A letter to young people
Xinhua News Agency, Together with Sina Weibo and Xinshixiang, launched the "Year-end Question 2021" campaign, inviting four pioneers of the times - Zhang Guimei, Zhang Wenhong, Su Bingtian, and Wang Chi to respond to everyone's confusion and thoughts on the road to growth. According to the messages and questions from the whole network, we will release 4 sincere replies one after another, and the 4 replies will share their most sincere thoughts on life.
Do not be afraid, the "cold winter" of life carries inevitable hope
The children:
Hello, I'm Zhang Guimei. It's a particularly warm thing to be able to communicate with you in this way at the end of 2021.
Although we have not met, reading your message, I seem to see the young faces behind the questions that are either confused, or confused, or are seriously thinking about themselves and the future.
In this year, perhaps you have your own difficulties: you must face the pressure of your own education, work, emotions, etc., but also face the inner anxiety and struggle brought about by changes in the external environment.
Everyone wants life to move forward, but we also have to face the moments in life when the pace slows down or even stops.
Many of you have asked me a question: "I think my life may be like this, I am very hard, should I admit my fate?" ”
I believe that life in the inevitable "winter" also carries inevitable hope. No one wants to go through a cold, but it often comes uninvited and unselected; and few people dare to be sure that the future will be smooth, but if you have experienced and seen it, you will believe it and be willing to give it to others strongly, so that everyone around you can feel it.
Most of my life, I was not so "comfortable", it could be said that it was very "painful". When I was very young, I lost my mother. In my youth, my father left me again. I thought that after arriving in Dali, I would have a stable teaching job and meet a husband who loved me, I would be able to live a plain and stable life, and I could change from a naïve girl to a happy woman.
But the sudden change completely broke my life plan, my husband was diagnosed with cancer, and despite raising all the money for treatment, he insisted on it for a year and left me. I left with him, as well as the happiness and beauty that I had briefly had in my life.
It was the darkest time of my life. At that time, in my eyes, the mountains of Dali were no longer beautiful, and the water was no longer green... Happiness feels far and far away from you. Later, I asked to be transferred to the remote Lijiang Huaping. Saying that it is "transferring posts" is actually trying to find someone who knows me and will not let me remember any beautiful place in my life, and "exile" myself. At that time, you told me hope and the future, and I didn't want to hear it.
You must have experienced a time in your life when it felt like the whole world was against you, and all the bad luck had befallen you. The process of getting out of pain is sometimes worse than the pain itself. At that time, I was just an ordinary young man, and I was not so strong in the face of setbacks. I just tried to make myself struggle a little more, still holding out a glimmer of hope.
In the process of getting out of the pain, the people around me extended their hands to me, making me feel the warmth of the world. It was that little bit of struggle, that little bit of warmth, that made me persevere again and again.
We need each other's love at all times. If you feel miserable and confused, and you look at other people, you will find that your destiny is both unique and common.
Commonality will allow you not to be afraid of being alone and reach out to each other when necessary; uniqueness can help you truly go down the path you are happy to follow.
I am still living a very "bitter" life, accumulating a body of illness. Often this problem eases a little, and the problem becomes serious again. When it gets worse and worse, my heart is also very uncomfortable.
But the "suffering" now is a kind of suffering that I am willing to pay. Because I have a clear goal, I'm going to take the kids out of the mountains, and I'm going to achieve it. If you have a goal, you have motivation, and you don't feel so bitter.
Children, you need to have a big purpose in life to help you through those painful, unsustainable moments. But big goals are like a mountain that needs to be climbed for a long time. You also need to find a "way" up the mountain, complete a specific small goal in your daily routine, and climb up step by step. Crawling and crawling, you may have walked through that dark road, and you can see the sun in the clouds.
I write this letter to you, hoping that from the experience I have told you, you will feel a little warmth, a little strength. This is the small goal I'm accomplishing today. I have a lot of small goals to accomplish today, such as I'm going to see how the kids are taking the quiz later. Urging them to do a good job in every lesson and grasp every point is also my small goal every day.
