Jerry is a popular manager of a restaurant. The reason why the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator(鼓舞人心者). If a(n)【小题1】 was having a bad day, Jerry was always there, telling him how to look on the bright side of the situation.

This attitude really made me   【小题2】 , so one day I asked him, “I don’t get it! No one can be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it? ”

“Each time something bad happens, I can choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I always accept their complaining and point out the 【小题3】 side of life,” Jerry replied.

Several years later, I heard that one day Jerry left the back door of his restaurant【小题4】 and was robbed by three armed men. While trying to open the   【小题5】 , his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination(密码). The robbers panicked and shot him.

Luckily, Jerry was found quickly and rushed to hospital. After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry   【小题6】 with fragments(碎片)of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. I did ask him what had gone through his mind as the【小题7】 took place. “Weren’t you scared? Did you lose consciousness?” I asked.

“No,” Jerry said. “But when I saw the 【小题8】 on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, ‘He is a dead man.’ ”

“A nurse asked if I was allergic(过敏的) to anything,” Jerry continued. “ ‘Yes,’ I 【小题9】. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my answer. I took a deep breath and yelled, ‘Bullets! ‘ Over their laughter, I told them, ‘Please operate on me as if I am alive, not dead.’ ”

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his   【小题10】 attitude. Attitude, after all, is everything.

The mission for explorers, BØrge Ousland, a Norwegian, and Mike Horn, a South African-born Swiss, was to navigate their way across the 600 miles to the South Pole【小题1】—no dogsleds or airdrops of equipment, no food or fuel along the way. When, in 2006, the two men finally reached their destination, Cape Arkticheskiy in Siberia, in the pitch dark of polar winter, they were utterly【小题2】, had frostbite(冻疮), but were still in one piece. What they had accomplished stands as one of the most daring polar expeditions in recent memory: setting out in total darkness and 【小题3】physically and mentally. That had been the essence of the trip. Reaching the pole was necessary, but almost irrelevant conclusion.

Why would they have put themselves in this position? This was, actually, exactly what they had wanted. Both men had been adventuring since boyhood, taking【小题4】high calculated risks. At some point, they left their comfort zones and never went back. For them, going to extremes that may seem insane was actually a logical progression. They discovered that they could earn a living—writing books, taking pictures, making films, and presenting【小题5】speeches. Now, they have sponsors: outdoor gear manufacturers, construction outfits, an adventure travel agency, a watch company. Extreme adventure is their【小题6】.

Some people say that the two men have a death wish, but this just seems to【小题7】Mike and BØrge. They will tell you that it isn’t a desire to be closer to death that attracts them; it’s a desire to be closer to life. They’ve been to the mountaintop. They know that willpower can be built, and that ordinary people, like themselves, have abilities【小题8】their wildest dreams. They’re just the ones who are out there, searching the wilderness on behalf of the rest of us. They aren’t marking dots on a【小题9】map anymore. That was accomplished long ago. What they are doing now is exploring the inner map, the mental and emotional map. What will they learn about themselves from being in a position where nothing【小题10】except staying alive? What, exactly, is the human being capable of? This is what drives them.

Have you ever looked at someone else’s life with envy，just enough envy that you wish for a moment or two (or longer) that you could be them? Are there moments when, if the opportunity to be them were on 【小题1】, you might be tempted by it?

Would we really want this? And what might we learn about ourselves or how we see our lives if we 【小题2】 considered it? To be sure, there are 【小题3】 here. If you had someone else’s life, who would raise your children or love your spouse or take care of your parents in their old age?

In fact, if you were someone else your own children would not have come into existence in the first place. That’s not a happy thought. To 【小题4】 this, perhaps the best way to cast this is in terms of a trade: If you had their life then they would have yours, and live it exactly as you would have. Your responsibilities would be 【小题5】, so there would be nothing to feel guilty about.

If we think of it this way, then the question of wanting to be someone else is a question of what we might call experience: Is there anybody else whose experience of life you would prefer, 【小题6】   everything else would be equal? One 【小题7】 concern about wanting someone else’s experience is that my desire to be someone else is grounded in values and desires that 1 have, and so I have to be me in order to want to be him. However, it’s not clear that that presents any real obstacle to such a desire. The fact is that there would be at least enough overlap (重叠)with them that they are exemplifying my values and desires but have a better experience than I do. So I can still prefer to be them.

I think that, on reflection, most of us would not want to 【小题8】 with another person, no matter how successful or tempting their lives seem. To see why, though, we’ll need to 【小题9】 our angle of vision. We will have to look at our own experiences rather than at theirs, or perhaps look at our experiences first. What would I be willing to give up to be another? My relationships with everyone — children, spouse, friends —and my whole history. I wouldn’t have 【小题10】 it. My loss would be that of the whole of my own experience.