Talk More with Your Own Heart, and Ask What You Truly Need

On Friday, March 26, a woman diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma more than three years ago came to see me. She is a nurse from Dalian, twelve years older than I, who has spent her whole career in nursing. I have treated her for three years; recently her cancer recurred and metastasized to the liver. Fortunately her condition is still fairly good; I need to find a new strategy to help her escape cancer's clutches and live a few more years.

This was a hard-to-arrange meeting under the pandemic. Dalian and Beijing had seen several rounds of outbreaks in turn, blocking our visits. Before the pandemic she came to see me every three months; though she worried about her illness, we could communicate in time. Each consultation solved some problems and let us chat about everyday life, giving her encouragement. Compared with a year ago, it feels like a different world.

Before she left, the woman told me that this illness had changed her personality a great deal. After this recurrence, she suddenly realized she had been carrying many things she should not have. These things had brought her a lot of bad feelings; now she understands she should let them go. And once she realized this and decided to let go, her heart felt much lighter.

She had always been very competitive, giving a great deal to life, family and work, overexerting herself, accumulating too much negative emotion, and working at too high an intensity until her body broke down. Now she finally understands that much of what she once pursued was not only meaningless but harmful. After falling ill with cancer, she began to converse with her inner self, and that conversation woke her from the illusions she had lived in. But many people still live in that illusion, mistaking the unreal for the real, bustling about.

After she left, I tidied my study, and after disinfecting, sat quietly alone by the window, gazing into the distance. Beijing was under a fine drizzle; the birds outside chirped cheerfully; cherry blossoms along the road shed petals that covered the ground.

I was deeply moved by this utterly ordinary spring scene. This is the true life I see—natural and simple, without the added concepts of "meaning" and "value." When I quieted down to appreciate it, my heart was full of peace, joy and contentment. Happiness is just this simple: it needs no "meaning," no "value," no adornment.

I am someone who talks with my inner self every day, year after year, often asking: "Is this what I truly need? Is that what I truly need?" Most of the time the answer is no, and after a no I leave it alone. So my mind has fewer stray thoughts and burdens, and I can live in my own inner world undistracted, rarely affected by the outside.

At noon, an older brother nine years my senior contacted me. Because we hit it off, he has read every article on my website—frankly, I now lack the patience to read all of any author as productive as myself, however much I like them. Not yet satisfied, he wanted to see articles I wrote before August 2015. I was touched to meet such a kindred-spirit reader.

He is a senior executive at a state-owned enterprise; after reading my articles he felt stirred and wanted to slowly leave the workforce, to learn more and talk with his inner self. He said he has come to realize that inner abundance is the highest form of wealth, and he too wants to return to his inner world.

I remember reading an essay by Ms. Yang Jiang written after she turned 100; its gist was that she gradually realized in life that the outside world does not really matter, that people search and search and ultimately must return to their own inner world and live the life they find comfortable.

Through the ages, many people have thought this way; the Ming thinker Li Zhi was certainly one. Li Zhi spoke plainly: "The superior person values being for oneself and seeks self-comfort. If one does not seek self-comfort but instead pursues what comforts others, even Boyi and Shuqi become depraved. Not knowing to be for oneself and only striving for others—even Yao and Shun become dust and chaff." In a Confucian, hierarchical society emphasizing ruler-minister and father-son bonds, Li Zhi's rebellious thought was conspicuous, so many guardians of orthodoxy attacked him. But many people liked Li Zhi, including Yuan Mei and Mao Zedong.

Is a person "valued as for oneself"? This is debatable. Most people inevitably do both self-interested and altruistic things in life, and Li Zhi was no exception; he was not entirely self-serving. As an official he always wanted to benefit his region and help the people; after resigning to write, he always wanted to abolish the ills of old thought, promote social reform in China, and improve Chinese people's quality of life. So he was not as "self-for-oneself" as he claimed. Of course he did pursue "self-comfort" and lived freely; he merely mistakenly equated "self-comfort" with "being for oneself," emphasizing individuality at the expense of human many-sidedness.

As Malinowski put it, each of us is born a cog in the great machine of society, with an innate "function." Whatever purpose our parents had in bearing us, our birth is assigned some "function": to continue the family line, to support them in old age, to stabilize the parents' relationship, or to bring hope and joy to the family. It is hard to escape this destiny. As adults we must also labor and do things that benefit others to earn the resources to support ourselves.

In my view, being a cog in the great social machine is not a big problem, as long as we keep the measure and stay happy. If we do nothing at all, we become a burden to society and lose dignity, independence and security. But excess is as bad as deficiency: if we over-emphasize our "functional" side and constantly strive, chasing fame and gain in society, we cannot achieve Li Zhi's "self-comfort," and in the end ruin ourselves. Some lose their health; others lose their freedom.

So in a turbulent world, holding onto what is essential and letting go of flashy, unsubstantial things is important for any individual or family. Society evolves and human ways of living keep changing; we can only survive by adapting. In this division-of-labor society we depend on one another and must contribute to others to survive. But we cannot completely kill the self to adapt to society; if we did, we would truly become a mere cog in the great machine, and the loss would outweigh the gain.