How many licks （舔）does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop （棒棒糖）？

The first time I heard this in the Tootsie Pop advertisement, I was five years old. I immediately started _______ and counting. After about two hundred licks or so. I stopped. The _______ of the chewy center had proven to be too great, and I _______ my way through the hard shell （外壳）to the very center. Besides, I _______ knew it took three licks to get to the center― that’s how many licks it took the owl （猫头鹰）in the advertisement to get to the center, so that, to me, it was the _______ answer.

In high school I held to the Tootsie Pop _______ . To me, the answer was still always three licks.

In my freshman year. I joined the Model United Nations _______ in my school. The Chair position had _______ the center of the Tootsie Pop and my _______ had become various other students. The first so-called was Eric who had luckily _______ the prestigious （有威望的）Chair position. So, I decided, _______ Eric reached the center in only one lick, that's how many licks it should take me. I went to the tryouts with a view to obtaining the position but _______.

At the end of my sophomore （高二）year, a new owl named Iris had _______ achieved the chair position after trying twice. I began working hard again. But then again, I did not make a _______ of it.

Now, slightly frustrated after _______ two setbacks, I found a new owl. Evan. It had taken him three licks to get to the "center： Three was all I could _______ . It was widely known that senior year was the _______ year to become Chair. I thought about _______ the program. but on second thoughts. I decided to continue.

Eleven years later, I visited the official Tootsie Pop website to find the real answer to the question that had _______ me my entire high school life. I finally understood. However many licks it takes to get to the center of the Tootsie Pop depends on however many licks I _______ to take—not how many the other owls take.

One day, a professor entered the classroom and asked his students to prepare for a surprise test. They waited anxiously at their desks for the test to begin. The professor _______ the question papers, with the text facing down as usual._______ all the students got the papers, he asked them to _______ the page and begin. To everyone's surprise, there were no _______ , just a black dot (点) in the center of the page. The professor, seeing the expression on everyone's face, told them the following:

At the end of the class, the professor _______ all the answer papers and started reading each one of them aloud in front of all the students. All of them, with no _______, described the black dot, trying to explain its position in the middle of the sheet, etc. After all had been _______, the classroom was silent, the professor began to explain:

"I'm not going to grade this. I ________ wanted to give you something to think about. No one wrote about the ________ part of the paper. Everyone focused on the black dot, and the same happens in our ________. We have a white paper to observe and ________, but we always focus on the dark spots. Our life is a ________ given to us with love and care and we always have ________ to celebrate: nature renewing itself every day, our friends around us, the job that ________ our livelihood and the miracles we see every day.

________, we insist on focusing only on the dark spots: the health issues that bother us, the lack of money, the ________ relationship with colleagues(同事), the ________ with a friend, and etc.

The dark spots are very ________ compared to everything we have in our lives, but they are the ones that pollute our minds. "

In my first year of college, I was invited to be an instructor at a high school camp. About an hour into the first day of camp, I first _______ the boy; He was small and skinny, and his obvious _______ and shyness made him appear _______ and fragile. Only 50 feet away, other campers were talking and playing. Thinking he might feel _______I walked him and asked if he wanted to join the _______. He quietly replied, “No.” I could _______ that this whole experience was foreign to him. He seemed to want to be anywhere _______ where he was. But I somehow knew it wouldn’t be right to _______ him.

At lunch the next day; the campers were singing camp songs together. My eyes _______ and I noticed the boy; sitting alone, staring out of the window. I tried to invite him to ________   He again replied, “I just don’t really ________ this.” I realized this was going to take more time and ________ than I had thought.

With my ________ for the boy I paid special attention to him and spent time with him when I could. The days flew by fast. ________ before I knew it, it was the final night of camp and there was the “last dance”. As I watched the campers share their ________ moments, I suddenly saw what would be one of the most ________ memories of my life. The boy, who bad stared ________ out of the window, was now a dancing wonder, sharing ________intimate (亲密的) tune with, people around him. In that ________, I realized how easy it is to give a bit of yourself but you may never know how much each ________ may mean to someone else.