When I was in middle school, I had a classmate named Alice. She liked to tell me my shortcomings (缺点).

One day, Alice said to me,“You are too short and too proud!” Hearing this, I felt very sad and _______. I ran home to tell my father _______ it, with tears in my eyes. My father said nothing. He just _______ me carefully. Then he said to me, “Are all the shortcomings Alice has told you true? You can write them down and check whether they are true or not.” After _______ them down, I was surprised to find that about half of the things were true. For some of the things, I couldn’t change them. But for many of the things, I could _______ them. For the first time, I knew about _______ better than before.

Later, I showed my father what I had written down, _______ he didn’t read it. “That’s just for you,” my _______ said. “You know about yourself _______ than any other person. If something that is said about you is true, you’ll find it useful. Listen to others patiently, but hear the truth only.”

My father’s advice came to my mind at many important moments. It is the best ________ that I have ever had in my life.

Being good at something and having a passion for it are not enough. Success __ fundamentally on our view of ourselves and of the___ in our lives.

When twelve-year-old John Wilson walked into his chemistry class on a rainy day in 1931, he had no way of knowing that his life was to change completely. The class experiment that day was to___ how heating a container of water would bring air bubbling(冒泡)to the surface.____, the container the teacher gave Wilson to heat __ held something more volatile(易挥发的)than water. When Wilson heated it, the container___ , leaving Wilson blinded in both eyes.

When Wilson returned home from hospital two months later, his parents attempted to find a way to deal with the catastrophe that had _____________   their lives. But Wilson did   not regard the accident as catastrophic. He learned braille(盲文)quickly and continued his education at Worcester College for the Blind. There, he not only did well as   a student but also became a（n）___ public speaker.

Later, he worked in Africa, where many people suffered from___ for lack of proper treatment. For him, it was one thing to ________   his own fate of being blind       and quite another to allow something to continue _________   it could be fixed so easily.   This moved him to action. And tens of millions in Africa and Asia can see because of the___ Wilson made to preventing the preventable.

Wilson received   several international _____________   for   his great contributions. He lost his sight but found a____. He proved that it's not what happens to us that __ our lives — it's what we make of what happens.