In 1982 Steven Callahan was crossing the Atlantic alone in his sailboat when it struck something and sank. He was out of the shipping lanes and floating in a life raft,________. His supplies were few. His________were small. Yet when three fishermen found him seventy-six days later, he was much skinnier than he was when he_______ , but alive.

The thing that________my eye was how he managed to keep himself going when all hope seemed lost, when there seemed no________in continuing the struggle, when he was suffering greatly, when his lifeboat was broken with a hole and after more than a week struggling with his weak body to_______ it, it was still leaking water. He was________and thoroughly exhausted.________would have seemed the only wise choice.

When people survive these kinds of circumstances, they do something with their________that gives them the courage to keep going. Many people in _______desperate circumstances give in or go mad. Something the survivors do with their thoughts helps them find the________to carry on.

“I tell myself I can________it,” wrote Callahan in his account. “Compared to what others have gone________, I’m fortunate. I tell myself these things over and over,________my determination to keep going.”

I wrote that down after I read it. It________me as something important. And I’ve told myself the same thing when my own goals seemed________off. And every time I say it, I always come back to my________.

So here, coming to us from the extreme edge of________are wards that can give us strength.________you’re going through, tell yourself you can handle it. Tell this to yourself over and over, and it will help you get through the________spots with a little more determination.

A man, a woman and a child are telling a tree their troubles.

“How can I do what others say,” asked the child, “and _______ be me?” The tree said, “I _______ in the wind, move downwards in the rain, yet I always _______ myself, a tree.”

The man said, “I can’t _______ my life.” “Look at me,” said the tree. “I change every _______ from green to brown to green again, from shoots to flowers to _______ leaves. Yet I always remain myself, a tree.”

“I can’t love any more,” said the woman. “With my love, I have _______ all that I have.” “Look at me,” said the tree. “There are birds in my _______, moss (苔藓) and ladybugs _______ on my bark (树皮). They may take what I ________, but not what I am.”

Whether we know it or not, we are like the tree. Only our pride hangs on to a ________ sense of self, wanting to keep everything, refusing to ________ advice or spiritual direction.

What we do doesn’t matter; how we do it is what ________. Change and growth is as ________ as the sun coming up every morning and sinking every night.________ what is inside you and listen to what your ________ tells you. Why not just for today,________ once more to a place that exists outside yourself without your own or others’________?

We can easily ________ a child who is afraid of the dark; but the real tragedy (悲剧) of life is that men are afraid of the ________.