You may be just like me, completing the small goals of the day. Perhaps, looking for your "big goal". But as soon as you start thinking and acting, you are already on a path that is not easy, but also full of hope.
Giving up and confessing is an endless "downhill road". Remember that in any moment that you are not aware of, including now, the opportunity to change your destiny through action is always there.
Zhang Guimei
2021.12.20
We can all be part of this great era after all
youngster:
Seeing your letters, I feel very warm, as if I see my young self.
This year's year went by particularly quickly. In the blink of an eye, it has been two years since the fight against the epidemic, and in these two years, the epidemic in China has been well controlled, but the world is still not far from the impact of the pandemic, and normal life has been repeatedly interrupted. "Uncertainty" became a high-frequency topic.
In these pandemic times, our daily lives seem to become more trivial. In particular, young friends originally have endless visions and plans for the future, but changes always thwart the planned life again and again, making people doubt whether they can go to the desired destination according to the original plan; in the face of new life choices, they will also doubt whether they should persist or give up.
Some people divide the crowd into front waves and back waves. In fact, no matter what era you are born in, the main color of young people's life is anxiety and hope.
Young people, whether you agree or disagree, are destined to grow up with the times. But life is characterized by changes and jumps, full of sudden changes in fate. This kind of change and uncertainty, some people like, some people fear.
Whenever we look back over an era, we will find that the road we have traveled is a process of turning uncertainty into certainty.
Since graduating from undergraduate, I have been practicing medicine for 28 years, and I have been engaged in clinical and research in infectious diseases for more than 25 years. 28 years, enough to turn a young man into an old man.
At the end of this year, I suddenly recalled that I had lived and worked hard in this city for so many years, and it seemed that I was just going to see a doctor, check the house, and live a "life" as usual, but the little details also seemed to constitute a life worth living.
Looking back on my youth, I have also struggled with uneasiness and anxiety.
I graduated from college, at that time, the academic qualifications were more important, in order to have better development, I gave up the allocated Shanghai hukou quota and went to study for a master's degree. I graduated with a master's degree, and suddenly the hukou became important, in order to live better in Shanghai, I could raise my family and raise children, and I gave up the opportunity to study for a doctorate, and went to find Professor Weng Xinhua, the director of the Infectious Disease Department of Huashan Hospital at that time and my mentor since then, hoping to be assigned to the Infection Department.
At that time, the department of infectious diseases was not very "popular", the entire discipline entered a trough of development, and many people resigned to work in foreign companies, which gave me the opportunity to win one of the few clinical positions in Shanghai's first-class hospitals every year like Huashan Hospital.
A young man from out of town, landing in a strange city, survival is the first, and the ideal of the past has been temporarily forgotten. Back then, there was a choice at almost every step, there was never the best of both worlds, and I didn't know what choice was right.
Just 23 years ago, I thought about giving up. At that time, because the salary of the infectious disease department was extremely low, it was almost impossible to live in Shanghai, and I once resigned from Professor Weng Xinhua. The teacher said to respect my ideas, but made me hesitate any longer.
It was such a hesitation that I couldn't bear to give up the desire to pursue a doctor for many years, which made me persist again.
Life may be like this, seemingly plain, but it will move forward a little bit.
In 2001, I went to the Department of Microbiology of the University of Hong Kong for further study, and this team later isolated the SARS virus (SARS coronavirus) in 2003, and the other day took the lead in isolating the Aumicron new coronavirus variant. After SARS, in order to make clinical research and scientific research more quickly connected with the world, I spent a year or two studying and working abroad.
After returning, he continued to work as a doctor, spending every day in the daily life of visiting outpatient clinics, rounding rooms, and doing research, and in the middle of which he also went to the countryside to treat MDR-TB patients in poor areas. Until this OUTBREAK, I started dealing with COVID-19 with my team on a daily basis.
Looking back now, these experiences helped me. Fast forward to almost 30 years, and nothing seems to have changed, and only at this historic moment seems that this persistence has been proven to be correct. Choices that were considered ordinary at the time were suddenly strung together, and uncertainties formed a deterministic result.
