Happy New Year to All My Readers, Patients, Relatives, and Friends
Today is the first day of 2024. Thank you to all my readers, patients, relatives, and friends for your support, trust, and company over the years. I am glad to have spent 2023 with you all and to have welcomed 2024 together.
A phrase I often tell my patients is: don't think about things too far ahead; let's take it one year at a time. This year I will work hard to manage your health for this year, and next year we will fight for next year. Life is short and the world is impermanent; we can only cherish each present moment and cannot plan too far ahead. Not moping over past regrets, nor anxiously worrying about the future, living in each present moment and improving the quality of each present moment—this is the greatest wisdom of being human.
2023 has passed. However much suffering we had this year, these 365 days are gone forever and need no longer be dwelled on. Suffering we have endured is not really suffering. May everyone smile away grievances, forget all unhappiness, remember all that is beautiful, and welcome 2024 with a positive mindset.
If anything I have done over the past year has hurt anyone, I hope those I have hurt will forgive me; I repent to you. I have no intention of harming anyone; if harm was indeed caused, it must have been inadvertent and accidental. I am also willing to forgive all who have tried to hurt or attack me; actually, I don't care about such things at all and let them go the moment they happen. So I hope no one feels guilty toward me.
Human society entered an unprecedented golden age after World War II. In this golden age the overall atmosphere was harmonious, peace-loving people were in the majority, and most countries were prospering. There was a vigorous baby boom after WWII; that generation had the best physical and psychological health, and their marriages were on the whole happier than ours.
Now we seem to be repeating the historical law that "when the world has been united long it must divide, and when it has been divided long it must unite," entering a new and troubled era. Moreover, medical research has found that humanity's physical fitness and mental health are also declining. This is a cyclical law, and we can find similar phenomena in history. After a period of prosperity and peace, we upright-walking creatures become restless for a while, all sorts of problems break out, and then, amid constant turmoil, we create a new balance.
The relationship between people and their environment is close; the broad environment affects everyone's physical and mental health. After passing through the postwar golden age, humanity's overall mental health is worrying. The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030, depression will become the number-one disease by global burden.
The Taiwan scholar Jiang Xun, when lecturing on Song lyrics, mentioned that people born in prosperous golden ages are more likely to experience the depressive mood of "boundless fine rain, fine as sorrow"; that is why most Song lyrics are pervaded by an inescapable melancholy. Extreme joy begets sorrow; after experiencing the best life, human beings always fall into a state of listlessness. From a biological point of view, we diploid creatures have a ceiling on both pleasure and sorrow; once we reach the ceiling, we must fall back, or we will fall seriously ill.
Excessive grief and excessive joy are both unbearable to the body. The optimal mental state is to remain at calm or gentle gladness. Over-excitement leads to mania; over-grief leads to depression; fluctuating between mania and depression leads to what psychiatrists call bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). Excessive emotional feeling also affects cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health; diseases caused by extreme emotion are hard to treat and need to be healed by the person slowly growing.
Plainness is the essence of life; people should learn to enjoy tranquility in plainness. The ancient Chinese long ago said that contentment is always joyous and is the best state of life. In interpersonal relations, our ancestors also advocated that "the friendship of gentlemen is as plain as water." They also said that what is rare in life is pure, simple joy. This life wisdom, tempered in the storms of life, deserves to be passed down from generation to generation.
In any era, there are always some people who remain in a stable and balanced state; such people are the best-adapted group. They can rise above their environment, continually adjusting their mood so that they are self-sufficient, fulfilled, and contented most of the time.
I hope that my readers, patients, relatives, and friends can all be self-sufficient, fulfilled, and contented most of the time. May you, at every year's end, comfort yourselves well and let your wounded hearts heal; and at every year's beginning, encourage yourselves well, so that your inner hearts are always glad.
If I were to predict the world situation this year, I would be very pessimistic. Countries around the world may experience more turmoil in every respect, and the climate crisis and food crisis will intensify. But I hope that all of us can, in such an era, find our own way to "peace of mind," lower our desires, adjust our mindset under the new circumstances, and not let the storms outside disturb the calm within.
So my greatest wish is that every one of my readers may have peace of mind in 2024.