First, can we know ourselves clearly?
For a person, knowing oneself may be more important than knowing the world and acquiring all kinds of knowledge and skills. From the perspective of education, the more skills children master, will the future be better? But we seldom encourage children to think about such problems. Who am I? What is the best thing for me to do? what can I do? What do I like to do best? Children are rarely encouraged to explore and discover themselves.
Looking back on my life, it has been 30 years, and I have been thinking, is life really about climbing as high as possible, running as fast as possible, and getting as much as possible? I have particular doubts about this. I think the purpose of life is not to be higher, faster and more, but more importantly, to find a position that suits you.
Zhang Jun, for example, grew up in a good family and was sent to various cram schools at home. He can play several musical instruments, dance and calligraphy, and then he went to a relatively first-class university abroad through expensive expenses. He spent four or eight years in college as a phoenix tail in high-end circles, but he was not happy at all. He lives only to make his parents feel more decent, not like himself.
I heard him say to me, Xiaoya, I envy you very much. Although you have experienced a lot, you can bravely choose to stick to being yourself, and I am too lacking in courage at this point. Everything has been arranged by my parents until now. I sigh, everyone is born different. I was not born as good as you. Family conditions are not good since childhood. I used to think it was unfair, but now I feel that this difficult environment as a child has also made my character strong, optimistic and open-minded.
For another example, many people think that a boy is lucky enough to have a better girl than himself. Do you think he will be happy? I think the answer is no, he will feel inferior and sympathetic when he gets along, so he may live very tired. A boy in our village found a girlfriend, and his parents told people around him that his child was capable. What about his girlfriend? But on the wedding day, he ran away from marriage and didn't marry, and the prepared banquet bride disappeared. On that day, her family proposed to dissolve the marriage. How embarrassing, and it happened in our village, and the parties were classmates who grew up together. Therefore, life is a chance meeting, don't climb up, rich girls find poor boys. Cinderella's marriage to Gao Fushuai's overbearing president is a fairy tale in TV series, which can't exist in reality. This is why this perfect plot will be constantly staged on the screen, but it is only a farce when applied to life.
Not long ago, the general election of the party branch in our village ended, and many people and parents asked me to go to this village as the party branch secretary. It is a waste of social resources for a good college student to take care of the baby at home. Everyone lamented that I went to college for nothing, and I was puzzled that I gave up this opportunity automatically. Everyone didn't fight hard enough, and I gave up automatically. The family said, isn't it good to have more than 40 thousand meetings a year? And I don't like doing things that I don't want to waste my life for money. For a time, I was regarded as a fool among the villagers. I didn't like fighting and chose to give up, so I became a veritable fool in the village. The reason is that I gave up an opportunity that everyone thought was a success.
I know my personality and personality very well. I just want to live more like myself. I don't like boring meetings, which is undoubtedly a waste of valuable learning and creative time in my life. As a loose-minded person like me, if I do these jobs according to my parents' suggestions, I will be a civil servant after three years, and no matter what level I reach, I will feel that I wear a pair of shoes that are not suitable for my feet every day.
I have been thinking about a question, why are teenagers so depressed and anxious now? It is because of this mismatch in life. Most people don't know their interests and personality characteristics at all to choose their major and find a job. Instead, learn a major you don't like, do a job you don't like, take someone else's road and let yourself go. This road of following the crowd has led to the mediocrity of life and the lack of driving force for the growth value of life itself, which has caused many problems. Because the path most people choose means safety in their eyes, everyone is scrambling for the same position.
So to some extent, our education is not to encourage young people to discover their true selves, but to let them escape from themselves. Choose to escape from the unique self to the general other, from personality to the so-called trend, from adventure to the so-called security. Give a simple example to illustrate one thing. Why are parents required to enroll their children in interest classes? Most of the reason is because "other people's children signed up for that interest training class." Parents who sign up for their children will tell me so. The children next door have all learned piano or dance, so I will send them to our home to prevent their children from falling behind. As a result, children don't like learning, and they get angry and quarrel every day because they send their children to remedial classes.
If you are going to ask those college students who are about to enter the university why they choose this major? Many answers are because "it is easy to find a job". In the past, because of accounting, my job was very good, and my family forced me to study accounting. During my college years, my scores in various accounting courses were basically close to full marks. I have successfully won many school honors, but I don't think it makes any sense. I felt uncomfortable doing this kind of professional-related work after graduation, so I resigned.
Why do people in the workplace do this job? Most of the reasons are because this job is "stable, with high income, which makes parents feel at ease". Even if you don't want to change your job, it's not because you like this new job, but because you hated your last job so much. Therefore, what leads to a person's life is endless escape and constant cycle. After graduating from college, I fell into this vicious circle because I changed jobs frequently, which led me to deny myself and doubt that I was a useless person at all. I have done 38 jobs, and none of them can last forever. At that time, I simply felt that I had fallen into the black hole of life in confusion and self-doubt.