Every generation has its own challenges and destinies. Our generation, once thought that they were working hardest, now it seems that they have caught up with the era of rapid development. Today's young people are different, and the country is in the best period in history. For young people, the opportunities and challenges given by the times coexist.
We are in the midst of times at the same time, and we are all ordinary people.
Even if you are born poor, from a remote town or a rural area, if you are strong enough and have perseverance, you will have the opportunity to be a tide maker in the tide of the times.
There are also some small partners, even if they are not very strong, but they are not fragile, and they can withstand the blow and grow up silently, which is more likely to achieve their life goals.
Some small partners may feel that they are very ordinary, I think we must have confidence, a good era, will let every ordinary person enjoy their own ordinary, let every strivers enjoy the harvest of their own struggle.
The tide of the times can always cross one mountain after another, and so is the fate of individuals. The flow of water must be the first to rely on endless; even if we are ordinary, as long as we do not end, we will continue to move forward with the tide of the times.
Looking at next year and many years ahead at the end of the year, we can believe that by persevering in the face of every seemingly ordinary choice, we can eventually be a part of this great era.
Zhang Wenhong
2021.12.21
You can still "fly"
Friends,
After receiving your messages and questions, I realized that there were so many friends of the same age as me, who were worried about the competition and elimination on the "track" of their lives. Think about the last time I wrote a letter or went to school, in order to pursue my wife. At this moment, on the thirteenth day of quarantine in Zhuhai, I am writing the first long letter to those of you who have never met. The anxiety and urgency that comes with this age is something I've had to deal with in recent years.
I just had my 32nd birthday a few months ago. In the past two years, every time I participated in the competition to get a long list of athletes, I saw that there was only one post-80s on the top, and the others were 97, 98 years or even after 00, I was thinking, "Wow, it's really old." Because of physical function, injury and other reasons, usually sprinters will consider retiring when they are 27 or 28 years old, and few will continue to run after the age of 30, and they can still produce results. I was also influenced by this statement, and once believed that 28 years old was the age to leave the market.
In 2015, at the age of 26, I ran into 10 seconds for the first time, setting an Asian record of 9.99 seconds. For the next two years, I was struggling with bad form and injuries, never came close to that result, and I no longer believed I could run faster.
Before the arrival of the 2017 National Games, I secretly wrote a retirement report for myself, and I wanted to wait until I got this 100-meter gold medal of the National Games, take the highest podium in The country as the end, like my predecessors, at the age of 28, end my career.
But what I didn't expect was that before the final of the National Games, I accidentally strained my right thigh posterior muscle, and I was planned to end the gold medal perfectly, but I missed the gold medal. Looking back today, maybe I should be thankful for that failure, because it was that huge regret that rekindled my fighting spirit.
After losing the game, I asked myself reluctantly: Su Bingtian, are you willing to leave like this? Are you really unable to run?
My wife and I had just finished our wedding, and she was eagerly looking forward to my return to family life, and after I told her my thoughts, she didn't say a word, canceled all our private plans, including the honeymoon, and fully supported me to return to the training ground. At the same time, it was also at that time that I was lucky enough to meet my future head coach, Randy Huntington.
Randy and his team not only helped me tremendously technically, including improving my muscle strength and ankle rigidity through targeted training; adjusting my starting position was unreasonable, the length of my steps was too small, the ground pickpocketing technique was unreasonable, and the whole breathing and speed rhythm was not good; but also helped me to establish a strong belief in my mentality: I have the potential to enter the Olympic 100-meter "flyer" final.
The "Olympic 100m Flyer Battle" is the most exciting competition in the world and the dream of every sprinter. As the training and the race progressed, I began to believe that Randy wasn't fooling me, but that I, a nearly 30-year-old yellow race, really had the potential to be on the starting line for the Olympic 100m final.
The breakthrough was bigger than expected. On June 23, 2018, I ran a new all-time record of 9.91 seconds in the IAAF Diamond League in Madrid, and a few days later, I once again stabilized 9.91 seconds in Paris. At the age of 28, his career seemed to have come to an end, but at the age of 29, he ushered in a new breakthrough. Even happier, along with the new record, came into my life, as well as my newborn son Tian tian. As a father, I think I have to keep running, even if it's to show him. I want to tell him with my own practical actions that there is never any unbreakable age "curse" in this world.
