Writing A Letter To Your Future Self

    Just imagine writing a letter to your future self 5 years from now, then opening it at that exact moment to see how much of it has come true.{#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    As you read the letter in the future, you can assess how many things agree with your expectations in the past.{#blank#}2{#/blank#} Often times, the goals we set and our goal achievement process are affected by a lot of changes along the way. The letter lets you recognize how your current idea differs from the past.

    In addition to that, at the very moment you are writing the letter, your thoughts are stored right there in those words. When you open the letter in the future, you as your future self gets to compare how you used to be in the past with how you are now.{#blank#}3{#/blank#} It's very interesting to do so.

    Take out a pen and paper right now and start writing your letter to your future self. Set a time period to write to. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Then start writing. Think about the type of person you will be, your place in life, what you will have realized then, and so on.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} Put it in a safe space where no one can find it. When you open this sometime in the near future, you might gain additional insights(了解) about yourself and your journey in the past few years.

A. And you can think about why that's the case.

B. It is a useful tool to be used in goal achievement.

C. Imagine how you will be like during that time period.

D. If you haven't, join me in writing a letter to yourself.

E. This lets you see how much things have changed since then.

F. At the end of the letter, write the date to open it on the cover.

G. It wasn't until we moved into our new house that I found it again.

How to Be Good at Sports

    If sports are something that interests you, it stands to reason that you would want to be good at them. Here are some tips that can help you become a good player.

    Set ambitious but realistic goals. If you want to be great at sports, you need to set your aims high.

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#} Instead, you should take a look at what you are, and figure out where you think you would like to be. Give yourself a suitable amount of time to achieve that goal.

    Be patient. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Impatient athletes tend to make poor ones. If you're not patient, you'll try to jump into advanced techniques long before you're ready. You'll feel discouraged when you don't see immediate improvement.

    Join a sports team. Most of the sports teams are free to join. If you go to school, you should go for team tryouts when they're happening. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    Accept criticism. When you play sports, you will unavoidably receive criticism, whether from a coach or other players. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} Are they angry because you missed a pass, or do they sincerely want to help you improve? In a lot of cases, you can use criticism as motivation to get better.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} A skill become mastered when you're able to do it without thinking. Given enough time and practice, a skill will eventually fall under this category. When in a game, you won't have time to think everything through, so practice until it's all automatic.

A. Skills are often slow to build.

B. This does not mean being unrealistic.

C. You need to take most of it with a grain of salt.

D. Practice until your skills become second nature.

E. You also need to be clear about what you are good at.

F. If you're not in school, you can find a sports club online.

G. An important reason people join sports teams is to make friends.

    Can creativity be taught? That's a question without a simple yes or no answer. Creativity may not be able to be taught directly, but what you can get better at is frequently targeting at the circumstances of life which bring up the greatest chances for true creative expression. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}, but more like something which manifests （显现） itself inside those who learn to develop it and create the right conditions for it.

Limit your selection of tools to only the most vital. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}. You'll be sharper than someone who merely fights with a larger set of tools.

    Learn how to be resourceful. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}. Creativity is not just about creating something new but making old things work better as well. Think of crazy possibilities as well as practical ones. You might find inspiration for a workable solution in one of your ideas.

    Don't listen to feedback （反馈） and keep following your own path. The problem of asking for feedback is that the feedback will be given according to the person's past experience. Others will unconsciously push you in a direction that they see as best. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}. Just don't let criticism （even the constructing type） destroy your creativity during the creative process.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#}. Routines are positive if they strengthen a healthy creative consciousness and negative if they destroy that. The key is to discover a creative routine that puts you in a more creative mindset.

A. Creativity is not like a lightning strike

B. Having a routine is actually not a bad idea

C. You can literally do anything you like with them

D. Resourcefulness is about making the most of what you have to work with

E. The more limited your set of tools is, the more creative the output will be

F. This is done with good intentions, but it actually hurts your natural creativity

G. While breaking your routine once in a while to force new ways of thinking is good

    Parents often say that they don't mind what their children do in life just as long as they are happy. Happiness and pleasure are almost universally seen as among the most precious human goods. {#blank#}1{#/blank#}

    Philosopher Jeremy Bentham believed that all sources of pleasure are of equal quality, but John Stuart Mill disagreed. Mill argued for a difference between higher and lower pleasure. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} Lower pleasure, in contrast, requires mere（仅仅的, 纯粹的）senses.

    The entire debate assumes a clear divide between the physical and the mental. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}What will it mean for our ideas about pleasure?

