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. Nannette O’Neill gave math ________ to our class. When the papers were marked, 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 no questions, and she did not scold(责备)us either. Instead, she wrote on the blackboard the ________ 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(度量，衡量)ourselves rather than others.

_____ of us are asked to made great decisions about nations going to war or armies going to battle. But all of us are called upon(要求，号召)daily to make a great many personal ________. ________ the wallet, which was 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.

Have you ever watched an artist paint a picture? He or she works close to the canvas (油画布) ______ small sections at a time in the process of completing the whole painting.

But every once in a while,   the ______ must step back from his/her work and look at the whole picture. Only by stepping away from what they’re working on can they ______ the proper perspective(视角). The proper point of view is ______ to the end result.

It’s no difference for any other creation.______ it’s a business,   a project or your life,   you need to step back ______ in order to get it right. From a ______，you can see things you can’t see when you’re close. The difference is in working on your project ______ working in it. It’s all too easy to focus on something but ______ the important parts needed to create a satisfying result.

Stephen Covey calls it “______ the saw(锯)”. It would be ______ to keep sawing without stopping from time to time to make your ______ sharper. But unfortunately,   that’s what too many of us ______.

Just like music,   we need spaces ______ the notes in order to create the lovely melody. A continuous collection of notes with no spaces is not good—it’s ______.

You may need to take a vacation to ______ work or study. At other times,   it's better to take a course or attend a meeting to ______ some new ideas. Sometimes,   it may be better to take a complete break,   to go away and just do something totally ______ —take on a volunteer project, build a house for Habitat for Humanity or some other worthy causes.

The important thing is to take the breaks. Without them,   we are not ______ and we don’t enjoy our work or our life as much. Our pressure ______ and both our work and our health suffer.

One day, my 12-year-old daughter participated in a school poetry reading event. All her classmates were invited to write a “lie poem” about how _______ they were and read them aloud. They were supposed to _______ untruths about themselves that made them sound _______ wonderful. As I listened to the poems, I realized that the children were actually _______ the picture of their future. By “lying” to themselves, they were creating a _______ of who they wanted to be in the future.

I couldn’t help admiring the school for _______ the children to dream big in such a special way, even if it might not be the first intention. In fact, most of us are _______ to see the truth of who we could be. My daughter’s school developed an unintended _______ to that difficulty: If it’s hard for you to imagine the _______   in yourself, then you might want to begin by expressing it as a __________ , as did the children who wrote the poems.

Think up some stories about who you would like to be. In due course, this __________ exercise would help you build the necessary blueprint for __________ your achievements. Without a picture of your __________ self, you can’t live into that self. So __________ it till you make it. The lie will become the __________ in the end.