A teacher was giving a talk to his students on stress management (压力管理). He raised a glass of water and asked them, “How ________ do you think this glass of water is?”

The students began to think and guess. Their ________ were different, from 20g to 500g. “It does not matter on the real weight. It depends on ________ you hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it is OK. If I hold it for an hour, my right arm will ________. If I hold it for a day, you will have to call a doctor. It is the exact same ________, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes. What we have to do is to put the glass down, ________ for a while before holding it up again.”

“If we always carry our burdens (负担), sooner or later, we will not be ________ to carry on. The burden will become heavier. We have to put down the burden from time to time ________ we can be refreshed (恢复).”

So before you return home from work tonight, put the burden of work down. Don’t carry it back home. You can ________ it up tomorrow.

Whatever burdens you have, let them down for a moment if you can. And learn to relax ________.

Life is short but amazing. Enjoy it!

When my brother and I were children, we _______ a few weeks in the countryside with our uncle. One day, he bought us two _______ and asked us to go to the mountain with him and carry the stones.

The whole day we walked around. Sometimes he put _______ in our backpacks. We were a bit _______ that he also took some stones out from our backpacks at times. When we returned to the house, we were very tired. The backpacks were so heavy that we felt relaxed when we _______ them off.

“_______ did you give us so many stones?” we asked.

“ I didn’t. You did,” he said. “You didn’t know it, but I gave you a little attitude (态度) test today. Whenever you were complaining (抱怨), I added a stone to your backpacks. Whenever you talked about something with positive (积极的) thinking, I _______ a stone. And now look at your backpacks.”

The backpacks were _______ full.

“Your negative (负面) thoughts are like stones. You carry them in your mind just like those stones in a backpack. The more negative thoughts, the _______ your mind.”

Several years ago, I attended a meeting in Washington D. C. I decided to eat at a nearby food stall (摊位) during the lunch break. The area was crowded, _________ it took me a lot of time to find an empty table. A few _________ later, an elderly gentleman came along with a plate of food, looking for a place to sit. Then I stood up and invited him to sit beside me. He thanked me as he sat down. We began to _________ during lunch.

To my surprise, the elderly gentleman was _________ in the field of success. He had written four books, each of which contained (包含) 250 rules of _________ that he had gotten from his research. I had read the four books once. After we chatted for a while, I asked him the _________ that many people in this situation would ask, “Of all the rules of success you have gotten, which do you think is the most important?” He smiled and replied, “The most important rule was _________ many years ago. Do what you should do whether you like it or not.” He continued, “I find many rules of success, and I _________ find none of them will work if there is no self-discipline (自律).”

It’s _________ self-discipline is the key to success. We can hardly succeed __________ self-discipline. I will never forget this meaningful conversation.