He’s an old cobbler (修鞋匠) with a shop in Paris. When I took him my shoes, he at first told me: “I have no _______. Take them to the other fellow on the main street; he’ll _______ them for you right away.”

But I’d had my _______ on his shop for a long time, and knew he was a (an) _______ craftsman (手艺人). “No,” I _______, “the other fellow can’t do it well.”

“The other fellow” was one of those _______ who fix shoes “while-U-wait” — without _______much about mending shoes.

My man saw I wouldn’t _______, and he smiled. He looked at my shoes, had me write my name on one _______ with a piece of chalk and said, “________ in a week.”

I was about to leave ________ he took a pair of soft leather boots off a shelf.

“See what I can do?” he said with ________. “In Paris, only three of us can do this kind of ________.”

When I got back out into the street, the world seemed ________ to me. He was something ________an ancient legend (传说), this old craftsman with his way of speaking familiarly, his very strange hat, his funny accent from who-knows-where and, ________, his pride in his craft.

These are times when you can do things any old way as long as it “________”, when, in short, most people merely look on work as a ________ to make money rather than a way to realize their own ________. In such a period it is a rare comfort to find a cobbler who gets his greatest ________ from pride in a job well done.

When I entered Berkeley, I hoped to earn a scholarship (奖学金). Having been a straight-A __________, I believed I could take difficult subjects and really __________ something. One such __________ was World Literature run by Professor Jayne. I was greatly interested in the ideas he __________ in class.

A friend of mine recently said something nice to me.

“Those sunglasses just don’t _________ you,” she told me.

What was nice wasn’t the _________into my sunglasses, but my friend’s honesty. She wasn’t being _________. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. She really wanted what was best for me, and so she _________causing offense to tell me what I needed to hear.

It is rare, this kind of honesty. And it’s getting rarer.

We live in an age when social media is changing our _________communications. We post highly considered status updates on Facebook. We “like” the pictures of people we may not like _________, and leave comments on other people’s posts that are _________ and meaningless.

We are _________how to be real with each other.

We chat with a (an) _________ who has lipstick on her teeth and we pretend not to notice. We see our friend wearing an awful outfit and reassure her it’s fine. We ignore phone calls, or pretend to be busy, __________telling someone we don’t want to see them. And when we get our feelings hurt, we __________it down, because it’s far less difficult than facing the person who hurts us.

And we also refrain (避免) from being honest about ourselves when we are with friends. Sure, we might write about our emotional problems later, once the __________ is over.

We don’t talk about these problems __________ we’re deep in them, because they’re scary and make us weak. We keep the facade (假象) up and the smiles wide and the Instagram photos nice. And then when things __________-when we end up in hospital, or unemployed-our friends are shocked, because they didn’t see it coming.

We didn’t let them see it coming.

Honesty is difficult, but without it, we can’t connect with each other.

Start small. Let someone know if they have lipstick on their teeth. Tell your friend that no, the outfit isn’t the best, maybe consider something else. Tell your friend __________ that you won’t be at her party, but you wish her all the best. Let your loved ones know when they’ve hurt you, and be prepared to hear the same from them. Be a little more real on social media, for your sake as much as for everyone else’s.