A Leap(跳跃) to Honor

    Leaping on a narrow balance beam(平衡木) is not easy. But Lola Walter, a 13­year­old gymnast, is an expert at it.

    To perfect her skills, Lola 1 for four hours a day, five days a week. At the state championships in March, she finished seventh out of 16 girls.

    That's especially impressive,2 she is legally blind, born with a rare condition that causes her eyes to shift(移动) constantly. She often sees double and can't 3 how far away things are.

    When she was little, her mom 4 that even though she couldn't see 5 ， she was fearless. So her mom signed her up for gymnastics when she was three. She loved the 6 right away and gymnastics became her favorite.

    Though learning gymnastics has been more 7 for her than for some of her teammates, she has never quit. She doesn't let her 8 stop her from doing anything that she wants to.

    She likes the determination it takes to do the sport. Her biggest 9 is the balance beam. Because she has double vision, she often sees two beams. She must use her sense of touch to help her during her routine. Sometimes she even closes her eyes. “You have to 10 your mind that it'll take you where you want to go，” says Lola.

    To be a top­level gymnast, one must be brave. The beam is probably the most 11 for anyone because it's four inches wide. At the state competition, Lola didn't fall 12the beam. In fact, she got an 8.1 out of 10—her highest score yet.

    Lola doesn't want to be 13 differently from the other girls on her team. At competitions, the judges don't know about her vision 14. She doesn't tell them, because she doesn't think they need to know. Her mom is amazed by her 15 attitude.

    Lola never thinks about 16. She is presently at level 7 while the highest is level 10 in gymnastics. Her 17 is to reach level 9. She says she wants to be a gymnastics coach to pass down what she's learned to other kids 18 she grows up.

    Lola is 19 of all her hard work and success. She says it's helped her overcome problems in her life outside gymnastics too. Her 20 for other is “just believe in yourself”.

To me, kindness is a chosen lifestyle. In my classroom, I tell my1that every day they are offered a choice. They can't choose what happens to them, but they can choose how they2to it. Kindness is a3. And it is a lifestyle. It isn't something that we just choose once in a while— it is a(n)4to live our lives.

    My father was hospitalized with leukemia(白血病) when I was in college. He didn't choose the cancer.5, he chose how to react to it. To this day, seventeen years later, the nurses6write my mother letters. The7? It was because of my father's kindness to others even when he was8against the disease. He made kindness a lifestyle.

    And I want to be 9him. Every day as a teacher, I try and teach my students the kindness lifestyle. Just recently, I turned 40 and a friend gave me 40 individual dollar bills. She challenged me to do something10with the money. I gladly accepted the challenge.

    I gave 40 of my students one dollar each and challenged them to make a(n)11. What happened? My Twitter and Instagram were 12with pictures of kids making the world a better place. One girl bought a dollar store stuffed animal(填充玩具). It was13that kids should have made a difference when they were given the 14.

    Living the kindness lifestyle 15 every day, every opportunity. As a high school teacher, I see16everywhere. In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in the locker room,17words and gossip fill the air. So I started a hashtag (标签) to18positive gossip called “third party compliments(称赞)”. The idea is that you talk about people behind their backs, but do it in a 19way. In that way, the gossip that gets back to students makes their day instead of getting them down.

    Our kindness lifestyle leaves a footprint on others, and let us be the movers and kindness-makers who20a better, more beautiful world.

    Don't stop believing. If you're not reaching your highest potential, it might not be for lack of talent or determination, 1 because you're not keeping the right things in front of you.

    A few years after my dad died, I was 2 with the desire to write a book. For 3, I set two copies of my dad's most popular book beside my bed. One copy was in English, the other in 4. My dream was that my book would be translated into Spanish, too.

    Kevin is a twin. He 5 having twins himself. His wife Lisa had several surgeries. They attempted every 6 treatment. But 7 worked. They were beyond 8. One day Kevin found a small package in the mailbox. There were two diapers (尿布) inside. He ran into the house and 9 Lisa. “Look, honey, we just got the first diapers for our babies！”He wrote the date on them and put them on his 10 table. Month after month, they were the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes, and the last thing he saw 11 he fell asleep. Several years later, Kevin and Lisa got a phone call asking if they would be interested in 12 a baby.“Yes！” they said. The caller asked, “Would you consider accepting two？These are twin girls about to be born, and they need a good home.” Talk about a dream 13！

Remember that 14 I dreamed about writing？In 2004 I wrote Your Best Life Now. When the publishers read it they decided to 15 it in English and Spanish at the same time.

    Proverb says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish (毁灭).” 16 vision your dream will die, and part of you will die with it. Studies show that we move toward what we 17 see. Is there something you see every day that 18 you？Keep them in front of you to 19 you of what you're aiming for. If your dream is to go to a particular college, buy a T-­shirt with the school name and wear it 20.

    My father was born in a small town in the US. He wasn't sure what he wanted from1, but something told him to2and begin a new adventure.

    He began that adventure traveling to cities in the US before going on to Australia, New Zealand and the Philippines.  He took my mother and us three daughters with him and went wherever the road3him.

    It's easy to feel4when you're on the road. We made lots of new friends on our trip - most of them are mechanics, since we often5hours in repair shops. But that was a way much6than sitting by the roadside while waiting for the engine to7when it was 40℃ outside.

    Getting along well sometimes seemed8. There were always a lot of9, especially among us back-seat passengers about who had to10in the middle. But even if it was hard, we learned a lot about11. When we were traveling in the Philippines, we drove to Quezon City one day. It should have been an hour's drive but was nearly three thanks to bad roads and12traffic. "Did you put our suitcases in the car?" my father asked my mother as we arrived there. From the back seat, we saw her13turn toward my father. "No," she said. "I thought you did." That was how a seven-hour car trip turned into a 16-hour one, which was mostly spent in14.

    On occasions like that, we had to learn to let go of our anger because we were15in a rolling box with the same people for the rest of the16. Even if I sometimes felt like opening the car door and17one of my sisters out, I kept my feelings to myself.

    This is why road trips were like18universities to us. We19our PHDs(博士学位) in how to get along with other people just by traveling in our old car.

If we were20given a second chance at life, we would do it all over again. Only this time would I put the suitcases in the car myself.

    It's about 250 miles from the hills of west-central Iowa to Ehlers' home in Minnesota. During the long trip home, following a weekend of hunting. Ehlers 1about the small dog he had seen 2 alongside the road. He had 3 to coax(哄) the dog to him but, frightened, it had 4.

    Back home, Ehlers was troubled by that 5 dog. So, four days later, he called his friend Greg, and the two drove 6. After a long and careful 7, Greg saw, across a field, the dog moving 8 away. Ehlers eventually succeeded in coaxing the animal to him. Nervousness and fear were replaced with 9. It just started licking(舔) Ehlers' face.

    A local farmer told them the dog sounded like one 10 as lost in the local paper. The ad had a 11 number for a town in southern Michigan. Ehlers 12 the number of Jeff and Lisa to tell them he had 13 their dog.

    Jeff had 14 in Iowa before Thanksgiving with his dog, Rosie, but the gun shots had scared the dog off. Jeff searched 15 for Rosie in the next four days.

    Ehlers returned to Minnesota, and then drove 100 miles to Minneapolis to put Rosie on a flight to Michigan. "It's good to know there's still someone out there who 16 enough to go to that kind of 17,"says Lisa of Ehlers' rescue 18.

    "I figured whoever lost the dog was probably just as 19 to it as I am to my dogs," says Ehlers. "If it had been my dog, I'd hope that somebody would be 20 to go that extra mile."