Dale Carnegie rose from the unknown of a Missouri farm to international fame because he found a way to fill a universal human need.

It was a need that he first _______ back in 1906 when young Dale was a junior at State Teachers College in Warrensburg. To get an _______, he was struggling against many difficulties. His family was poor. His Dad couldn’t afford the _______ at college, so Dale had to ride horseback 12 miles to attend classes. Study had to be done _______ his farm-work routines. He withdrew from many school activities because he didn’t have the time or the _______. He had only one good suit. He tried for the football team, but the coach turned him down for being too _______. During this period Dale was slowly _______ an inferiority complex (自卑感), which his mother knew could prevent him from achieving his real potential. She _______ that Dale join the debating team, believing that _______ in speaking could give him the confidence and recognition that he needed.

Dale took his mother’s advice, tried desperately and after several attempts finally made it. This proved to be a ________ point in his life. Speaking before groups did help him gain the ________ he needed. By the time Dale was a senior, he had won every top honor in ________. Now other students were coming to him for coaching and they, ________, were winning contests.

Out of this early struggle to ________ his feelings of inferiority, Dale came to understand that the ability to express an idea to an audience builds a person’s confidence. And, ________ it, Dale knew he could do anything he wanted to do—and so could others.

What is a person supposed to do with the collections of a lifetime? Not ________the holiday decorations, but all the things that I ________: an instrument my son dragged around, tea cups my mother loved, the wooden toys my father made... . The ________ for thinking about cleaning up the house was that every time I did the laundry, I saw many boxes filled with things I no longer _________. Finally, I decided to ________ those old things. I started from the basement but soon returned to my office ________I couldn't deal with the big things down there.________, it soon turned out that everything I found was a big thing.

“It can be both fun and sad to ________ photographs and letters, but one thing is ________: you will unquestionably get stuck down memory lane (回忆往事) and may never get down to________anything else,” a writer wrote.

I got stuck down memory lane because the datebooks (记事本) I ________ were little letters to myself. For five years I ________ what I had done in tiny print (小字体) to fit into tiny squares (方格). Though many squares are ________, there are still a lot of days, and those days hold________. The datebooks mean ________ to anyone but me. I should have thrown them away, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t ________ with out-of-focus photos, either, or so many _________: “Things as They Are,” the first book I bought; “From the Pen of the Dreamer” by my childhood acquaintance Lenny Silver.

There’s a ridiculous glass cat, but there’s a story ________ to it. My mother loved it but she ________ it to her sister. And when her sister died, her family gave it to me.

Our things hold memories and the times of our lives, which is why it is so ______to let them go.

This world is not really peaceful. The heartbroken scenes in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine are _________ day by day. I cannot help thinking about my unique family situation. I am the father of two adopted boys, one from Russia and the other from Ukraine, and I _________ them when they were very little.

Young men now, each _________ his way in life, but they still carry a strong _________ of their origins, although Alyosha less so than Anton. While Alyosha does not often _________ the land of his Russian birth, Anton’s feelings for Ukraine run deep: When Crimea (克里米亚)joined Russia in 2014, Anton was 17．

I’m grateful that _________ the conflict, they behave as if their _________ is one of blood.

In addition to _________, another word comes to mind: absence. I often see crowded _______ of mothers and children everywhere, huddled (蜷缩)in dark and __________ spaces on the news now. But my boys aren’t there. I also often see children crying as they hug tightly fathers who must __________ themselves to wars. But my sons are here, and I am available to them.

Especially, in these __________ times, when it is easy to draw battle lines and take __________, events have, instead, pushed my sons __________ together. Staring at them, I realize that I am not looking at a Russian and a Ukrainian; I am looking at two people who love each other so much that doing the other __________ is unthinkable.