Close-up p 10. Feelings and Emotions. Extra Writing

Creative writing:
Write a personal account trying to answer some of these questions:
 
1. How has compassion for others changed your life?
2. When were you held hostage by your own fears? When did your own commitment to succeed win out over fear?
3. When have you accepted only crumbs of love?
4. What wounds have not healed?
5. What demons distract you from doing what you want to do?
6. When have you grasped for hope only to have it elude you?
7. What does anticipation look like? What do you yearn for right now that you're not willing to wait for?
8. What's happiness? What makes you feel alive?
9. Can you give up the accumulation of things? When have you received what you desired, only to find it wasn't what you wanted?
10. When have you been able to let go of past mistakes without regret?
11. When have you recognized anger, and then allowed it to evaporate?
12. What makes you cringe?

Now improve your answer using a collocations dictionary.

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Sample answer (questions 5, 6, 7, 8 & 9)

Don't you love that feeling? Getting up at the break of dawn, everything seems possible. Like a kid who is going on a field trip that day. Do you know that feeling? You are brimming with excitement and expectation. And, of course, you feel this is the beginning of happiness and that there will be more. However, most of the time this is it, that feeling of pleasurable anticipation is everything there is, right then. And those moments when we are feeling it are those ephemeral /ɪˈfemərəl/ moments in our life that need to be seized.
I got up this morning with such a feeling. It was a mixture of longing and eager anticipation. I was looking forward to a special day ahead. It was black Friday and I wanted to buy a new TV set.
As I turned on the TV I saw people queueing outside some of the largest retailers. I was getting more enthusiastic. I decided to go to one store and find out if I could get what I was looking for. As I arrived, the store had not opened yet but there were a lot of people standing in a lengthening queue waiting to get in. That sense of anticipation was growing. Eventually the doors were flung open and everybody rushed in. I dashed to the TV set department. When I got there, for a moment I felt overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of devices available but then, after having regained my composure I could ask an employee for some help. As he was showing me around I felt as that sense of hope was eluding me since the bargains didn't meet my expectations. I realized then all that fuss about black Friday was another gimmick of the capitalist demons.