Happiness Lies in Being Content With Every Moment of the Present

Every negative thing has its positive side, and every positive thing has its negative side, because all things under heaven contain their opposite.

If we fix our eyes on the negative side of things, then even if we owned the four seas and were enjoying the best the world has to offer, joy would turn to sorrow. The thought that all this will one day be lost, that time will return it all to dust, plunges us at once into boundless grief.

If we see the positive side, then even if we are wretched and destitute, owning almost nothing, beset by every hardship, we can still find joy in suffering. We lift our eyes to admire the white clouds, and are delighted by the green grass by the road. From the heart we sigh: how good it is to be alive! It does not matter if we have not a coin to our name, for this magnificent natural scenery can be enjoyed without spending a penny.

When a person's needs are reduced to the lowest possible point, he is most easily happy. For such a person, even a gain others consider trivial brings delight. He does not worry about life; he loses himself in what he loves.

Yan Hui, a disciple of Confucius, was such a man. Confucius praised him from the heart: 'Admirable indeed was Hui! A single bamboo dish of rice, a single gourd of drink, in a mean narrow lane—others could not have borne the distress, but Hui never changed his joy. Admirable indeed was Hui!' People like Yan Hui live simply and have extraordinarily stable emotions; unmoved by circumstance, they are always happy, and Confucius himself envied him.

I think I am, most of the time, such a person as Yan Hui. Though I have occasionally been depressed or troubled by parting and death, those occasional low moods are trivial against decades of life. Recently I have returned to my usual positive and optimistic state: reading, tending the garden, writing, preparing for exams, seeing patients. Life is full and good.

The old man in the vegetable garden still teaches me how to garden, earnestly. In August I was in a state of collapse and did not sow in time, so my cabbages have not done well and were planted carelessly. Today in the garden the old man next door patiently showed me how to prepare the beds and tend the cabbages, reassuring me that though I planted a little late, it is not too late and they can still grow well. In that moment I enjoyed the beauty of it. He bent over my plot, using my small tools to demonstrate the technique, and even tidied two rows of cabbages for me. What a warm-hearted old man! May you be healthy and long-lived, and may we remain gardening neighbors.

I am one of the people least influenced by worldly society. From the age of nineteen I turned my back on university without a backward glance and chose my own road; neither parents, teachers, relatives, nor lovers could pull me back. Most people spend their whole lives fighting to survive, but I have a strong personality and, by my brother's words, uncommon resolve, stubbornly walking the road I chose, listening only to the call of deep-seated vocation and passion, not yielding to reality. I dare say that among Chinese readers, few are as free and unbound as I.

So the midlife crisis is to me like a summer sunshower—even as it rains, the bright sun hangs in the sky. The shower comes quickly and leaves quickly. Beyond bringing a breath of freshness and making my life lighter and better than before, it has done no real damage.

I should be grateful to myself for refusing to be kidnapped by worldly society. I should also be grateful to my brother, who when I was ten told me that adults' words and the rules of this world are not necessarily right. I remember that saying so deeply; I have told my son the same again and again: the road you walk must come from the needs of your own heart; do not obey teachers or parents, and do not be swayed by those around you.

My brother was one of the most important guides on my path. When I was in first year of middle school, my Chinese teacher sighed that he did not read as widely as I. The reason was simple: I was born loving reading, and so was my brother. As a child I first read through the books my father and fourth uncle had collected, then the classics my brother bought by pinching pennies. Every school holiday he would come home with a snake-skin bag stuffed with literary classics; those books nourished my mind, formed my reading habit, and trained my writing.

In my youth there was little entertainment; reading was our greatest joy. Thanks to the books of my father, fourth uncle, and brother, my whole adolescence was spent in the joy of reading. Whatever pain I met, I could settle down by reading. Reading broadens our vision and stirs thought; when we read systematically and think deeply, we harvest much wisdom.

I did not need, like Jung, to seek out a special place and play childhood games to heal myself. The life I now live is little different from the one I lived in childhood and adolescence. Reading and farming have never left me; life itself is enough to heal me. Gradually I understood that what I had was only a transient depressive episode, not clinical depression at all. It was merely the hurricane of the midlife crisis lightly brushing past me, raising a small ripple, without harming me in the least.

Of course, its benefit is that I have now known the midlife crisis. Hugo, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Feynman—they all went through midlife crises and reset their life's course within them; why should I be the exception?

When I came through this crisis, I experienced the three realms the Chinese ancients spoke of. The first: seeing a mountain as a mountain, seeing water as water. The second: seeing a mountain as not a mountain, seeing water as not water. The third: seeing a mountain as still a mountain, seeing water as still water.

The sudden burst of depression was both real and illusory; like a filter, it changed the angle from which I saw the world. After a baptism of it, I reset my perspective to normal. But the normal after is not quite the normal before. After a sunshower, all things are refreshed.

I again feel how happy life is. My happiness lies in every present moment; I am content with everything. Happiness that asks nothing of others is the most reliable; the joy of contentment is the easiest to attain. I do not deliberately pursue happiness that depends on others or requires too many conditions. I release my fragrance in the empty valley; if butterflies come to keep me company, that is well and good, and if not, why not admire myself?

Patients' troubles no longer trouble me; I take joy and happiness in the achievement of relieving their pain. For terminal patients I cannot relieve, I can only feel deep regret. I can listen to every patient with both compassion and calm, no longer infected by their bad moods. Relatives' troubles no longer trouble me either: what can be solved, I solve; what cannot, I take as fuel for their growth. What are life's hardships? Did I not grow through hardship into what I am today? Without those difficulties, how would I have my present equanimity?

After reading a good book I feel an indescribable delight, like having just had an interesting and passionate discussion with a thinker of equal mind at the Pinno Café in the National Library, both of us the better for it.

Riding my bicycle on country roads, speeding along, the sense of total control over my body fills me with confidence in my health. The scenery on both sides is refreshing; this is the good life! Though I repeat it every day, I never tire of it.

Going often to the garden to watch vegetables grow puts me in good spirits. Their growth too teaches me the truth of life; close contact with nature reminds me that we are only children of nature, and that all human affairs are tiny. When I have time I tinker with my instrument; my only audience is myself. When I first chose which instrument to learn, I picked the one best for self-entertainment, not for performing to crowds.

A happy life is built on self-entertainment, plus friendly, good interaction with others. The interaction is optional: with it there is the joy of it, without it there is the joy of absence. The self-sufficient person no longer feels lack, so he has few expectations and high demands of no one. Those around him are not worn out; they need not rack their brains to make him happy.

Such happiness is both ordinary and real; like still water it flows constantly in the depths, though the surface is unruffled.