One of the easiest things in the world is to become a fault-finder. However, life can be __________ when you are not busy finding fault with it.

Several years ago I received a letter from seventeen-year-old Kerry, who described herself as a world-class fault-finder, almost always __________ by things. People were always doing things that annoyed her, and _________ was ever good enough. She was highly self-critical and also found fault with her friends.

Unfortunately, it took a horrible accident to change her __________. Her best friend was seriously hurt in a car crash. The day before the accident, Kerry had visited her friend and had spent the whole time criticizing her __________ of friends, the way she was living, the way she related to her mother, and various ________ things she felt she needed to express. It wasn't until her friend was badly hurt that Kerry became _________ her habit of finding fault. Very quickly, she learned to appreciate life rather than to __________ everything so harshly (刻薄). She was able to transfer her new wisdom to other parts of her life as well.

Perhaps most of us aren’t as extreme at fault-finding, __________ when we’re honest, we can be sharply __________ of the world. I’m not suggesting you __________ problems, or that you pretend things are __________ than they are, but simply that you learn to allow things to be as they are—__________ most of the time, and especially when it’s not are really big __________.

Train yourself to “bite your tongue”, and with a little __________, you’ll get really good at letting things go. And when you do, you’ll get back your enthusiasm and love for life.

It was a beautiful day with the sun shining brightly. _______ to spend some time outdoors, I went up the mountain with Uncle Jimmy. The mountain was not easy to climb and had tough rocks and streams on it. In the end,_______ and hot, I couldn’t go any further._________ , we went back down the mountain in the end. On the way back down, Uncle Jimmy asked me a question, which

_______ me speechless for a second: “What’s your dream, young lady?” I have no idea, I answered after thinking for a while. Then he smiled and told me about his _______. He didn’t _______ well at school when he was a student. Although _______ thought he could succeed, he knew _______ what his dream was to be a _______ “I knew I wasn’t ________ when it came to studying, so I tried to buy snacks from a nearby market and sell them after class,” he told me. After he left school, he started selling different items to ________ which one was most attractive to customers. Of course, he often had no money in his pocket, but however ________ life was, he never gave up.

“There is no doubt that a person who puts in a great deal of ________ to reach his or her goal will have good luck at some point. The meaning of life is to ________ your dream,”   he said in a gentle voice.

That night I could not fall asleep. With my eyes wide open, I lay in bed tossing and turning asking myself, “What’s my motivation?^” I wanted to be a top student, but the hard work________ meant putting everything into following my ________ . If I find myself ________ willpower, what should I do? Leaving home early the next morning, I climbed the mountain again all by myself. It made me think： If we don’t________ the climb, how can we get to enjoy the scenery on the top of the mountain? At last, I reached the top and was________ by the warm breeze and sunshine. Nothing could be more ________ than that.

When we moved into our home in Maui, Hawaii, 16 years ago, one good thing about this house was the huge avocado (牛油果) tree growing in the _______ .

This tree gave the most delicious avocados I have ever _______. I lived on these avocados when _______ my first child. Fresh avocado was the very first food for my kids. This tree was so huge that it _______ a massive shadow over our backyard. It was truly our magical tree.

Until one day, someone from the Health Department came to tell us that our avocado tree was too _______ and needed trimming (修剪). In New York, you get into trouble if you don’t _______ the snow on your sidewalk. _______, it’s when your trees are too high that you will get into trouble. So along came the trimmer, leaving just the _______ and a few branches. I was sad. The kids were all sad. Some friends who knew it would say, “It’s going to grow back. Your next avocados will be crazy!” Yeah, whatever. The tree is _______. So stop doing that. It just didn’t work.

But a few days later, I noticed some unusual ________ flying around the yard. And then, the sun came into the kitchen, creating this pleasant warmth once ________ by the huge tree. After about a month, I started to notice some tiny green shoots coming out of the cut branches, which ________ turned into full on bright green leaves.

I started to feel like all was going to be fine, kind of like life. Little do we know what seems really ________ is actually life’s way of making us stronger. It’s life’s way of bringing in the butterflies and the ________. We all know that saying, “It will be OK in the end. If it’s not, it’s not the ________ .”