’s office asked me what had happened. “This is my lucky day,” I smiled. She was puzzled.

“My car broke down in the perfect place: off the freeway, within walking distance of here. If my car was __________ to break down today, it couldn’t have been arranged in a more __________ fashion,” I added. The secretary’s eyes opened wide, and then she smiled. I smiled back and __________ for class. So ended my story.

I scanned the sixty faces in my economics class at UNLV. Despite the early hour, no one seemed to be __________. Somehow, my story had touched them. Or maybe it wasn’t the story at all. In fact, it had all started with a student’s __________ that I was cheerful.