You might have some characters that you don’t like. For example, you may be a shy person and you don’t like it; you wish you are an outgoing person. You might then think that you are not clever enough. All these give reasons to you not to like yourself. Fortunately, there are always things you can do to make you like yourself. Here are some tips:

1. Write your success stories

One reason we may not like ourselves is that we are too focused on what we don’t have so that we forget about what we (already) have. So make a list of your achievements; write your success stories. They do not have to be big things; there are a lot of small but important achievements in our life.

2. Accept things you can’t change

There are some things you cannot change, such as your background and your past. So learn to accept them. You will feel much relieved(宽心) if you treat things you can’t change the way they deserve: just accept them, smile, and move on.

3. Focus on your strengths(强项)

Instead of focusing on your weaknesses, focus on your strengths. You always have some strengths which give you a unique person. Recognize your strengths and build your life around them.

4. Stop comparing yourself with others

You are unique. You can never be like other people, and neither can other people be like you. The way you measure your success is not determined by other people. Instead, it is determined by your own life purpose. You have everything you need to achieve your life purpose, so it’s useless comparing yourself with others.

    I am beginning to wonder whether my grandmother isn’t right when she complains, as she frequently does, that children nowadays aren’t as well-behaved as they used to be. Whenever she gets the opportunity, she recounts in detail how she used to be told to respect the elders and betters. She was taught to speak only when she was spoken to, and when she went out on her own, she was reminded to say 'please' and 'thank you'. Children in her day, she continues, were expected to be seen and not heard, but these days you are lucky if you ever hear parents telling their children to mind their p’s and q’s.

       If you give her the chance, she then takes out of her drawer the old photograph album which she keeps there, and which she never tires of displaying. Of course when you look at pictures of her parents, you feel sure that, with a father as stern-looking as that, you too would have been "seen and not heard". He had a lot of neatly cut hair, long side-whiskers and a big moustache. In the photographs, he is always clutching (抓住) his coat with one hand, while in the other he holds a thin walking stick. Beside him sits his wife, with their children around her: Granny and her elder brothers. It always occurs to me that perhaps those long, stiff, black clothes were so clumsy to a little girl, that she hadn’t enough breath left to be talkative, let alone mischievous (淘气的). It must have been a dull and lonely life too, for she stayed mainly at home during her childhood, while her brothers were sent away to school from an early age. Despite their long black shorts and their serious expressions in the photographs, I always suspect that their lives were considerably more enjoyable than hers. One can imagine them telling each other to shut up or mind their own business, as soon as their parents were out of sight.

       Going to see Granny on Sundays used to be a terrible experience. We would always be warned in advance to be on our best behavior, since my mother made a great effort to show how well brought up we were, in spite of our old, comfortable clothes, our incomprehensible (to Granny) slang, and our noisy games in the garden. We had to change into what Granny described as our "Sundays best" for lunch, when we would sit uncomfortably, kicking each other under the table. We were continually being ordered to sit up straight, to take our elbows off the table, to wait till everybody had been served, not to wolf down our food, nor to talk with our mouths full. At length we would be told to ask to be excused from the table and ordered to find quiet occupations for the rest of the day. We were always very bad-tempered by the evening, and would complain angrily all the way home.

       Yet though we hated the Sunday visit, we never questioned the rules of good manners themselves. I remember being greatly shocked as a child to hear one of my friends telling her father to shut up. I knew I could never have spoken like that to my father and it would never have occurred to me to do so.

       However, my childhood was much freer than Granny’s. I went to school with my brother and I played football with him and his friends. We all spoke a common language, and we got up to the same mischief. I would have died if I had had to stay indoors, wear a tight dress, and sew.

       But I do sometimes look wistfully (惆怅地) at an old sampler which hangs in the hall, which was embroidered (刺绣) by an even more distant relative—my great-great-aunt, of whom, regrettably, no photograph remains. It was done as an example of her progress in learning. The alphabet is carefully sewn in large colored childish letters from A to Z, and below it a small verse reads:

                     Mary Saunders is my name,

                     And with my needle I worked the same,

                     That by it you may plainly see

                     What care my parents have for me.

       It must have taken that little five-year-old months and months of laborious sewing, but, in a circle in a bottom corner of the sampler, there is a line: "Be Ever Happy".

50. The writer’s grandmother will complain that ______.

  A. children used to be mischievous

  B. children behave worse than they did in the past

  C. children are often reminded of what to do

  D. children are very badly behaved

51.Visiting Granny on Sundays was a terrible experience because ______.

  A. the writer was not so well raised as she was required to pretend

  B. Granny continually warned the writer to be on her best behavior

  C. Granny was always describing the writer’s "Sunday best"

  D. the writer was always blamed for not behaving well

52. From Paragraph 4, we can infer that the writer ______.

  A. seldom spoke to her father in the way her friend did

  B. was never questioned about the rules of good manners

  C. never doubted the value of the strict rules at that time

  D. was worried that her friend’s father would be shocked

53. The writer looked wistfully at the sampler, because______.

  A. it was embroidered by a relative.

  B. she wished she could sew herself.

  C. it called to mind the values of good old days.

  D. she had no photographs of Mary Saunders.

54. By sewing "Be Ever Happy" in the sampler, Mary Saunders ______. 

  A. suggested she was unhappy then

  B. indicated happiness was hard to gain

  C. expected we would find happiness in sewing

  D. hoped happiness would be everlasting

If at the end I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.

——Abraham Lincoln

    We often focus on building relationships with others that we ignore the essential first step: being friends of ourselves. That is the crucial first step if we are to have good relationships with others. How can we have good relationships with others if we don’t even have good relationship with ourselves?

The problem might be worse than we expect. Maybe we don’t like ourselves without realizing it. Here is a simple checklist; is there anything you don’t like about yourself from this list?

Your past

Maybe you have made mistakes in the past which you feel bad about. You might be disappointed with yourself on why you could make such mistakes. Even if that happened in distant past, your subconscious mind still has a reason not to like yourself.

Your background

You might wish that you were born in different family. Maybe you could not accept the fact that you are not as lucky as others, who seem to get whatever they want effortlessly because of their background.

Your personality

You might have some personality traits that you don’t like. For example, you may be an introvert and you don’t like it; you wish you are an extrovert, who are active in social life.

Your achievements relative to others

Others might have better achievements than you, and no matter how hard you tried,        

                 . You might then think that it’s because you are not smart enough or don’t have enough talents. All these give reasons to you not to like yourself. That in turn makes it difficult for you to be a good friend to yourself.

1．Which sentence in the passage is closest in meaning to the following one?

    The mistakes you made long ago will still influence your behavior even though you are not aware of it.

2．What do you think of the mistakes you made in the past? (within 30 words)

3．Fill in the blank in the last paragraph with a proper sentence. (within 10 words)

4．What will probably be discussed in the following part? (within 10 words)

5．Translate the underlined sentence in the first paragraph into Chinese.