Many years ago, there was an emperor(皇帝). One day he told his horseman that if he could ride on his horse and _________ as much land area as he liked, he would give him the area of land he had covered._________ enough, the horseman quickly jumped onto his horse and _______ as fast as possible to cover as much land area as he could.

He _______ riding and riding, whipping the horse to go as fast as possible. Even when he was _______or tired, he did not stop _______he wanted to cover as much area as possible. When he at last covered a large amount of land, he was exhausted and was _________. Then he asked himself, “Why did I _______myself so hard to cover so much land area? Now I am dying and I only _______ a very small area to __________myself.”

The above story is __________ to the journey of our __________. We push ourselves very hard every day to make more ____________, to gain power or recognition. We neglect(疏忽，忘记) our ____________, time with our family and to appreciate the surrounding __________and the things we love to do. One day ______________ we look back, we will __________that we don’t really need that much, ________________ then we cannot turn back time for what we have ______________

Life is not about making money. Life is definitely(肯定地) not about work! Work is only ____________ to keep us living so as to enjoy the beauty and pleasures of life.

When I retired, my wife Peg said “Great! You’ll have time to clean the garage!” After 30 years’ ________ as director of a radio station, I would finally have more time for housework, but I worried I’d lose the sense of________ I had felt in my profession.

I pushed at the garage’s wooden doors, but they were as ________as I felt in this new stage of my life. I finally got the doors open and started to empty the shelves. Then my hand hit something ________. It was a common old metal can. I ________ the cover and found a ________ envelope with a postmark of May 13, 1940 inside. ________, I opened it and found some flower seeds in it, “ Eighty years old! I wonder if they’ll still grow. ”

I ________the seeds in a plastic pot. I checked it every day, but nothing happened. “I guess they’re just too ________to be any good, ” I told Peg in ________ . I picked up the pot to get rid of it, but something made me ________. I changed my mind and set it aside. Meanwhile, I was keeping ________, buying some books to improve my photography skills and teaching my granddaughters everything I knew about gardening and dogs.

Six weeks later, I was out in the yard when I ________ to notice the pot. A new bit of green-a leaf had ________. I proudly showed it off to my granddaughters. “Look, girls, even something this old can still ________ for its purpose and be pretty cool. Just like your grand- papa!”