    {#blank#}4{#/blank#}Food is usually considered to the lower pleasure. All animals cat, using the senses of smell and taste. It doesn't require ay complex cognition（认知）to conclude that something is delicious. However these people failed to appreciate something that he French food writer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin captured. That is," Animals feed, man cats, only the man of intellect （才智）knows how to eat."

    Eating shows that the difference between higher pleasure and lower pleasure is not what you enjoy but how you enjoy it. {#blank#}5{#/blank#}Preparing it using the powers of reflection and attention turns it into a higher pleasure.

A. The dining table is a good place to start.

B. Wolfing down your food is a lower kind of pleasure.

C. What's the real difference between high and low pleasure?

D. What happens if the physical and the mental cannot be separated?

E. All philosophers believed that cookery could never be a form of art.

F. Higher pleasure depends on human abilities such as self-awareness or language use.

G. However, disagreements will be caused about whether some forms of pleasure are better than others.

    A new urban sport, parkour, is hitting the streets. It has evolved from obstacle course training into a fitness option for young people. In parkour, the outside world is the gym! {#blank#}1{#/blank#} The goal of parkour is a direct route from one place to another. You meet an obstacle, you overcome it.

    Mark Toorock, who teaches the techniques of parkour at his fitness gym, says that parkour is a method to train the body and mind using obstacles as the medium. He says that this new sport is demanding and takes years to master. {#blank#}2{#/blank#}

    But Toorock, who used to be a martial arts expert, says that everyone can benefit from learning the basic skills involved in parkour like running, jumping and crawling (爬行). These are the things that humans used to have to do all the time. {#blank#}3{#/blank#} The original idea of parkour was to return to running and jumping as basic elements in moving from one place to another.

    Georges Hebert, a French navy officer, was so impressed by the effortless athleticism of African tribes that he devised a training method based on running, climbing, jumping, balancing and throwing. The word parkour comes from parcours de combatant, the French term for a military obstacle course. {#blank#}4{#/blank#}

    Dr Kenneth Kao explains that the sport of parkour is not extreme – it is the environment which is extreme and dangerous. Being outside, jumping off railings and flipping over park benches can be quite frightening, so parkour courses in gyms concentrate on practicing all the individual moves to make everything easier. {#blank#}5{#/blank#} However, that is not real parkour because it's indoors with a fixed obstacle. The goal for everyone is to go outdoors.

A. Gyms provide thick floor matting (垫子) for rolling and rubberized boxes for jumping over.

B. The bridges, buildings and railings (栏杆) of each and every city are the equipment.

C. Every action in parkour is natural, so everyone must have the ability to move in this way.

D. Parkour was introduced into china in recent years and has gained popularity.

E. But today, due to modern transport, these basic skills are no longer used on a regular basis.

F. The French word for people who participate in the sport is traceurs or traceuses.

G. Beginners should realize that they won't be jumping over buildings any time soon!

    Do you have a place you've always wanted to visit? If the answer is yes, have you ever considered taking a trip alone there just for a few days?

    {#blank#}1{#/blank#}Although seeing the world on their own has always been a dream in their hearts since childhood, most people have repeatedly been told that the outside world is dangerous. The thought of going on a trip alone excites and terrifies them at the same time. Few end up stepping out of their comfort zone and going on meaningful adventures.

    It is normal to have some trouble traveling alone. {#blank#}2{#/blank#} For example, being alone on the road, you might have to ask strangers to take your photo wherever you go. If you join a tour halfway, you may be asked why you don't have friends or family around. {#blank#}3{#/blank#}

    First, traveling alone gives you a good opportunity to do everything you wish to do without worrying about others' needs and wants. If you want, you can read on a bench beside a river for the whole afternoon without being disturbed (打扰). You are free to walk around on different streets. {#blank#}4{#/blank#} You can also remove that dull daily routine (常规) that always makes you feel tired.

If you make good use of it, traveling alone can also be a wonderful journey of self-discovery, as you'll finally have time to think about your life.

    {#blank#}5{#/blank#} All you need to do is pack your bags, take your passport, gather up your courage and go somewhere. Go out and enjoy being alone, explore the unknown, make some friends, read a book, and get to know more about yourself and the world.

A. Traveling by yourself is also quite easy.

B. You can go to shopping malls and explore the city.

C. For many people, traveling alone can be frightening.

D. There are also some unpleasant moments one might run into.

E. It is important to take some time off and think about the methods.

F. But anyhow, I still suggest that you travel alone at least once in your life.

G. Traveling alone helps us figure out what we really want to fight for in this big world.