Hello, 17-year-old pony:
Zhan Xinjia.
I am you 20 years later.
The letter I wrote to you on my birthday last week said that I would write you a letter every week from now on, writing for a year.
Maybe for 17 years old, a year is a very long concept, and even next month, you have not thought about what life will be like. At that time, you will only know something distant and important, such as final exams, winter and summer vacations, college entrance examinations, the days are similar but not the same, it is like this day after day, year after year.
Today, I feel that a year is as short as a week, only the Spring Festival, a blink of an eye and the end of the year, if you feel that the days are long and boring, please be sure to enjoy this feeling, no need for 20 years, only less than ten years, it is difficult for you to feel this way again.
What is this second letter going to write to you? I think I'd better tell you a story, a story I love:
In distant Spain, there was a shepherd boy.
He slept under a fig tree in the backyard of a dilapidated monastery.
One day, he dreamed of a treasure buried on the other side of the sea, under the pyramid, and when he woke up, he wondered what the dream foreshadowed.
Then the shepherd boy was on the street and met an old man.
The old man said to him, child, are you dreaming of a distant place?
The shepherd boy said, how do you know?
The old man said to him, Child, what you dream of is your destiny.
The shepherd boy asked, what is the Mandate of Heaven?
The old man said that the Mandate of Heaven is what a person should do in this life. Everyone's destiny is different, but everyone will be summoned by their own destiny, usually at the age of sixteen or seventeen, that is, when you are now, the destiny will begin to summon. But most people, will not respond to their own destiny, they feel, this thing can not be done, it is really not worth my waste of time, it has nothing to do with me.
Thus, after a year, two years, three years, four years, the Mandate of Heaven ceased to be called.
So if you know your destiny, be brave enough to pursue it.
The shepherd boy thought about it and decided to sell his flock and go to distant Egypt in search of the treasure buried under the pyramids. When he turned to leave, the old man said to him, child, you must remember that on the journey, no matter what kind of thing you encounter, it is a "harbinger", that is not the end, just a "precursor".
So the shepherd boy sold his flock, took the money, got on a boat across the sea, and went from Spain to Africa. Unexpectedly, when I got off the ship at the African port, I met a liar, and the shepherd boy was deceived to be penniless.
How miserable, a few hours ago, on the other side of the sea, he was still a happy shepherd boy. Now in a foreign land, penniless, speechless, and unaccompanied, he asked himself why he was pursuing some ridiculous destiny and honestly being a happy shepherd, isn't it good?
Just when he wanted to give up, he remembered what the old man had told him, child, that this was a "harbinger."
So after sleeping all night in the market, the shepherd boy found a shop selling crystals the next day and told the boss that I could work here and help you polish the crystals?
The boss took in the shepherd boy.
The shepherd boy worked very diligently in this shop for a year, saving up money to buy back two flocks of sheep. So in front of him, there were two choices, one was to go home and buy two flocks of sheep, and the other was to take the money and continue to set out to pursue his destiny.
Just when he hesitated, the owner of the crystal shop said to him, I am a devout believer, my greatest wish in this life is to go to the Holy Land pilgrimage, but I always feel that I am not ready, I need to prepare again, whether physically, or financially, so I opened such a shop, where I do my preparations day after day, until now, I have been old, but I have never taken the step towards the Holy Land.
Over the years, I've seen a lot of pilgrims who pass in front of my shop, and a lot of them don't have me money or me as strong, but they're all happy, all happy.
So child, I think you still have to pursue your destiny.
So the shepherd boy got back on the road and walked into the desert.
At this time, two tribes were at war, and there was no way to continue forward, so he stopped at an oasis, a very large oasis.
The shepherd boy lived in the oasis, the war was still fighting, there was no sign of ending, but he met the girl he liked, and went to the well every day to wait for the girl.
Later, the shepherd boy fell in love with the girl in this oasis.
But one day, the oasis girl said to the shepherd boy, I can't continue to keep you by my side, I am a woman in the desert, if we want to be together, you have to go out of the oasis, into the desert, if the desert returns you, you are mine, if the desert takes away, you are not mine.
This is the rule of the desert.
If you stay here with me without going through the test of the desert, we will be looked down upon by everyone. My father just walked out of the oasis, walked into the desert, and came back to be united with my mother, only by abiding by the rules of the desert, we can really live happily together.
So you're going to get out of here.
So the shepherd boy walked into the desert with an alchemist in the oasis. It didn't take long for the two of them to be captured by warring tribes, and the general wanted to kill them, saying they were spies.
At this time, the alchemist taught the shepherd a few incantations, and when he read them, the heavens and the earth changed color. The general believed that they were really alchemists and let them both go.
After they finally walked out of the desert, the shepherd boy broke up with the alchemist and went on to pursue his destiny.
He finally went to the pyramids of Egypt, the place where the treasure was buried in his dream, where the shepherd boy took a shovel, dug and dug, dug all night, and there was nothing.
Just as dawn was approaching, a group of robbers came, and they saw that the shepherd boy should be looking for treasure, so they arrested him, looted his belongings, and beat him up.
Finally, the bandit leader asked the shepherd boy, who told you there was a treasure here? I've lived here all my life and have never heard anything like this.
The shepherd boy said, I had a dream, dreamed that there was treasure buried under the pyramid, and I came to pursue my destiny.
The bandit leader laughed and said, are you stupid?
When I was young, I also had a dream that on the other side of the sea, a ruined monastery, under a fig tree, buried treasure, but that was just a dream, do you see me going to pursue my destiny?
That's all fake, that's all a lie.
At that moment, the shepherd boy knew what his destiny really was.
After the robbers were gone, he got up and made his way back from the desert to Spain, back to the fig tree from which he had set out, the dilapidated monastery, and he took the shovel and dug it down with one shovel after another, and finally the shovel touched an iron box, and he dug out the treasure that belonged to him. Then he returned to the oasis and lived happily ever after with his beloved girl.
The story is over, I don't know what you'll think after listening, I love the story. I think it is saying that each of us has our own destiny, we need to respond to it, follow it, we are bound to encounter setbacks on the journey, but we still have to firmly seek it.
The last treasure, the wealth in the secular sense, is not the mandate itself, but only a reward for those who have responded to the mandate of heaven, but if one does not go through the pursuit, even if one lies on the treasure night and night, one does not know.
The greatest treasure is not the treasure, but the experience.
In this story, my favorite, there is also a very small plot.
When the shepherd boy was walking in the desert with the alchemist, the shepherd boy asked the alchemist, what is alchemy?
The alchemist replied that alchemy, that is, when the heavens and the earth first opened, the truth of all things was carved on a stone slab.
The shepherd boy said, impossible, alchemy is so complicated, there are so many books, how can a stone slab be carved?
The alchemist said that in fact, the real alchemy, the law is so simple, just a few, a stone slab is carved.
But people in this world do not believe that alchemy can be so simple, and they will use their own various ways and understandings to reinterpret it. So you see more and more books about alchemy, thicker and thicker, more and more, more and more difficult to distinguish between true and false, but in fact, the real alchemy, it is so simple.
What I want to say to you is, Pony, after reading a lot of books, I found that the real truth in this world is actually like this, it is very simple, most of the books are turned over and over to talk about the same truth, but we always don't believe, the truth is so simple.
Simplicity is the true face of truth and the law of alchemy.
That's the story I want to tell you in my second letter.
Dear pony, let's go here today,
May you find your destiny.
You in 20 years
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The 01st letter to Pony | Why should I write to you