Who's in control of your life?
Who's pulling your strings? For the majority of us, it's other people-society,
colleagues, friends, family or our religious community. We learned this way of
operating when we were very young, of course. We were brainwashed. We discovered
that feeling important and feeling accepted was a nice experience and so we
learned to do everything we could to make other people like us. As Oscar Wilde
puts it, "Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,
their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
So when people tell us how
wonderful we are, it makes us feel good. We long for this, good feeling like a
drug—we are
addicted to it and seek it out wherever we can. Therefore, we are so eager for
the approval (贊同) of others that we live unhappy
and limited lives, failing to do the things we really want to. Just as drug
addicts and alcoholics live worsened lives to keep getting their fix（一劑毒品）, we worsen our own existence to
get our own constant fix of approval.
But, just as with any drug, there
is a price to pay. The price of the approval drug is freedom—the freedom to be ourselves.
The truth is that we cannot control what other people think. People have their own
agenda, and they come with their own baggage and, in the end, they're more interested
in themselves than in you. Furthermore, if we try to live by the opinions of
others, we will build our life on sinking sand. Everyone has a different way of
thinking, and people change their opinions all the time. The person who tries
to please everyone will only end up getting exhausted (tired) and probably
pleasing no one in the process.
So how can we take back control?
I think there’s only one way make a conscious
decision to stop caring what
other people think. We should guide ourselves by means of a set of values—not values imposed from
the outside by others, but innate values which come from within. If we are
driven by these values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of
others; we will live a more authentic, effective, purposeful and happy life.
1.What Oscar Wilde says implies that________.
A. most people have a variety of
thoughts
B. we have thoughts similar to
those of others
C. other people's thoughts are
more important
D. most people's thoughts are
controlled by others
2.What does the author try to argue in the
third paragraph?
A. Changing opinions may cost us
our freedom.
B. We may lose ourselves to
please others.
C. We need to pay for what we
want to get.
D. The price of taking the drug
is freedom.
3. It can be concluded from the passage that_______.
A. it's better to do what we like
B. we shouldn't care what others
think
C. we shouldn't change our own
opinions
D. it's important to accept
others' opinions
4.The author tries to persuade the readers to
accept his arguments mainly by________.
A. analyzing causes and
effects B. providing examples and facts
C.
discussing
questions D.
making suggestions