At the beginning of 2019, I was full of confidence and was preparing to do a big job when my waist was seriously injured during a training session. disappointed? saddened? abandon? This feeling is known only to you. One Sunday, I walked alone to the sports field, stood in front of the track, and asked myself if I really couldn't run. My heart quickly told me the answer - I can still run, as long as I overcome the injury, Su Bingtian can still "fly".
Human life cannot always be at the "peak", and all you have to do when experiencing a low is to climb up step by step.
In 2020, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games, made me, an "old" athlete, feel pressured and could not participate in international competitions for a long time, but also made me a little worried, fortunately, the team has done the protection of training and domestic competitions to the extreme, what I want to do is to fully charge and store up full capacity for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
In April 2021, in a race in Guangdong, I ran 9.98 seconds against the wind, which is the second time I broke the 10-second mark after two years and eight months.
That wind-like Su Bingtian is finally back!
I don't know if you'll feel the same way I do, but when you've been in a line long enough, when you know every detail of what you're doing, you're going to have a "professional hunch." For me, this hunch is that every time you stand on the starting line, you know how you are today and whether you can run a good result.
On the night of August 1, 2021, I stood in front of the starting line of the Tokyo Olympic Stadium, ready to qualify for the 100-meter final. A familiar hunch came over me, one that came to mind in Madrid in 2018, when I ran my best 9.91 seconds. "This game has it!" I meditated in my heart. The starting gun rang out, and I was the first to cross the finish line. Less than a minute later, I saw my latest result on the big screen: 9.83 seconds!
I won, I won against my opponents, I won time, I won myself.
Looking back, to treat age as a problem is to set limits for yourself. When athletes reach a certain level, the sport is no longer just physical competition, and the more mature skills of old athletes and the experience accumulated over the years on the field will sometimes have an advantage over young bodies. This point, I think, whether it is on the sports field or in the workplace, is probably the same.
After the Tokyo Olympics, many people asked me: "After 9.83 seconds, is it possible for the 32-year-old Su Bingtian to break through the limit?" "I want to say that the limits are all spoken of by others, I don't break through the limits, I break through myself.
I didn't leave the runway because I saw the possibility of continuing to break through. It's tough, but I want to keep going.
Friends who are plagued by age, do not prematurely give up the possibility of exploring their potential because of a number. In the end, there is still room for improvement, and how much space there is, you have to rely on your own personal attempt to know. In 2022, let's try our own infinite possibilities together.
Friends, whether you are 28 or 35 years old, you can still "fly".
Su Bingtian
December 23, 2021
Find a light from loneliness
Hello! I am a space physicist. When I saw so many young people talking about their loneliness in messages, my heart was also very emotional. Because in my nearly 30 years of space science research, the most often accompanied me is loneliness.
In 1993, at the age of 26, I bid farewell to my family and went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) alone to study for a Ph.D. At that time, there was no Internet, and contact was basically by writing letters, because making international calls was very expensive. When the plane took off from the capital airport, I also felt a little lonely and wandering. The destination, Boston, is only a name I have seen in books, but I am dreaming of going to an unknown place, and when the plane is about to land over Boston, I see the brightly lit city, and my heart is put down, because I know that I am going to start a new stage of my life in this strange city.
Fortunately, my PhD supervisor was the chief scientist of the Voyager 2 plasma instrument in the United States, and because of this opportunity, I was exposed to nasa's greatest space program ever, which taught me the never-ending spirit of exploration, the pursuit of scientific excellence and the technical research of excellence. The process of studying for a phD was painful and lonely, and the strict requirements of MIT made me work all night to do homework, once spent new year in the library, and once drove hundreds of miles to ask questions. But realizing the ideal is the light in loneliness, which makes me feel that there is always hope.
