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Envy seems to be bad－but it doesnˈt have to be. Researchers are finding that, if approached the right way, there can actually be an advantage.

Psychologists classify envy in two ways: negative and positive. With positive envy, you are motivated by another personˈs success and struggle to follow it. With negative envy, you want to cut the advantaged person down so you look better by comparison. Letˈs say you feel sufferings of envy after your rival(对手) at another firm gets promoted. Negative envy might drive you to destroy his success, but positive envy would inspire you to work harder and get promoted, too.

Studies show positive envy can be a great motivator(动力). In a 2011 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, researchers in the Netherlands conducted a series of experiments with more than 200 university students. Researchers found that when they caused feelings of positive envy----as opposed to admiration or negative envy----in the students, it drove them to want to study more and perform better on a test measuring creativity and intelligence. While admiration may feel better, the researchers found, it doesnˈt motivate performance like the pain and frustration of envy.

“Those painful sufferings of envy are there for an evolutionary(进化的) reason,” says Texas Christian University researcher Sarah E. Hill, “warning us that someone has something of importance to us.” Building on this theory, Dr. Hill and others conducted a series of experiments, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, to test whether envy improves attention and memory----the tools needed to copy a rivalˈs steps to success. In one experiment, half of the participants were asked to recall past feelings of envy; the other half werenˈt. The two groups were then shown mock(模拟的) interviews of imaginary peers. The group filled with envy paid closer attention and better recalled details about the interview subjects. In other words, envy made them more astute（机敏的）. Not only can envy motivate us to reach for higher goals, it may even give us the cognitive push to get there.

Sometimes, we want to know what our lives are going to look like. We may want to know what gifts and  (1)   are going to be presented to us in the coming years   (2)   if our goals will be realized. Perhaps we feel like we need help to make a   (3)   and we want to know which choice will work out best. We may   (4)  fortune-tellers, our dreams, and many other sources in the hopes of  (5)   out what the future holds.  (6)  we would probably be overwhelmed(感到不知所措) if we knew everything to happen to us.

   Just think of your life   (7)  you've lived it up to this point. You have probably done more and faced more than you could have ever   (8)  If someone had told you all the jobs and relationships you would
  (9)   when you were a child, you would have become overwhelmed. With your head full of information about the   (10)   you would have had a very  (11)   time experiencing your life in the present moment, which is where everything  (12)   happens.

   In many ways, not knowing what the future has  (13)  brings out in us the qualities we need to grow. It would have been difficult to   (14)  yourself to certain people or projects if you knew they wouldn't eventually   (15)  Yet, it was through your commitment to see them that you experienced the  (16)  
you needed to grow.   (17)  your life, it would likely be hard to say that   (18)   in your past should not have happened. In fact, your most challenging experiences with their expected lessons may have eventually  (19)  you the greatest rewards.

   Not knowing the future  (20)  us just where we need to be ---- fully committed and in the present moment.

Once there was a billionaire, who got a severe eye irritation (发炎). He got a famous doctor to   (1)   his eye. The doctor advised him to   (2)   bright light for one month so he could heal naturally. Immediately the rich man   (3)   all his windows, and replaced all the bright and colorful curtains with dull cloth. He also   (4)   all the bright chandeliers (枝形吊灯). In one word, he made all his house   (5)   .

One month later, the doctor paid a visit to the billionaire to ask about the   (6)   of his eyes. To the doctor's   (7)   , everything in the house had been made dark and dull. Then the doctor said, “Your common sense should have told you that you can buy a pair of   (8)   to protect your eye from bright light   (9)   spending so much money on all these things to make your house darker.”

The same phenomenon   (10)   all of us. We often see many   (11)   in others. We are very   (12)   to change the attitude and behavior of others which doesn't   (13)   our own.

We have many likes and dislikes.   (14)   other people also have. But we are often interested in imposing (把……强加于) our opinion and thinking on others   (15)   we never made any error. Accordingly we want to   (16)   this world with our own rules and theory.

However, we   (17)   that other people who share this world equally with us also think in a similar way and   (18)   us to behave according to their wishes. Then who   (19)   your thinking? In order to bring about certain change in the people around us, first it is “we”that have to change.

  (20)   , any needed change can occur only when it starts with us.