No.1 Amazement

Have you ever stared off the top of a mountain feeling awestruck and humbled? Wow, amazement is a rare and powerful emotion that combines two emotional extremes: happiness and fear. Imagine standing at the edge of the Grand Canyon, what range of emotions do you feel staring down that sheer cliffside dwarfed by the size of this natural wonder ? You may feel happiness, enjoying the rare chance to see this extraordinary sight. You may feel small. Comparing your tiny body, the miles and miles of rocky canyon. You may feel scared, wondering what would happen if you tumbled all the way down to the bottom. And finally, you may feel surprised, because there’s nothing like seeing a natural wonder with your own two eyes. All these contradicting combined to create amazement or reverence. This single emotion stirs your heart. It creates powerful memories in your brain and it leaves you all stricken for hours. It’s common for amazing experiences to change something inside you to shift your priorities or alter your perspective. Now, while amazement is commonly associated with nature, other experiences create the same electrifying effect. You feel it standing beside a skyscraper or walking for the first time into a bustling city. You may only experience amazement a few times in your life, but that handful of memories may be the ones that you treasure the most.

awestruck adj.敬畏的；惊奇不已的
humbled 自愧不如
stared off 凝视着
canyon n.（两边为峭壁、谷底通常有溪流的）峡谷
sheer adj.陡峭的，垂直的
cliffside n.悬崖之边或面
dwarfed v.使显得矮小；使相形见绌（dwarf 的过去式和过去分词）
wonder 奇迹
tumbled v.跌倒，滚落
contradicting n.矛盾
reverence n.尊敬，崇敬
stirs 搅拌，搅动；激起，引发
stricken adj.受灾的，患病的，受困扰的
electrifying adj.令人振奋的；惊人的
skyscraper n.摩天大楼
bustling adj.熙熙攘攘的，忙乱的
handful of 一把，一小撮

No.2 Courage

What is courage? Courage drives you to face your fears, it compels you to stand up for others to right wrongs and resist temptation. But why is courage such a difficult emotion to experience? Well, because it contradicts everything our evolution tells us. You see humans experience fear for a reason. Fear keeps you safe, it protects you from unnecessary danger. Fear is how you preserve your own life and lineage. But what happens when you listen to your fears? Well, sometimes it saves you from getting hurt, but other times, it opens the door for cruelty, sadness and pain. If everyone in the world listen to their fears, this pain would go unchecked. And that’s why people throughout history have discovered the courage to face their fears. That courage not only empowered them as individuals, it also helped others to find courage in the themselves. Courage on the surface is reckless and dangerous. Acts of courage put you in harm’s way. Your intentionally ignoring your brains better judgment, but sometimes, your own safety isn’t your highest priority. Sometimes, an unnecessary risk can change your life for the better. Just imagine someone who’s scared of heights, planting their flag on the peak of Mount Everest. Imagine a parent diving recklessly into traffic to save their child. Imagine a revolutionary risking their life to change their community. Courage is rare, not everyone experiences courage, but if you face your fears, if you challenge your preconceptions, if you take risks to better yourself, well, then your courage will come.

compel v.强迫
temptation n.引诱，诱惑；诱惑人的东西
lineage n.<正式>血统，世系
cruelty n.残酷，残忍；不公，虐待
go unchecked 未受到控制或限制
reckless adj.鲁莽的，不计后果的；粗心大意的
intentionally adv.故意地，有意地
recklessly adv.鲁莽地；不顾一切地
revolutionary adj.革命的；革命性的，突破性的；n.
革命者，革命家
preconceptions n.偏见（preconception 的复数）；先入之见；先前概念

No.3 Empathy

Many people think that empathy makes us human. That empathy defines us as uniquely emotional beings. From an evolutionary perspective, empathy is a challenging emotion to understand. It’s your ability to experience another person’s emotions from their perspective. In other words, you can walk a mile in another person’s shoes. It gives you the tools to understand experiences that you may have never experienced yourself. Without empathy, human relationships – families and communities would fall apart. They wouldn’t exist like they do today. But this raises an important question: if empathy is so important to our species and our society, well then, why is it so difficult to experience? Empathy is often mistaken for another feeling – sympathy. Many people use these emotions interchangeably. But they’re very different and very important ways. Sympathy is more common and much less complex. In fact, sympathy is something you feel relatively often. Just think about watching the news, or seeing someone trip and hurt themselves. Each time, your experiencing sympathy, because you feel sorry for the misfortunes of another person. That’s what sympathy is – a feeling of pity when something goes wrong for someone else. For example, well, let’s say your neighbors house catches on fire. You may feel sympathy for them. You may think it’s sad that their house burned down. But does that mean you’re feeling empathy? Hmm, empathy requires more challenging emotional leap. Sympathy is watching someone in crisis from a safe distance, wishing them the best. But empathy is standing right there beside them, trying to experience that hardship for yourself. As you can imagine, that’s a difficult thing to do. Many people strive toward genuine empathy but few ever get there. But here’s the upside of empathy. Like courage, empathy is more about the journey than the destination. You’ll never truly understand what it means to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes, but you can try. And trying making an earnest effort to be empathetic is one of the most powerful emotions you can have.

empathy 同理心
sympathy n.同情（心）
interchangeably adv.[数] 可交换地
trip v.绊，绊倒
leap n.跳跃
strive v.努力，力争；斗争，反抗
genuine adj.真正的，非伪造的；真诚的，真心的
upside n.好的一面，优势
earnest adj.认真的，诚挚的，真诚的
empathetic adj.移情作用的；同感的

