第1部分 主题2.2 生命的意义与价值-2021新高考英语二轮复习【名师导航】配套Word教参（悦读经典）

主题语境(二)　生命的意义与价值 (2019·天津高考·阅读理解D) Would you BET on the future of this man？ He is 53 years old. Most of his adult life has been a losing struggle against debt and misfortune. A war injury has made his left hand stop functioning，and he has often been in prison. Driven by heaven­knows­what motives，he determines to write a book. The book turns out to be one that has appealed to the world for more than 350 years. That former prisoner was Cervantes，and the book was Don Quixote(《堂吉诃德》). And the story poses an interesting question： why do some people discover new vitality and creativity to the end of their days，while others go to seed long before？ We've all known people who run out of steam before they reach life's halfway mark. I'm not talking about those who fail to get to the top. We can't all get there. I'm talking about people who have stopped learning on growing because they have adopted the fixed attitudes and opinions that all too often come with passing years. Most of us，in fact，progressively narrow the variety of our lives. We succeed in our field of specialization and then become trapped in it. Nothing surprises us. We lose our sense of wonder. But，if we are willing to learn，the opportunities are everywhere. The things we learn in maturity seldom involve information and skills. We learn to bear with the things we can't change. We learn to avoid self­pity. We learn that however much we try to please，some people are never going to love us—an idea that troubles at first but is eventually relaxing. With high motivation and enthusiasm，we can keep on learning. Then we will know how important it is to have meaning in our life. However，we can achieve meaning only if we have made a commitment to something larger than our own little egos(自我)，whether to loved ones，to fellow humans，to work，or to some moral concept. Many of us equate(视……等同于) “commitment”with such “caring”occupations as teaching and nursing. But doing any ordinary job as well as one can is in itself an admir