Only by Letting Go of Everything Can One Achieve Everything

A few days ago, my wife and I were discussing our child's university education, and I put forward my view: given that I need to bear the main educational expenses for his university and graduate studies, I have the right to tell him how much I can afford, and I cannot endlessly accommodate his demands. I spoke openly with my child about the family's current financial situation, our parents' state of health and income, the level of pressure I can bear, and the expenses for the other family members I need to support besides him.

I also set a principle for him: I can only meet his basic educational needs, and even within those basic needs I require him to work and study to cover part of the cost himself rather than having me cover everything. If he has higher-level educational needs, he must create the conditions for himself and strive hard; he is already over eighteen and can no longer rely entirely on his parents.

I have never believed that good educational outcomes are built with expensive money. Whether a person succeeds depends on their natural talent, character, ideals, and subjective initiative, and has little to do with external conditions. I believe I have a right to speak on this matter: up to now, I have basically brought my own talent into full play. No matter how much money my parents had heaped on me, I would not necessarily be better off than I am now. On the contrary, I even suspect that if my parents had given me ample financial support, my development might have been worse rather than better.

Before my mother died, she said to me with guilt: Son, your father and I gave you very little support your whole life. From the first grade, you helped the family run a street stall. In junior high you were responsible for looking after the family's business and farm work. After entering high school, you basically spent no more money; your scholarships exceeded your tuition and fees, and you lived very frugally. By university, you basically spent not a cent of the family's money. Yet when I fell ill, I consumed so many years of your effort and so much of your hard-earned money. This is not fair to you. My mother felt she had owed me all her life; on her deathbed she sighed over having given birth to a son who had carried burdens for others like a camel his whole life.

I of course could not accept my mother's view. I believe she and my father gave me a great deal. My mother nourished me with her love, laying a solid foundation of egalitarian consciousness in me, giving me self-confidence, a calm disposition, and an unshakable sense of security for my whole life, so that I live neither servile nor arrogant. She was deeply compassionate and loving, and ran the household thriftily all her life; these also influenced me. From my father I inherited genes for courage and the pursuit of justice, and he also trained my ability to withstand blows. These are infinitely more precious than wealth.

Excessive giving only fosters a person's laziness; it cannot ignite their inner vitality. Indulgent love is toxic love for anyone, because it does not help a person develop survival ability. Not long ago I met a close college friend in Guangdong, and we recalled our college years. He laughed and said that back then I was so poor I had nothing to my name, but I was actively striving to change my situation and did not collapse under hardship. I have walked step by step to where I am today, relying on the courage not to give up in difficulty and the spirit of perseverance.

I often emphasize to my child that most members of our family are not naturally gifted; our IQ and EQ are not the most outstanding, and we need to compensate for our shortcomings through persistent diligence and restraint of our own desires. After my son entered university, his grades were around the top 10%, though not at the very best level.

But in mathematics—the hardest major—he has been able to persist, often scoring over 90. About half of mathematics majors collapse after learning mathematical analysis, barely passing and having to give up; that is why students in his school's math major can apply to switch majors at any time, taking into account that math is so hard that many students cannot learn it. I told him: your talent is not the best, but it is not the worst either; as long as you persist for a lifetime, you will still achieve good results in mathematics.

I have lived in this world for over forty years, and more than 90% of the people I have seen cannot be said to have a stable self. Most people drift with the tide all their lives, unable to hold to their dreams long-term, easily influenced by popular ideas and trends, and easily tempted by all sorts of things; in the end they are easily captured by their emotions, fluctuating along with the great social currents.

If I must name my own strengths, I think my greatest is persistent diligence, with long-term life goals. What I pursued in junior high, I still pursue today, without regret to the end, and I have never been lazy. This persistence has brought me many life experiences that differ from the crowd, and has kept my emotions in a basically stable state. All kinds of setbacks can briefly affect me, but none can destroy my core.

If I must leave something to my son, the last thing I should leave is material wealth; rather, I should leave this spirit—the spirit of encouraging him to strive for his own dreams and encouraging him to persist. If I do not let him go, always using my own effort to help him obtain better educational conditions and ignoring his subjective initiative, his achievements in life will be very limited. Moreover, this would also undermine his survival ability.

His life is still very long, and in our era, crises of population, resources, and environment occur frequently. In his lifetime, he will experience no shortage of natural disasters, man-made calamities, plagues, and wars. If he is to survive on his own, he must improve his ability to adapt to the environment and his ability to survive. He must learn to seek truth from facts, learn to strive for himself, and learn to grow under limited conditions.

So sometimes letting go is the truest love.