Part 1 Q&A
1. Why saying no is important? Have you had a hard time of turning down someone’s request( for example, you wanted to say no, but what came out of your mouth was yes, and next day you kicked yourself for saying yes) ? Please include a personal story.
The only way to achieve meaning and a sense of importance in one’s life is through a rejection of alternatives, a narrowing of freedom, a choice of commitment to one place, one belief, or (gulp) one person. When I studied in the high school, my apartment was near the school, while a lot of classmates were live in another district where had a long distance from the school. Because this reason, a lot of classmates want to stay in my apartment had a nap each afternoon. To be honest, I not willing a lot of people came to my house, but I have a little shy and I didn' know how to say no to my friends. As a result, I wanted to kick myself and ask why cannot say no.
2. Why Saint Petersburg was one of the Mark’s favorite trips?
This exposure to different cultural values and metrics then forces you to reexamine what seems obvious in your own life and to consider that perhaps it’s not necessarily the best way to live.
3. Why commitment gives you freedom?
Conflict is not only normal, then; it’s absolutely necessary for the maintenance of a healthy relationship. So both people in the relationship must be conscious of the struggle they’re choosing to undertake.
4. How to build trust?
Because you’re no longer distracted by the unimportant and frivolous. Commitment gives you freedom because it hones your attention and focus, directing them toward what is most efficient at making you healthy and happy. Commitment makes decision-making easier and removes any fear of missing out. Commitment allows you to focus intently on a few highly important goals and achieve a greater degree of success than you otherwise would.
Part 2 My ideas
People with strong boundaries understand that it’s unreasonable to expect two people to accommodate each other 100 percent and fulfill every need the other has. People with strong boundaries understand that they may hurt someone’s feelings sometimes, but ultimately they can’t determine how other people feel. People with strong boundaries understand that a healthy relationship is not about controlling one another’s emotions, but rather about each partner supporting the other in their individual growth and in solving their own problems.
我想有强烈边界感的人不是事事都要划分，也不是边界以外的事就与我无关，而是做事有分寸，根据不同的事边界的定位也不同。情侣和夫妻虽然亲密但不代表没有边界，有边界说明双方都有空间，对方烦恼时不会给对方太多的干涉而是给对方时间空间去调理，这样的相处是平等的，我觉得大多数人都会向往这样的相处模式。
Acts of love are valid only if they’re performed without conditions or expectations.
第一反应想到就是父母，他们无条件的给你物质上满足和精神上满足，有人说世界上没有人相信你，但父母会一直相信你，但有时这是个伪命题，如果我们排出种种原因和意外，真的很难想到除父母之外的人了。
Part 3 Expression
I was floundering from one high to the next.
flounder: to not know what to say or do because you feel confused or upset
挣扎；漫无目标
类似的词：struggle
I nearly choked on my drink.
Choke on 噎到；窒息；咬烂
e.g. It also revealed that 28 percent had choked on crumbs, while one in ten had broken a tooth or filling biting a biscuit.
Travel is a fantastic self-development tool, because it extricates you from the values of your culture and shows you that another society can live with entirely different values and still function and not hate themselves.
extricate: 1. to get someone or something out of a place, when this is difficult or dangerous
2. to escape from a difficult or embarrassing situation, or to help someone escape
extricate yourself/somebody from something :
e.g. How was he going to extricate himself from this situation?
I’m rejecting trashing my friends behind their backs. These are all healthy decisions, yet they require rejection at every turn.
trash :
n: 1. someone from a low social class who you do not respect because you think they are lazy or immoral
2. things that you throw away, such as empty bottles, used papers, food that has gone bad etc
v: 1. to criticize someone or something very severely （文中的意思）
2. to destroy something completely, either deliberately or by using it too much:
类似的词：n：rubbish（英式），garbage（美式)，都是“垃圾”的意思
v：devastate，demolish
It’s suspected by many scholars that Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet not to celebrate romance, but rather to satirize it, to show how absolutely nutty it was.
satirize:
When you cleverly make fun of something, you satirize it. Political cartoons, for example, satirize current events and politicians using clever drawings and captions.
讽刺,讥讽
类似的词：sarcasm，satire