However, just when I felt that I had integrated into this society, like a fish in the water, there was one thing, a more important thing that made me feel a greater kind of loneliness. Every time you go to a meeting at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), you have to apply for a security clearance long in advance, and you wear a sign with the word "escort" written on the day of the meeting. This means that as long as I am active in the laboratory, I must be accompanied by Americans, and I cannot act alone. The loneliness and frustration in my heart arise at this moment.
It just so happened that the Chinese Academy of Sciences had a talent introduction plan, and Mr. Wei Fengsi, director of the Open Research Laboratory of Space Meteorology, contacted me and asked me if I wanted to come back. I had just become a research scientist at MIT, and my salary was double that of a postdoc, which was a good reward at the time. On the one hand, returning to China is almost from scratch but gives you unlimited scientific research space, on the other hand, it is a high-paying but restrictive job, and after thinking about it, I choose to return to China.
At that time, my wife had a brief hesitation, but I had already thought about it in my heart: I had identified space science, and my goal was to concentrate on doing a good job in scientific research without being restricted, and to contribute to the development of the mainland space science cause. I believe that my work has value and I believe that I have made the right choice.
At the beginning of this century, China, the level of space science is too far behind in the world, there was no first-hand observation data in this field at that time, more is the use of foreign data to do research, you can imagine what we do, "others eat the meat, you go to nibble the bones."
Looking back now, although it is already the age of "knowing the destiny of heaven", when you choose a path you like, many times such a choice is not understood or supported by the people around you, and even to sit on the "cold bench" Everything can only be carried by yourself, and you can only go forward by yourself, gritting your teeth.
In my opinion, the achievements of the individual and the development of the whole country in this field are closely related, this field as a whole is not good, and your personal development is not much better. Now, 20 years later, looking back, I did make a very correct decision. I have caught up with a great era, and I feel very fortunate and proud to be able to integrate personal development into the rapid development of our country's space science cause and make progress together.
At the same time, these years of experience have also made me deeply understand that if a person wants to achieve something, loneliness is almost inevitable. The wandering of a foreign country, the search for truth in the vast universe, the confusion of losing my direction in scientific research, these are all things that I experienced and overcame when I was young.
It is precisely because of this that I have more confidence in you who are reading this letter at this moment, because I know that you must have better conditions and a wider road than you did then, so you should be braver and more confident, and if I can overcome it, you will certainly be able to do it. I will tell you about my 3 experiences of overcoming loneliness, and I hope it will help you a little.
First, accept "loneliness." The so-called everything is difficult at the beginning, and the more difficult it is, the easier it is to feel lonely. When I first returned to China, I was faced with a huge field gap, and even the biggest ambition was worn away. Loneliness is the norm in life, and when you recognize that this is the status quo, you accept this real situation and find a way to build a new "module" from 0 to 1.
Second, learn to live with "loneliness" and use it to recognize what you really want in your heart.
When I was a child, next to a reservoir in the countryside of Hunan, I used to lie in the field and look up at the stars, and the stars attracted me and made me want to fly up to see what secrets were there. That was the first time I had decided to study the stars. Later, when I actually participated in the Voyager 2 mission, I was shocked by the vastness of the universe and strengthened my interest in the field of space science. You must firmly believe that the lonely moments given to you by God must be the best opportunity for you to talk to yourself, and don't miss it.
Finally, please believe that as you move towards your dreams, more and more people will begin to understand and support you. On the day I received the honor of "Academician", I used to express my feelings with "gratitude, responsibility, and cherishing". I am grateful to my parents who raised me, to accompany my family, to nurture my school, to bring up my mentors and friends, and to support my units, which have opened up new possibilities for my scientific research. Without them, it is difficult to imagine that I would have the opportunity to participate in the "Meridian Project", "Space Science Pilot Project", "Chang'e-4" and "Tianwen-1" these major tasks, such a groundbreaking national heavyweight.
To this day, like you, I still feel a little lonely from time to time. After all, China's space science is still in its infancy, and there is still a long way to go in the future. May we all grow with loneliness and find our own light from loneliness.
Wang Chi (Academician, Chinese Academy of Sciences)
December 24, 2021
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