A few days ago, I specially took time to accompany my mother to her classmate party.
On the one hand, out of curiosity, what is the difference between people who graduate from the same school after more than 20 years?
When I saw you a few days ago, I found that everyone's living conditions are indeed different.
Aunt Chen is my mother's former deskmate. She is a beauty and a bully. She is strict with herself. Even at the age of half a hundred, she has always insisted on sports and looks younger than her peers.
Uncle Dacheng used to like foreign languages very much. He reads English with tapes after class every day. After graduation, he just caught up with the bonus period of the foreign trade industry. After working as a translator for several years, he is now the boss of the team.
Aunt Lingzi didn't like to use her brain when she was young. After marriage, she liked playing mahjong and kept her "iron rice bowl". As a result, she was laid off in the 1990s and became a housewife at home.
Uncle Amin drank too much after work. Now he has alcoholic liver and looks haggard.
......
On the way home, my mother smiled and said: you see, everyone's current life state is shown on their faces.
This also makes me wonder: what makes people win thousands of miles in the more than 20 years after graduation? What makes people lose this long run of life?
I learned from the conversation that uncles and aunts who are now living well have always been self disciplined in hard mode in the early stage of their life.
It is precisely because of their sense of self-discipline that they can open up a new road, avoid the "laid-off tide" and usher in an enviable life in the later stage.
Once read a book "the road few people take", said: in a sense, life is a road of self-cultivation, and those who are really enviable have a very important quality - self-discipline.
The three principles of self-discipline mentioned in the book have always benefited me a lot in my life and work.
Principle 1: postpone satisfaction
Some time ago, I encountered a bottleneck in my work.
I always habitually procrastinate until I can't help it, so I reluctantly submit the work task before deadline.
I recalled my usual work habits. I always finish the easy and favorite work in the first hour of work, and always try to avoid difficult tasks in the rest of the time.
Later, I changed my strategy and gave priority to those troublesome tasks in the first hour of work.
So in the rest of the time, other work will become relatively easy.
Facts have proved that this strategy is effective.
One hour of pain plus seven hours of happiness is certainly better than seven hours of pain plus one hour of happiness.
This is called delaying satisfaction, not seeking temporary comfort, and resetting the order of happiness and pain in life.
Facing problems, feeling pain, then solving problems and feeling the greatest happiness is the only feasible way of life.
For example, the habit of gnawing hard bones first, such as doing difficult problems first and eating bad things first, is widely regarded in the West as a harbinger of success in the future.
The best way in the world is always downhill.
Those who actively turn on hard mode are destined to enjoy the greatest happiness in the near future.
Principle 2: Responsibility
When I was in the coffee shop at the weekend, I overheard two girls complaining in roast.
A girl complained about her department's boss. In the morning, the customer complained, and the big leader had to be held accountable. It was clearly her boss's work mistake, and she inexplicably became a scapegoat.
Another girl has been persuading her not to be angry with people who are not worth it, constantly comforting her, and finally persuading her not to investigate after she goes back and do her job well.
As soon as you encounter something, put the responsibility on others and hang high. You must have such friends or colleagues around you.
Black American writers have a saying: if you can't solve a problem, you will become a problem.
In the face of problems, stand up, or they will exist forever.
The difficulty of taking responsibility for personal behavior is that it brings pain, and we want to try our best to avoid it.
At the moment of shirking responsibility, you may feel comfortable and happy, but your mind cannot mature and often becomes a burden on the collective and society.
Most of those who shirk responsibility want to hand over freedom and power to fate, government and superiors.
In order to avoid the pain caused by responsibility, countless people simply give up their rights, which is actually evading freedom.
We always feel that we can't change the status quo, so we have self doubt.
In fact, our ability is far stronger than we think. We are absolutely capable of taking responsibility for all our choices and lives.
Principle 3: maintain balance
Self discipline is hard and complex work. You need to have enough courage and judgment.
The highest principle of balance is to give up.
When I was 9 years old, I just learned to ride a bike and went out to play happily all day.
There is a slope near my house, and there is a sharp turn at the downhill.
One morning I rode my bike downhill. The feeling of speed can bring me great happiness.
But if you press and hold the brake and slow down at that time, that sense of happiness will be greatly reduced.
So I rode to the corner below without slowing down.
As a result, a few seconds later, I was thrown a few meters away. I was lying on my back in the grass. There were many wounds on my body and my bike hit a tree.
Giving up something will certainly bring pain to the heart.
At the age of 9, I was greedy for the feeling of fast speed and refused to give up the temporary sense of happiness in exchange for the balance when turning the corner. Finally, I realized that losing balance is far more painful than giving up.
No matter who, when passing through the curve of life, must give up some happiness and part of life.
Love is the source of self-discipline
Know a couple who are young, smart and artistic.
Before marriage, the woman's family was well-off and didn't worry about food and clothing. I worked very hard and graduated from a famous school.
The man was ignorant and muddled along. After meeting the woman, he suddenly looked like a different person.
He began to strive to improve himself and be strict with himself, just to be worthy of the woman.
With his own efforts, the man made some achievements in his career, and finally moved the woman and got married.
The power of self-discipline comes from love, and the essence of love is a will.
The man turned his love into practical action, self-discipline and reached mental maturity.
True love will help you improve yourself. The deeper you love, the higher the degree of self-improvement.
epilogue
There was once a topic called: what opened the gap between people over a period of time?
One of the high votes gave me a very deep impression:
People with seemingly unlimited scenery actually work harder than you.
I think so.
We all know that something different is often boring and repetitive in the manufacturing process, which requires patience.
All seemingly beautiful people are based on extremely lonely diligence and self-discipline as a weapon. They are either blood, sweat or a lot of graceful youth.
Similarly, when a school graduates from the same starting point, why do the students' meetings present different living conditions more than 20 years after graduation?
Because some people always take the initiative in life, know what they want, and then strive to achieve their goals through self-discipline.
Others are pushed by life and eventually lose the long run of life.
So don't let life control you. Learn to take the initiative to control life.