My Child Has Given Me the Motivation to Keep Growing

Not long ago I read an article in *Scientific American* about how the parent-child relationship promotes the brain development of both father and child at the same time. The article mentioned that when a father cares for a newborn, not only does the child's brain develop because of the father's care, but the father's own brain also develops and grows once more. This research is interesting, but is the mutual promotion of brain development between father and son limited to the period when the father cares for the newborn? I think not.

Recently my child has undergone a great change. As everyone knows, high school is the critical period when a person transitions from being a minor to an adult; my son is in the first year of high school, and the changes in him are so obvious that I cannot but be influenced by them.

My child's changes are comprehensive. Not only has he become much more studious than before, but his willpower has suddenly grown stronger. He studies on his own initiative, deeply absorbed when studying; to control his weight, he can control his appetite better than his mother and I, eating quite frugally. Moreover, he no longer does everything with only three minutes of enthusiasm, but persists with real perseverance.

He has suddenly become a person with a clear goal and a firm will. He told me that he has only one goal: to be admitted to the mathematics department of Peking University and study mathematics for a lifetime. He has no Plan B for the college entrance exam. He does not consider at all whether, if he fails to get into Peking University's math department, he might choose the math department of some other school. He asked me to support him financially if he fails to get into Peking University's math department, allowing him to repeat the year. To get into Peking University's math department, he is willing to repeat for up to three years. If, after repeating for three years, he is still not destined for Peking University's math department, he will give up, admit he is not cut out for it, and choose a university he can get into to study mathematics.

In primary and junior high he had also set goals, but had not worked hard; back then he loved to play. But after setting this goal this time, he studies day and night without stopping, and even voluntarily joined the school's "strong foundation" honors class. Judging from his current momentum of progress, he has a very good chance of getting into Peking University's math department on his first try at the college entrance exam.

In him, I seem to see myself of more than twenty years ago. Back then I, too, was resolute in will and pressed forward unswervingly. But after passing that age, I gradually quieted down.

After the final exam of my son's second year of junior high, adolescent rebellion appeared. At the time I was somewhat at a loss, so I consulted my teacher on how to guide the child. My teacher said, buy the child more biographies of famous people to read. So I bought many biographies of famous people; what my child liked reading most was biographies of scientists, so I bought quite a few biographies of the physicists, biologists, and mathematicians he was interested in, and also bought many popular-science works for him to read, which he devoured with great relish.

When I myself am resting, I also flip through these biographies. As I read, I feel how truly insignificant I am. We are all human, yet those brilliant scientists and physicians have made so many breakthrough discoveries, while I myself do not have a single original discovery to show for it. I truly feel that the longer I live, the more ashamed I am; compared with them, I am too mediocre.

Before I knew it, I was already in my forties; the best years of life have flashed by, and I do not know whether I can still achieve anything in the years remaining. Perhaps for me, the hardest thing to accept is having wasted this life and accomplished nothing.

My son is ambitious and wants to become a mathematician. To win my support, he said to me: Dad, think—if your son one day really becomes a mathematician, would that not be something to make you proud? I answered yes, and I also greatly admire this fearless spirit of his. I once had this spirit myself, but it now seems to have faded a good deal. He told me that he would not mind the hardship and monotony that studying mathematics requires; he is willing to devote his life to mathematical research and wants to accomplish something in the field of mathematics.

When I was his age, I too had lofty ambitions. I hoped to make innovative achievements in medicine, and at the same time I also had political aspirations; I hoped to do something to change China. I have not yet realized either of these two life goals, and yet I have already become more or less sunk.

Watching my child struggle day and night for his own life goal, I feel very ashamed. Actually, I myself am not old yet; although I have not yet achieved outstanding accomplishments, I have also laid a certain academic foundation, and I am still very hardworking. Among my peers I am not outstanding, but I am not too bad either; as long as I can continue to endure monotony and tedium, there is every hope of making some breakthrough achievement. Those innovative discoveries that changed human history were mostly made by scientists who, through dreary repetitive observation, experimentation, statistics, calculation, and thinking, after countless failures, finally got there. Moreover, many people's achievements are only recognized by the world long after they have died.

These years my mindset has been more or less negative; because I have seen so much death, I have deep down denied the positive meaning of striving. Admittedly, from a macroscopic perspective, human striving is indeed not necessarily as great as we ourselves make it out to be. But compared with other ways of living, the way of striving for an ideal is still the best choice.

Because of my child, I have also become positive; my scattered attention has coalesced, and I have new reading and research plans. My son's schoolwork is entirely no worry of mine; from childhood up I have never managed him, and he also refuses to attend training classes, yet he can raise his own grades, which puts my mind greatly at ease—when my brother and I were his age, we were the same kind of person. Our parents never fretted over our two brothers' studies, let alone tutored us.

The outcome of most people's striving is like that old man in Hemingway's *The Old Man and the Sea*: every time he puts to sea laden with hope, he returns disappointed. But is not the progress of human civilization achieved through ceaseless striving, supported by this spirit of fearing no failure?

I will walk alongside my son. I seek not to leave a name in history, but only that this life not be lived in vain.