No.4 Inspiration

Most emotions happen naturally. A compliment brings a smile to your face, and an accident leaves you embarrassed or angry. But inspiration is unpredictable. It comes and goes when you least expect it. And that makes inspiration one of the hardest emotions to feel. So, what is inspiration? Inspiration like dozens of complex emotions, can be found on something called the wheel of emotions. The wheel of emotions was designed by psychologist and professor Robert Plutchik. Plutchik discovered that simple emotions divide and evolve into complex emotions. He started with eight primary feelings, including joy, sadness, and anger. From each of those primary emotions, comes a more complicated feeling like trust, loneliness, or disappointment. Over time, psychologists have redesigned Plutchik’s wheel of emotions to include a variety of uncommon feelings like amazement, courage, and of course, inspiration. So, where does inspiration come from? This complex emotion begins with happiness. To feeling inspired, you have to feel some kind of joy. But there’s more to it than that. Happiness branches off into optimism, and optimism branches into both hopefulness and inspiration. In other words, inspiration is a blend of optimistic thinking and raw happiness. But that’s not the only kind of inspiration there is. Sadness can be inspiring, pain can be inspiring, all kinds of emotions can trigger this elusive feeling which pours out through creativity, innovation, and achievement. If inspiration in the wheel of emotions tell us anything, it’s that our feelings are much more complex than we think.

inspiration n.灵感
wheel n.轮子，车轮
psychologist n.心理学家
a variety of 各种各样的
branches off into 分支成
elusive adj.难以理解的，难以记住的；难以发现的，难以捕获的
pours out 倾吐

No.5 Nostalgia

There’s nothing quite like the warm, playful feeling of nostalgia. When you find a childhood toy, you may reflect on happy years spent with your family. When you revisit your old school, you may walk through the halls, recalling friends, teachers and teenage memories. Nostalgia has the power to bring a smile to your face and tears to your eyes. Like amazement, nostalgia combines two contradicting emotions – happiness and sadness. You’re happy to revisit those old memories, but at the same time, you’re sad those happy days of pasted you by. Nearly, everyone in the world has experienced this feeling of yearning. We’ve all wished deep down that we could relive our happiest moments, and that wish motivates, the wonderful sadness we call nostalgia. But if everyone experiences nostalgia, why is it on this list? Why is nostalgia one of the hardest emotions to feel? Nostalgia is one of the only emotions dependent on your personal memories. There are nostalgic places in the world, and you can yearn for an experience you never had. But the truest feelings of nostalgia come from your own life, your own experiences. You can feel happiness, sadness and anger anywhere in the world, but moments of nostalgia are few and far between.

nostalgia n.怀旧，念旧
yearning n.渴望，向往
deep down 实际上；在心底
relive vt.再体验
motivates v.促使；刺激；给与动机
truest adj.最真实的

No.6 Acceptance

Together, happiness and sadness create more than just nostalgia. This combination defines another rare and powerful emotion – acceptance. Acceptance is a feeling of mindful contentment which comes after moments of grief, disappointment or frustration. When hearing the word acceptance, most people immediately think of death. Acceptance is usually framed as the final stage of grieving. After denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, comes acceptance. When you accept that someone has passed away, you come to terms with your loss. You still feel sad, you’re still unhappy that you’ve lost someone important to you. But the impact of their loss begins to decrease. You stop resisting the reality of your situation and you experience a period of emotional calm. Now, while acceptance in nostalgia come from the same two emotions, they’re very very different in practice. Nostalgia is happiness colored by wistful sadness. Acceptance is sadness lessoned by peaceful understanding. they stem from the same emotions, but acceptance and nostalgia are almost exact opposites.

mindful adj.留心的；记住的；警觉的
contentment n.满足，满意
grief n.（尤指因某人去世引起的）悲伤，悲痛
disappointment n.失望，沮丧；令人失望的人，让人扫兴的事
frustration n.懊恼，沮丧；受阻，挫败
frame v.装框架；勾勒出；围绕
grieving v.感到悲痛；（因某人的去世而）悲伤；（使）悲伤（grieve 的现在分词）
come to terms with 接受，妥协
wistful adj.（因求而不得）失意的，伤感的；思念的，怀旧的
stem from 起源于，根源于
opposites n.对立

No.7 Freedom

Last but not least, freedom is one of the hardest emotions to experience for yourself, In our lives, we have very few opportunities to act completely on our own. At work, your boss tells you what to do. At home, you have chores to finish and responsibilities to check off your list. And by the end of the day, most people are too tired and stressed to do much of anything. Life and work may be constantly weighing on your mind. You’re so wrapped up in the stress of your everyday life, even if vacation doesn’t feel like much of a break. Because our lives are so demanding, emotional freedom is something we rarely feel. In fact, many people actively avoid that feeling of freedom. They associate freedom with a lack of control, and that lack of control is too unpredictable to face head on. But emotional freedom is important. It lifts your spirits and invigorates your motivation and instills in you a sense of independence that you won’t find anywhere else.

chores n.杂务；零工；困难的工作
check off 划掉
weighing v.有……重；称重量；掂估……的重量；认真考虑；将……与……作权衡；有影响；起（锚）（weigh 的现在分词）
wrapped up 结束；包起来；全神贯注于
face head on 正面交锋
lift v.举起；升高
invigorate v．使有活力，使振奋：给予活力、精力或生命力
instill 逐渐灌输