From Now On, Live Life Carefully

In his essay "Once More Crossing the Xiyuan Bridgehead," Mr. Yu Pingbo wrote: "From now on we must live life carefully." At some point in everyone's life, they suddenly make the same sigh.

I noticed the other day that my white hair has clearly increased; only then did I realize I have truly reached middle age. No matter how I pretend to be young, I cannot stop the white hair on my head from increasing.

After middle age, one feels time passing like a white horse flashing past a gap — very fast. The years gone by seem to have passed in an instant, and the days ahead are not many.

Life is precious; cherish it.

In the preface to his

Life Is No More Than This

, Mr. Yu Pingbo says that to live one must attain four ends: "The first is self-love. We stand on the side of loving others, and have reasons to love ourselves. The second is peace — at least among us (several of Yu Pingbo's friends); this is not a dream. The third is progress: only in progress is there life; to expand life, there must be further progress. The fourth is leisure: what is meant by 'diligence leaves no spare leisure, yet the heart is constantly at leisure.'"

When a person reaches middle age and is willing to sit quietly and reflect, they can appreciate all that Mr. Yu Pingbo described. Once past middle age, the remainder of life is limited; how to live carefully within that limited remainder, Yu Pingbo gives his answer: self-love, peace, progress, and leisure.

When we are young we do not know to love ourselves; young people must strive, and in striving they flatter others, often wronging themselves. In middle age, although striving is still necessary, there is no longer any need to be unloving of oneself for the sake of striving. If we do not love ourselves, no one else will love us for ourselves.

The middle-aged heart gradually grows calm. A young man should be wild, but after middle age it is not easy to be wild again; "an old man briefly flaring with youthful fire" is only a rare occasion. The middle-aged heart is chiefly peaceful: not delighted by gain, not grieved by loss. Living with neither servility nor arrogance, eating neither too salty nor too bland dishes, meeting events without panic, remaining unruffled no matter what befalls.

The intelligence and physical strength of middle-aged people are both in good condition; we still have about twenty years of prime, so middle-aged people can settle down to do something. We can absolutely do our own work in a peaceful frame of mind.

"Diligence leaves no spare leisure, yet the heart is constantly at leisure" is a reward to ourselves: going to the hills to enjoy a "half day of leisure," or reading a prose piece that "strikes a chord in my heart" before sleep — these both belong to "diligence leaves no spare leisure, yet the heart is constantly at leisure." Life need not be scheduled too hurriedly; scheduling it too hurriedly is a kind of harshness to oneself. Goals need not be set too high; setting them too high is self-torture.

The earth will keep turning without us; the work we want to do will never be finished. There will always be others with the same ideals; let them do the unfinished work. With generations running the baton, the work will be done more beautifully. It is enough that we have done our best; achievement need not be ours.

Su Shi wrote in "Reflections at Red Cliff": "Men of feeling should laugh at me for having grown white-haired so early; life is like a dream; I raise a cup to the moon over the river." When one reaches the age of "growing white hair," one understands that life truly is like a dream. Life comes only once; in the past we piled too many unnecessary burdens on it. From now on, these should all be set down. Live carefully, enjoy the second half of life well, then leave the world without regrets. Once this life is over, the next may not necessarily exist in the form of "human" life.

Now I read some "leisure books" under the covers before sleep every day, now and then browsing the Kindle monthly subscription store — it costs less than ten yuan a month — to see if there are any interesting miscellaneous books to flip through. If a book catches my eye, I borrow it; when I tire of it, I return it before finishing and go back to the subscription store to continue "hunting." Often, as I read, my snores start and I drift off.

Reading this way, as the mood takes me, has no burden, yet it broadens my horizons and heart. Occasionally I find an author I like and look around for other works; if there are any, I buy and read them. Reading a good book is far more pleasant than communicating with people with whom there is no common ground. The reason I prefer reading to socializing is that reading achieves the purpose of companionship just as friendship does, and this kind of companionship is more interesting.

I no longer keep the strings in my head so tightly wound. At my age, to make myself tense over external possessions, or abase myself obsequiously before others, is simply not worth it. Even the heavenly father could not make me serve him unwillingly. To people who do not know me, I basically say little; I do not "sell my melons and praise them" like Wang the melon seller, trying to convince people to believe in me. Believe it or not, let things take their course.

Occasionally a few people online try to provoke or humiliate me; I just let them pass like a fart. Blocking is the simplest and most effective way to handle such unpleasantness; limited life cannot be wasted on worthless things, not even for a second.

Living carefully is not about pinching pennies; it is an attitude of responsibility toward one's remaining years. The life one once dreamed of but could not live, one now strives to live. When past dreams come true, one may not still love them, but if one never realizes them, regret remains forever.

Dr. Atul Gawande, in

Being Mortal

, mentions the final wishes of terminal cancer patients nearing the end of life; the wish lists these people wrote were basically all extremely simple, everyday little things. People's true needs are just this simple; we may once have thought we needed to fulfill many wishes, but when we set out to "live carefully," we find our real needs are not complicated. It is not that I am easily satisfied; it is that life itself is no more than this.