The world is like chess, you and I are both chess players. Some people fall like flying, step by step to camp; some people are trembling, every step is frightened. The less the chess pieces are, the more life becomes thinner. Whether it’s strategizing or frightening at every step, I don’t know whether I am an involuntary pawn in that chess game or a bystander outside the game. The outcome is final, but it’s just a result. What can it prove?
In this hustle and bustle of the world, I believe in a sentence: “Just ask for hard work, don’t ask about harvest.” I have always regarded this sentence as a life motto.
But most people in the world love to judge a person’s value by results. Even too many standards have been set. At what age do you have to get married and have children, and how many years do you have to buy a house and a car? How many years of hard work do you have to get ahead and respond to the expectations of your loved ones? In order to achieve these goals, it seems that everyone is tightening their heartstrings and working day and night to overcome all kinds of shackles and difficulties. Compared with poetry and distant places, most people carry their bags of life and work hard for the firewood, rice, oil and salt and the trivial life.
Efforts are not necessarily rewarding, but not working hard is doomed to nothing. Don’t look down on the small things in front of you, because not only big success is the accumulation of small success, any small success will encourage you, increase your self-confidence, and maintain your interest in continuing to work hard.
Prosperity is the result of hard work in the past, and adversity is also the rhythm of the future.
In the process of working hard, you don’t have to care about others’ cold eyes or applause, just do your best. Just burn hard, even if people passing by can only see the smoke. If you live a lifetime, you should live out your own demeanor, so why not be afraid of other people’s rumors.
Zeng Guofan once said: “We can only rely on the two things of advancing morality and cultivating career.” He regards morality and career as the foundation of life. On weekdays, I insist on keeping a diary, daily self-examination, reading and practicing calligraphy, and self-cultivation.
Above the officialdom, he is more like walking on thin ice, not greedy for money or merit, honest and fair, and diligent. Someone once gave him a piece of Wang Xizhi’s calligraphy, but he returned it intact after reading it, saying that he didn’t dare to take it.
During the turbulent ten years of political turmoil in the late Qing Dynasty, some corpses were banished and some were deported, but he was promoted to nine consecutive ranks. This is inseparable from his days of staying up late to review official documents and slack in his illness.
When we are truly living in the present, we can cut off the sorrows and worries of the past and gain true freedom.
Do your best and obey the fate. Whatever belongs to you will eventually meet even if you are separated by thousands of rivers and mountains, and what does not belong to you will not be obtained by all kinds of demands.
Life is half fireworks and half pure heart. Half of the effort, half of the situation is enough, that’s enough. Wherever you go, you will leave traces of goodwill, and when you choose to do it, you will try your best to do your best.