Be Yourself, and Transcend Yourself

Many years ago, when my elder brother and I had just entered the working world, with little experience and scarce social resources, we kept running into walls. My brother quoted a famous line from Kafka to express his inner feeling—"Every difficulty can conquer me." At the time I retorted, unconvinced, that for me the line had to be said the other way round: I can conquer every difficulty.

Later real life gave us a rather eclectic answer: it is neither that every difficulty can conquer us, nor that we can conquer every difficulty. With effort, some difficulties can be overcome, but there are also some difficulties that no amount of effort can conquer—for example, my mother's death from cancer was one difficulty I could not overcome.

One cannot necessarily overcome heaven, and fate will not necessarily change because of our efforts. A proper awe toward fate is appropriate. But effort can certainly change many things; without effort, nothing changes.

In my early thirties, when my brother and I discussed life once more, he said: "Little brother, I am a few years older than you. At my age, my realization is that only what we are truly interested in will we fight for to the end. So you should choose a career you truly love and not care about money, fame, or gain." I felt he was quite right. From then on, I ended the wavering deep in my heart and chose to devote myself to medical research, without caring about the consequences of this choice.

Though this choice left me living in poverty for many years, medical research kept me constantly enthusiastic, unaware of old age approaching, and fully achieving the state of neither dwelling on the past nor fearing the future. During this time, though my family deeply disapproved and tried to stop me from studying medicine—even to the point that, in a serious conflict, I was driven from home—I did not change my resolve. Because for me, a life without medicine is meaningless. If studying medicine presents all kinds of difficulties, then one simply overcomes them; there is no need to be afraid.

Not long ago, a senior medical figure nearing sixty used his own life to exhort me, encouraging me not to stop at my current level, not to fear hardship. Since I love medicine so much, I should simply endure a bit more hardship, overcome all difficulties, and receive a more comprehensive medical education, entering the grand hall of medicine.

His long conversation benefited me greatly. Looking back over my own life, from the moment my father gave me the name "Zhiyuan" (far-reaching ambition), urging me to have lofty aspirations, it was fated that I could not, like an ordinary person, be content with a mediocre life. I have always pursued my ideal and never feared difficulty. From childhood on, I have been a courageous person, always willing to challenge the greatest difficulties. The difficulty that everyone fears is, for me, the truly worthwhile challenge.

At my present age, though I still have many shortcomings, my mind is basically clear enough to know how to walk the rest of this life and what my true spiritual needs are.

Not long ago I went to pay respects to Li Shizhen, the great pharmacologist, who lies buried by a beautiful lake in my hometown. Local people call that lake Yu Lake, and it was here that Li Shizhen compiled the Bencao Gangmu (Compendium of Materia Medica) and the Binhou Maixue (Pulse Studies of the Riverside). My hometown, Huanggang in Hubei, truly is not short of sages of old, and these sages inspire us forward.

In Li Shizhen's mausoleum, looking at the various materials introducing him, I deeply felt that his life too had been full of setbacks and was not easy. From the age of forty, Li Shizhen entered a true state of scholarly pursuit; thereafter, through his personal perseverance, he realized his life ideal.

I too was striving for the medical cause I loved, but I lacked a complete plan. Only now have my goals and life plan gradually become clear.

I am no longer impatient. Not long ago, a Western-medicine colleague said to me, "A lifelong task is done slowly"; a life's work need not be rushed to completion at once, but can be carved slowly over a lifetime. I intend to strive for this life plan for the rest of my days, until the day I die.

I have no wish to become a polymathic pharmacologist who can syncretize everything, but it would be untrue to say I do not want to become a medical figure of some influence. I lean toward doing some deeper, more longitudinal research in the field I have studied for years, exploring within that domain some experience that can surpass what came before.

People are limited by their times. Not long ago I read that the Japanese Nobel laureate in medicine, Tasuku Honjo, said that of the papers published in Nature and Science, more than ninety percent will be overturned within ten years. Medicine advances and innovates precisely through this constant process of negation. If one fears making mistakes, one simply cannot move forward.

Li Shizhen, who compiled the Bencao Gangmu, was also pointed out by later generations to have made countless errors. But if there had been no Li Shizhens to make mistakes, how could medicine advance? We are still far from ultimate truth. Everyone climbs one story higher by stepping on the shoulders of predecessors, then offers his own shoulders for later generations to step on, helping them climb yet another story. Humanity advances in this cyclic process.

A person who is not himself loses his direction, becomes bewildered, and wastes his years. But a person cannot merely be himself; he should also have farther goals and constantly transcend himself.

I have explored in medicine for many years and initially possess the basic skills of medical research, but I truly lack more systematic and standardized training and have many shortcomings. To achieve greater accomplishments, I must remedy this deficiency. In the coming years I will travel widely to study and make up for my shortcomings, while combining the advantages I have already accumulated to do deeper research in the field I love.

Nothing in life is worth clinging to; only love and time must not be betrayed. I know that fate has its elusive side, but that is no excuse for giving up my efforts to change fate through my own struggle. Perhaps one day nature will arrange a difficulty I cannot conquer and overcome me. But until then, I can strive and conquer one difficulty after another.

The blow of failure, for a medical man who studies tumors, is truly an everyday occurrence. After being struck so many times, one develops great resilience. How can someone who has always lived in the storm fear the storm? No matter how great the difficulty ahead, I will never shrink back; there is only forward, no giving up.