Love the Life Right in Front of You
Beijing had an autumn rain that lasted all night. When I got up in the morning, the air had turned cool. Another gardenia had opened on the windowsill. I opened the window, and the delicate fragrance of the gardenia drifted into the room, filling it with a clean scent. The soil in my planters had also softened considerably, so I took the chance to pull out the cucumber, tomato and eggplant vines. I'll leave the soil exposed to the sun for a few days, then apply a round of fertilizer, and prepare to plant some napa cabbage and radishes. I also picked a basket of potted vegetables along the way—enough for the family to eat for a day or two.
The yield from my balcony vegetables is not abundant; I can only pick once or twice a month, at most one basket each time. But the joy the balcony vegetable garden brings me far exceeds its output. This year, every vacant patch in our residential compound has been turned into a makeshift garden by someone.
It seems that over the past couple of years, many city dwellers, like me, have fallen in love with cycling and growing vegetables. I've heard that bicycle shops are doing a roaring trade—decent mountain bikes and road bikes are almost impossible to find. Constrained by pandemic control policies, many people's lives have been confined to a single isolated city. Growing vegetables and cycling are two good ways to relax and amuse oneself when one is trapped in a lone city. People who love life are much the same everywhere; they always make themselves at home wherever they land and can find a way to enjoy life at any moment.
The only constant theme of life is the endless need to cope with change. Life in the past cannot return, and the future is worth longing for yet unseen and untouchable. Only the life right in front of us is what we must face at every moment. To me, the best philosophy for living is to love the life before us. You do not need much book-learning to understand this; country people are born knowing it.
People who love the life right in front of them throw themselves wholeheartedly into whatever is at hand. They do not regret the past, nor worry about the future. Along the road of growing up, we are always losing some things and gaining others—and even if what we gain is only a lesson, that too is a kind of harvest.
Among the essays of Mr. Zhou Youguang, my favorite is the prose he wrote in his one-hundred-something years, centered on a big tree outside his window. Illness and aging had confined this centenarian to his small room, but outside that small room's window stood a great tree, and among its branches birds would often gather. Just that one patch of scenery outside the window was enough to give the old man endless joy day after day; he never tired of admiring it again and again, wondering where those birds had come from and where they would fly next.
For a person whose inner world is rich, the limitations of the body and the scarcity of material things are not enough to bring sorrow and dejection. I imagine that if one day I, too, become so old and frail that I cannot move freely like Mr. Zhou Youguang, I will surely be just like him: there will still be a new "life right in front of me" to love—perhaps a few pots of vegetables on the balcony, perhaps a potted plant, perhaps a single blooming gardenia, or perhaps a few interesting books.
In my understanding, abundance is a state of mind, not a figure in a bank account, nor a luxurious lineup of mansions and luxury cars. I will probably never become a tycoon in this life; I may always live in a cramped dwelling of a few dozen square meters, always lacking space for one more bookshelf, and probably always walking rather than riding. Yet I have always felt myself very abundant—abundant to the point that neither Jack Ma nor Pony Ma could surpass me.
During the Spring Festival when I was twenty, I rented a single-story room in Tongzhou, Beijing. As the New Year approached, I was penniless. Not only was next month's rent nowhere in sight, even the next day's meals were unpaid for. But I was not anxious; I still sunned myself in the courtyard, played darts, and read novels, carefree and laughing as usual. I have always believed that heaven leaves a way out—and sure enough, a turning point came: someone paid me an honorarium to write articles.
This cheerful and unflappable attitude even won me the affection of my landlord's daughter, and she was not the only girl who was fond of me at the time. It was a pity that by then I was already spoken for and could not afford to be half-hearted. This shows that when many people choose a partner, they value character more than wealth. A person with something praiseworthy in his character will not end up alone in life, because there are still many in this world who love the positive, sunny qualities in another person; they believe these are the true sources of joy and happiness in life.
Perhaps you are in difficulty, perhaps illness is making you miserable, perhaps aging is bringing you down. But I hope that no matter what has befallen you, you can shift your attention away from regret over the past and fear of the future, and bring it back to the life right in front of you—and love this real life before you. Life is the medicine that heals our hearts; when we love it, vitality radiates from every part of us.
In closing, I want to say: every kind of life has something lovable about it. As long as we love life, we are sure to discover the endless delight it holds. Joy can be created with our own two hands. A child shaping a little figure out of mud can be happy for half a day—why can't we?
At the same time, when we are able, let us also try to create small joys for others. Every time I send or receive a parcel, I never forget to tip the courier two yuan in the app. I imagine that in the moment he receives the tip, his mood brightens a little. I always hope that everyone I meet can live a bit more happily—not crushed by life, not fretting amid the shambles of daily existence.