Throughout my childhood, I felt the need to be in control. However, the need came to a sudden _________ during my trip to Puerto Rico in June 2015. On this trip, the _________ of travel and soccer taught me that freedom doesn’t come from being in control but rather from fully _________ in my surroundings.

I stood on the hotel balcony in Old San Juan, _________ the long street that led to the ocean. _________ in Spanish from the street market far below reminded me of how _________ this place was from my home. I decided it was time to _________.

I’d been taking Spanish for six years, but as I stepped onto the _________ of Old San Juan, I was too _________ to put more than two Spanish words together. I went past the street vendors, kicking my soccer ball gently as I walked, and ____________ near one of Puerto Rico’s famous castles. A group of Puerto Rican boys stood in a circle ____________ a small, flat soccer ball. Making eye contact with one of the boys, I passed my ball over and ____________ them. As we played, I gradually began to feel the sense of clarity and flow that I’d been ____________ to achieve during my entire childhood. I let go, feeling comfortable enough as a(n) ____________ between us went beyond both cultural and language barriers.

My ____________ need for control had come from growing up with strict parents, coaches and expectations from my school and community. I ____________ for control wherever I could get it. I overthought every move in soccer games, which made me less creative and ____________ the team consequently.

This experience made me ____________ my struggle for control was ____________ me. I learned that when I open myself up to others, I am free to earn this rare state of ____________ in which I can freely express myself.

Since finishing my studies at Harvard and Oxford, I’ve watched one friend after another land high-ranking, high-paying Wall Street jobs. As executives with banks, consulting firms, established law firms, and major corporations, many are now ______ on their way to impressive careers. By society’s standards, they seem to have it made.

On the surface, these people seem to be very lucky in life. As they left student life behind, many had a ______ drink at their cheap but friendly local bar, shook hands with longtime roommates, and moved out of small apartments into high buildings. They made reservations at restaurants where the cost of a bottle of wine ______ a college year’s monthly rent. They replaced their beloved old cars with expensive new sports cars.

The thing is, a number of them have ______ that despite their success, they aren’t happy. Some ______ of unfriendly coworkers and feel sad for eight-hour workweeks devoted to tasks they hated. Some do not respect the companies they work for and talk of feeling tired and ______ . However, instead of devoting themselves to their work, they find themselves working to support the lifestyle to which they have so quickly become ______ .

People often speak of trying a more satisfying path, ______ in the end the idea of leaving their jobs to work for something they ______ or finding a position that would give them more time with their families almost always leads them to the same conclusion: it’s ______ . They have loans, bills, a mortgage to ______ , retirement to save for. Eventually, they recognize there’s something ______ in their lives, but it’s hard for them to give up the path.

In a society that tends to ______ everything in terms of dollars and cents, we learn from a young age to consider the costs of our ______ in financial terms. But what about the personal and social costs? When we get ______ in pursuing money over meaning. These are exactly the kinds of costs many of us tend to ignore-and the very ones we need to consider most.

The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out. -Thomas Macaulay

Some thirty years ago, I was studying in a public school in New York. One day, Mrs Nanette O’Neill gave an arithmetic test to our class. When the papers were_______she discovered that twelve boys had made exactly the _______ mistakes throughout the test.

There is nothing really new about _______in exams. Perhaps that was why Mrs O’Neill didn’t even say a word about it. She only asked the twelve boys to _______ after class. I was one of the twelve.

Mrs O’Neill asked _______ questions, and she didn’t _______ us either. Instead, she wrote on the blackboard the above words by Thomas Macaulay. She then ordered us to _______ these words into our exercise-books one hundred times.

I don’t _______ about the other eleven boys. Speaking for _______,I can say: it was the most important single ________ of my life. Thirty years after being ________ to Macaulay’s words, they ________ seem to me the best yardstick(准绳), because they give us a ________ to measure ourselves rather than others.

________ of us are asked to make ________decisions about nations going to war or armies going to battle. But all of us are called on daily to make a great many personal decisions. Should the wallet, found in the street, be put into a pocket ________turned over to the policeman? Should the ________ change received at the store be forgotten or ________? Nobody will know except ________. But you have to live with yourself, and it is always ________ to live with someone you respect.