My Keyword for 2019: Harmony
After today, my Spring Festival is over, and the new year's work must begin again.
In 2019, I pray for only one word: harmony (hé).
I was born in 1979, and in 2019 I turn exactly forty. Confucius said that at forty one is free of perplexity. I hope that from the age of forty onward, everything in my life can reach the realm of "harmony."
First, I want to be reconciled with others. What counts as being reconciled with others? When there is no longer any resentment or grudge in the heart, that is reconciliation with others. Only by understanding every person in this world from the bottom of one's heart can the heart be free of resentment.
Everyone has his own reasons for being who he is. I have no right to judge others' right or wrong, nor to demand that others change themselves to my standards. Only by respecting and accepting the differences between people can one genuinely appreciate or understand others; and appreciating or understanding others is the ultimate way to release the resentment in one's own heart.
Next, I want to be reconciled with this world.
I once deeply wearied of this mundane world, but now I can live in harmony with it. Though I absolutely refuse to abandon my own pursuit or accommodate worldly rules, I will no longer weary of it, criticize it, or reject it. When I set foot in the secular world, I will go along with it, but I will not fall into it.
As the sociologist Fei Xiaotong said, every custom has its function of stabilizing society. The reason the secular world is the secular world is that people must rely on it to live and to live peaceably together.
For a time I especially wanted to shave my head and become a monk, to cut ties with the secular world and preserve my independence—like the late-Ming thinker Li Zhi, shaving off the three thousand threads of trouble and cutting off the world's harassment. But now that is no longer necessary.
Though I have not leapt outside the three realms, I can be beyond the five elements. "In action one need not leave the world; in conduct one need not ape the vulgar"—thus one can achieve "harmonizing the light and merging with the dust." Why must there be a formal break, a shaved head, in order to stand apart from the secular world? "Passing through a thousand flowers, not a leaf sticks to the body"; though the secular world is endlessly vexing, as long as one's own heart is utterly simple, nothing can soil it.
Then, I still must be reconciled with myself. No person is a completely independent existence; others and the outside world greatly affect each of us. Having reconciled with others and the world, much of the conflict within oneself has already eased.
But people still torment themselves. Only by completely ending this self-torment can one be said to have achieved the ultimate reconciliation with oneself.
Do not set oneself unrealistic goals, do not chase dreams hard to realize, do not care about present gain or loss, release one's inborn nature, do not act against one's inner will, and do not make things hard on oneself—then life is not so hard.
"Harmony" is like the spring breeze and spring rain, like the warm sun; all things rely on it to grow. The flower of human life can bloom to the full only in such an atmosphere.
So I hope my life from now on enters a realm of "harmony"— not for the sake of "a harmonious family prospers in everything," nor for "harmony breeds wealth."
To hell with career and wealth. What I want is: my life, like a flower, blooming freely and at ease, unfettered; I want my life full of vitality, joy, and romance.