Later, I have been reflecting on myself. The so-called sense of security brought by this drift is actually a false sense of security. If a person chooses to wear a tie in the most crowded place, how can he feel safe? It must be a fierce competition. I once read a book, from 0 to 1, written by peter teale, an investor in Silicon Valley. In other words, if a person wants to win from the competition, you should do 1 instead of 1000 1. If you do 1000 1, you must have lost at the starting line, because there are already 10000 people in front of you.
Those so-called unfortunate people have their own characteristics, while happy people have their own happiness. Why do I say that? Because unfortunate people go with the flow and follow the path of life taken by most people, which means mediocrity. Mediocrity means a sense of security in most people's hearts, and those so-called happy people often find another way and walk out of their own unique life.
I am a natural person who loves freedom, but freedom is not just a space for me, but a learning ability. Everyone's self, is in constant exploration and repeated trial and error out of their own life path. One can't sit in a room and rack one's brains, and then suddenly realize, ah, I should be like this. No one's "self" is a complete finished product in his teens and twenties, because it is not a beautiful jade. What we found at first was just an ordinary stone. You have to polish it slowly and carve this stone into yourself. This is the process of self-discovery.
My real name is Li Yuyu. I think I am a stone, but I like to constantly polish myself into a piece of jade I like, so I face up to my shortcomings, foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, and hide my weaknesses. This is my self-encouragement. I like to share jade's various jewelry designs for the same reason. I deeply love the piece of Baoyu, which has been polished by design and become the unique charm of jewelry. This is why many people in my circle of friends see me sending a lot of jewelry. As a result, a large number of readers think that I am doing WeChat business, that is, advertising and selling things, but it is not. It's just that I was deeply attracted and shocked by the beauty at the moment I saw that piece of jewelry, so I will often share everything I like and everything I think is beautiful because of my own internal drive.
Of course, over time, it also attracted a group of loyal fans who love jewelry to love and buy and share, which I didn't expect, but it also brought me a lot of unexpected income. Not long ago, a customer took a fancy to a south red ring in the animal year, which cost more than 3000 yuan, but did not specify the size of the ring. I went to ask the manufacturer and found that the other party deleted me. I don't know why, I sent a verification message. The other party said that you can't help me sell one in the last six months. Don't bother me. I despised that manufacturer at that moment. Originally, I appreciated and shared jewelry as my own aesthetics, but in their eyes, I just used such beautiful jade as a means of making money. This kind of person's quick success and instant benefit makes me look down upon it.
Thinking in their mode of thinking, their life is hard on the way to making money. If the customer asks not to buy, he thinks the customer is the enemy. Why don't they buy it and bother me? When this manufacturer found me at that time, his mouth was better than singing. When I saw his jewelry, it was really beautiful, but it was expensive. The cheapest one is only five or six hundred and one. I think there is a good chance to see this kind of jewelry, which is what I call jade edge. I never share these jewels for the purpose of selling my own money, but I am attracted by this jewelry design style. I'm lazy and never put a price on it. Maybe I never deliberately wanted to sell jewelry in the past, but I will sell a large part over time.
I replied directly to the manufacturer that you don't deserve to sell such beautiful jade, and then deleted this business. What aesthetic interest does a man who only has money in his eyes have? If you can't make money, turn your face. I am not an employee of that company. I just think their product drawings are in line with my aesthetics. By the way, I chose to share pictures when posting, but in the eyes of such people, I have to say that I think about what to do from the perspective of making money. It is really the root of the pain in life. A gentleman seeks the Tao but not the food. Feel that there is money in the sky. I boast that I have no talent for making money and becoming famous, but I have a sense of beauty, thinking about life, thinking about the meaning of life, and knowing what I love in this life is enough.
Second, one should have the courage to accept failure.
Since life is an adventure, we always make progress through trial and error, and we are bound to make mistakes, and the result may be failure. Many people are afraid to try and make mistakes because they are too afraid of the frustration and pressure caused by failure and the eyes and opinions of people around them.
Now this era is full of all kinds of successes, but there is no "failure" subject. The whole society, teachers and parents keep guiding children to "where there is a will, there is a way", but in fact success is a possible result under the conditions of multiple factors such as strength, luck, relationship, birth and emotional intelligence. And it is not easy to succeed simply by one person's enthusiasm.
It is better for a person to be a brave loser than a cowardly loser. Finally, even if I accomplish nothing, I will become a brave and honest person, which is often my encouragement.
Third, reverse thinking, what is success?
Another more terrible "failure value" is that the standard of success is too single and one-sided. What is success? Success means that a person can get ahead, earn more money, become a bigger official and have more fans ... in short, if you become an ordinary person, you are synonymous with failure. People in this world are too afraid to be an ordinary person.
