Free to Soar
Read the article quickly and answer the following question.
What is the meaning of “Free to Soar”?
One windy spring day, I observed young people having fun using the wind to fly their kites. Multicolored creations of varying shapes and sizes filled the skies like beautiful birds darting and dancing. As the strong winds gusted against the kites, a string kept them in check.
Instead of blowing away with the wind, they arose against it to achieve great heights. They shook and pulled, but the restraining string and the cumbersome tail kept them in tow, facing upward and against the wind. As the kites struggled and trembled against the string, they seemed to say, “Let me go! Let me go! I want to be free!” They soared beautifully even as they fought the restriction of the string. Finally, one of the kites succeeded in breaking loose. “Free at last,” it seemed to say. “Free to fly with the wind.”
Yet freedom from restraint simply put it at the mercy of an unsympathetic breeze. It fluttered ungracefully to the ground and landed in a tangled mass of weeds and string against a dead bush. “Free at last”, free to lie powerless in the dirt, to be blown helplessly along the ground, and to lodge lifeless against the first obstruction.
How much like kites we sometimes are. The heaven gives us adversity and restrictions, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength. Restraint is a necessary counterpart to the winds of opposition. Some of us tug at the rules so hard that we never soar to reach the heights we might have obtained. We keep part of the commandment and never rise high enough to get our tails off the ground.
Let us each rise to the great heights, recognizing that some of the restraints that we may chafe under are actually the steadying force that helps us ascend and achieve.
一个春风拂面的日子，一群年轻人正在放风筝。天空中满是颜色、形状和大小各异的风筝，犹如穿梭飞舞着的漂亮鸟儿。强劲有力的风吹着风筝，牵引线控制着风筝。
风筝并不随风而去，而是迎风飞往高处。风的劲吹使它们摇晃着、扯拉着，但牵引线和笨重的尾翼让它们始终处于控制之中。它们挣扎着、抖动着，似乎在说：“放开我！放开我！我要自由！”就在与风筝线抗争之时，它们也依然优雅地飞翔着。终于，其中一只风筝成功地挣脱了线的束缚，好像在说：“终于自由了，终于可以随风自由飞翔了。”
然而，没有束缚的自由让它完全处于风的无情摆布之下。它笨拙地坠落到地面，落在一堆乱草之中，线也缠在一丛枯死的灌木上。“终于自由了”——自由到无力地躺在泥土中，自由到无助地任由风吹得满世界跑，自由到撞到第一个障碍物就搁浅，毫无生气可言。
有时候，我们与风筝是多么相似啊！上天让我们经历逆境，体验束缚，并定下规则约束我们，是让我们从中成长起来，获得人生所需的力量。逆风而行时，束缚是不可或缺的。有些人强硬地抵制这些规则，那就永远也飞不到本可以达到的高度。只遵从部分规则，我们决不可能飞得很高。
每个人都飞往高处吧，同时也要认识到——某些令人恼怒的约束，实际上，是帮助我们攀升、飞跃和达成目标的强大力量。
Ace in the Hole
Keywords and expressions
unsympathetic，sympathetic
unsympathetic 意思是“不表同情的，无情的”；sympathetic 意思是“同情的，有同情心的”。这两个单词为同源词，在sympathetic的前面加上含有否定意义的前缀un，就构成了一个意思相反的单词。类似这样的单词还有happy与unhappy，aware与unaware等。
例：1. Lucy is an unsympathetic and feelingless woman.
露西是个无情而冷酷的人。
2. He is kind and sympathetic.
他很慈祥，且富有同情心。
Chunks in Practice
Grammer analysis
The heaven gives us adversity and restrictions, rules to follow from which we can grow and gain strength.
上天让我们经历逆境，体验束缚，并定下规则约束我们，是让我们从中成长起来，获得人生所需的力量。
注：这是一个介词提前的非限制性定语从句。先行词是adversity逆境，restrictions约束， rules to follow需要遵循的规则，这三个部分是并列关系。
“故天将降大任于是人也，必先苦其心志，劳其筋骨，恶其体肤，空乏其身，行拂乱其所为；所以动心忍性，增益其所不能。”正是这些磨难与困苦使我们成长，给我们前进的力量。古今中外，莫过于此。