An Ordinary Life Is a Blessing
From childhood until about the age of thirty, I did not lead an ordinary life; only then did I urgently wish for an ordinary one. But as everyone knows, in our era China's people are restless, and the social environment that would allow an ordinary life has been all but destroyed. When I wanted an ordinary life, few of my family and friends were willing to share it.
My father named me after Zhuge Liang's saying that one's ambition should be lofty; he hoped I would have great aspirations and accomplish extraordinary things. From childhood I had high expectations of myself, always feeling I should achieve something big in this life. So I have always been a dreamer, and even now I still live in dreams.
The rarest thing in life is pure, simple joy. I do not know how many people still have it today. Once one enters society, the comparisons and the showing off never stop; even if one wants to stop, the relatives and friends around keep reminding one that one cannot. To live more decently, yet more decently still—that is many people's life pursuit. Because of this pursuit, simple happiness becomes remote.
My articles often sound repetitive on this point, because every day no fewer than three cancer patients find me through various channels. I have seen how people change after receiving the invitation of the God of Death. Facing that threat, they long to return to the simplest, plainest way of life—but can no longer. Some of them, had they been able to accept ordinariness earlier and not been in such haste to stand out, would never have gotten cancer.
In big cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Chongqing, and Hangzhou, one in every three deaths is now from cancer; cancer has become the leading cause of death. The havoc it wreaks far exceeds all others. Yet, regrettably, the vast majority of us still have not learned from this terrifying reality. The broad social environment is already formed, and reversing it is extremely difficult.
When will we tame this heart of ours and find contentment in the life of an ordinary person?