Where are so many successful people in a society? Where are so many Ma Yun, Ma Hua Teng, Wang Jianlin and Yao Ming? Actually, most of us are ordinary people. I believe my daughter will be an ordinary person like me, but I hope she will have a free soul and an independent personality like me and become a happy person. I won't ask my child where to take the exam and how many points to get. Every time I think like this, I gain a kind of freedom as a mother.
Maybe some parents will tell me that our children don't have any comparative advantage. What should we do? In fact, everyone has their own comparative advantages when they come to this world. The so-called comparative advantage does not mean that you do one thing better than others, but that of all the things you can do, which one can do better than anything else. Even if it is a very common thing, such as my daughter likes painting, I encourage her to pack up and do housework. Children have a strong sense of independence and will not ask adults for help. I think this can also be a bright spot for a person. Our children may not be geniuses, but it is enough to live a comfortable life in Xiaotian's own land. I also call it personal success.
I may have been a very competitive person since I was a child, so for a long time, I seemed to think that others should be like this. Although it is impossible for everyone to be like Gates Buffett and Ma Yun, everyone should strive to be the "best self" and pursue a life of constant self-growth.
However, with my continuous growth, my thoughts gradually have new cognitive thinking, because I gradually realize that the so-called success is often accompanied by much greater responsibility and pressure than others, and not everyone should be a good self.
Take my husband and I for example. I am a person who especially likes learning and constantly transcends my own cognitive boundaries. I don't like watching entertainment programs such as variety TV series, and I never play games. This is what my husband likes. I was particularly angry when I saw him do these things a few years before I got married. I think this man is really a man without ambition. My husband said that everything a person is born to do is predestined, and not everyone will become a great man like Mao Zedong. After listening to his excuse, I was even more furious, saying that he was self-indulgent Because of this, two people are often different. As long as they are unhappy, I feel that both of them are hopeless if they don't make progress. Too lazy to learn to think, always trying to change him. This obsession has brought a lot of pain to my married life and a lot of unhappiness to two people.
Every time I always argue with my head and say that he ignores me at all. As a result, I am annoyed, but I don't feel so happy. Observing the people around me, I found that people are different. If a person wants to live a good life, he has to accept others and himself different from himself, so that he can be broad-minded. Then I found that all those unhappiness disappeared.
Later, I reflected on myself and came to a conclusion, because everyone's value ranking is very different. Not everyone is willing to exchange comfort, so-called relaxation and happiness for those so-called success, and it is not necessarily guilty to settle for the second best and live a leisurely and relaxed life. It is not necessarily a bad thing for a person to choose freedom and give up success.
I used to be particularly disgusted with the welfare people in our village. I think they are a burden to society, especially lazy people, who are looked down upon more or less. I also feel that the government gives too little and fights with each other, making it difficult to do the work of village cadres. This is also a very important reason why I don't like doing this kind of work. I hate dealing with these irrelevant interests.
But in retrospect, this group of lazy people who eat the welfare of the party have also made great contributions to society. Perhaps the welfare of the * * * Party is actually a reward for this contribution. What contribution do we lazy people in poor places make to society? I have been thinking about this problem in my mind, because their existence greatly reduces the intensity of social competition. I used to live in those cities in Guangzhou. I think the pressure is too great and the pace is too fast. I can't adapt to going back to my hometown. I have lived in the countryside with my in-laws for several years, and I am the only one around me who is more active in studying and living. Others never study, but over time, I find that I study because I am happy, not because of my own lifestyle, but because I deliberately learn some abilities in order to survive and compete. Instead, I live happily. I wonder what is the reason behind this change.
You might as well think it over. Now we are striving for quick success and instant benefit in society. Everyone lives in a state of anxiety and breathlessness every day. If we all yearn for Saburo, how tired we will be. Therefore, in an era of fierce competition and fast pace, there are some lazy people in our village, and society will be less anxious. While sacrificing themselves, they also saved countless people on the verge of collapse. In fact, I also experienced this process when I returned to rural life from big cities. The people in that environment in the big city and the surrounding environment have put too much pressure on me. Instead, let me live freely in the countryside. I suddenly feel that this is my nature. I found that some readers asked me what I do. I said I was so confident and calm when I was farming. When I was studying, I felt that farming was not such a good thing. When I was a child, adults told me every day that if I didn't study hard, I could only farm like us. At that time, I felt that farming would be looked down upon and not as good as others.
So I think the best educational idea for parents is to inspire their children to know themselves and learn to accept their true selves. This is not only to make life easier for children, but also to make our parents and children get along better. I think that the education guided by the circumstances, from the production of education itself, is the best allocation of social resources and the happiness, harmony and stability of families, and the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. Only when everyone can give full play to his maximum value can a society be full of vitality.
I used to be a suicide patient with severe depression. Depression means I have mental health problems. Later, I became a person who survived and was blessed. Then I thought, why should I use death to escape from reality? What is the root of the problem? After I recovered from depression, I compared myself with my previous mental state and found the following changes, that is, my inner acceptance was much greater than in the past. My ability to adapt to reality is much greater than in the past, my tolerance for interpersonal relationships around me is also much greater, and my ability to make myself happy is much stronger than in the past. In a word, my heart has become much stronger than before?
I think the greatest significance of a person's efforts is that he can seek more choices, thus saving more sense of security for himself, so that his heart will not get out of control, so that his life will not fall into a disorderly predicament.
The ultimate goal of reading is not to get a diploma, not to get rich, but to become a free man with temperature, interest, thought and independent personality. I think this kind of reading is valuable and this kind of life is worth living. A life that has never been seriously thought about is not worth living.
On New Year's Day this year, I want to send a circle of friends and see many people writing summaries in the circle of friends. A friend of a friend posted all the honors he had won in the past year, and the status of winning the prize and the title was particularly dazzling. I happened to see it that day. Because of familiarity, I said, I am proud to see that you have achieved great success this year, but a man who is obsessed with worldly honor and success is not necessarily a wonderful life. Which friend is not so comfortable?
The freedom of a person's life is often manifested when the so-called money can no longer please you and the so-called secular can no longer bind you; When we find that we have nothing to show off, our life has reached a considerable height.
Plato said: "A happy life cannot be found in wealth, fame and various decorations, but must be found in one's own heart."
I once lived in the countryside from the city, and I gradually changed from an exquisite life to a simple life. I am also used to wearing old clothes. I gave up wearing long skirts and shorts, and those that looked fashionable were replaced with old clothes that were almost ordinary to the villagers around me. People in this place can't remember to buy clothes for a year. I used to think about how to wear good clothes, but now I have the same clothes at home for a week or two. But occasionally, I will change back to beautiful and fashionable clothes and take a beautiful photo after taking care of myself. This seems to be a sense of ceremony and little luck in my life. I used to do this every day, and I felt particularly wasted time and money. In fact, this minimalist life is simple and pure, but it reduces the troubles in life.
My daughter saw that I got a lot of honorary certificates in college and asked how my mother could be like you. I said that if you do what you like well, you will get many honorary certificates one day, but you should understand that doing what you like is to make yourself happy, not to do things for honor. Behind the previous honorary certificate is actually my insecurity and insecurity. At that time, I thought that if I won a lot of honors, I would be recognized and treated by people around me. I used to be unhappy and not free because I wanted to prove myself too much. Now I look back at the past honor and see how fragile I was when I was wrapped in honor in college.
A person who tries to raise himself with the honor of success in others' eyes is doomed to fall into the abyss one day. My life has changed from a college high flyers to a state of self-denial and even depression and suicide. It is this view of education from childhood that makes me feel that only an extraordinary life with both fame and fortune is the value of success. When I get these, I will fall from the high point of my life to the bottom, and I realize that I have dug a big hole for myself. Then I fell to the ground and broke into pieces. Now I look at my certificate of honor and I no longer feel how great I am. But when I accepted the real ordinary life, lived well in life, and didn't rely on external fame and fortune to prove anything, I found that my soul was free and easy, and I found that this was my true self. I will never say, aren't you high flyers? If you don't understand this, you won't. If you don't, you won't. You can learn with an open mind. I suddenly prefer to admire myself like this.
Taoist thought likes to compare Tao to light, and light represents the consciousness of wisdom. This kind of light is an internal presentation. I like to say "light but not dazzling". There is light, but don't glare. Lao Tzu also said, "and its light dust." In a certain environment, if your own light is too dazzling, it will easily become the object of others' dealing with and ridicule. Therefore, we should know how to converge and be able to confuse dirt. When others are covered with dust, you will also be slightly polluted. If it is completely clean, others will exclude you, which may even lead to danger. Therefore, sharing weal and woe is a very important accomplishment to understand the external environment and respect others.
In the past 32 years of my life, I have recorded my own life experience and my reflection on my past life. Wherever I go in my life, I will leave footprints; Everything I fight for will grow.
As long as a person's life is a struggle choice, the process of growth is a self-cultivation of inner strength. If a person's life has not experienced the process of test, frustration and self-struggle, then his inner world is empty and lacks the so-called real power.
No matter who has made achievements in any field, there is a story of struggle. But the key point of the problem is not to look at others, but to return to yourself, to know what potential exists in yourself, and to exercise it in what way, so as to practice it in your own life. This is the road of life I am thinking about at the moment, and I will write it down to encourage you.