Tonight I want to talk to you about a thing I recently thought about, about age: In a company with an average age of 20+, I am a post-80s and become a physiological middle-aged person.
What is life like for middle-aged people?
If you open the circle of friends of middle-aged people around you, you will find that they have not rushed to set up a fashionable "visible in the past three days", it is simply blank, nothing. If you ask him what he is doing, he usually answers: busy with life.
I took the opportunity to learn what most middle-aged people are busy with every day.
I found that while they took on family responsibilities, behind their backs, they still freed up energy to do what they liked and found a fulcrum in life.
For example, some people have parents on the top, wives and daughters on the bottom, and work nine to five to support the family.
But I started writing novels just over 35 years ago, with 220,000 words in my manuscript.
——For example, there is a small owner of a building materials store, who is busy dealing with various bosses every day.
Because I like poetry, I go to drive a car at night. When I meet someone who understands, I send the poetry collection I wrote to the other party and do not charge for the car.
——I also heard that some people work in central enterprises, touch fish and brush at work, and check children's homework after work.
At about 40 o'clock, I joined the local astronomical hobby association and photographed a lot of stars.
Some of them, in middle age, simply turned this fulcrum into their own lives.
This part of the people are still quite "mentally", which is also a word that I have often discussed with people recently.
Mental strength is to take on the responsibility of life at the same time, do you still have the strength to pursue the dream that has not been realized.
Perhaps, for many middle-aged people, no matter what kind of wealth status they are now, there have always been a few battles in their hearts that they care about most and want to win the most.
Perhaps with this effort, these battles may be won.
I want to tell you a few stories like this that may give you strength.
When his friend Hao Yu just graduated, he originally wanted to talk to Jiang Kun, but when his parents who had been a civil servant all his life were "scared", he gave up what he loved and took the civil service exam, which was 10 years.
His daily routine is—
During the day, in order to queue up an event seat, go to communicate with artists, agents and leaders;
At night, he runs to various theaters alone to watch his favorite plays;
From time to time, I posted some small paragraphs on Weibo, and I also met many well-known comedians. Life is plain and plain, and there is a little fun.
But at the age of 36, Hao Yu once watched his colleagues who usually got along and told the same paragraph six times, thinking that life could be more interesting? I remembered the "College Student Study Room" I created when I was 21 years old, and I shared the stage with Zhang Jie and Sha Baoliang when I was most popular; jiang Kun, a cross-talk master, invited him to the Spring Festival Gala together.
He wanted to pick up his old love and go talk shows, just in case.
But in the eyes of most people, the current life is safe and stable, to disrupt it, to pursue their favorite things, it is really unnecessary.
Because middle-aged people often have a kind of —
"The world has proven many times that some things are impossible" sense of reality. They don't have to take risks.
Documentary filmmaker Zhang Jing is also.
Before becoming a director, I always told my friends that I would make a great documentary in my life. My friend didn't doubt his ability, he just didn't think it was necessary.
Zhang Jingbei drifted for more than 20 years, opened his own company, with an annual income of three or four hundred thousand, two children, two suites, and two cars. Ideal enough. But once the company got into a financial dispute, the biggest pain during that time was money.
After the problem was solved, he was not particularly happy, but thought:
"Life is really good now.
But when I'm old and call my children around, can I talk about the achievements of this life and only say how much money I have made? ”
These people already have the lives that most people want to live, but there is always a part of them that they regret.
I always want to find an opportunity to fight for myself, even if I don't succeed in the end.
When people reach middle age and suddenly want to pursue what they loved before, it may threaten the existing stable life.
Nobody else understands—
For example, Zhang Jing, who wanted to make a documentary, closed the company in order to make up enough money, sold a suite, borrowed hundreds of thousands of relatives and friends, and set up his own shooting team - three middle-aged people.
Zhang Jing's wife ignored him for a month and didn't know why she was so shafty.
But the three big men still took the second-hand cameras, cameras, tape recorders that they didn't know where to find, and drove a broken car that had been driven for more than 10 years, and began this "not for money" adventure.
When people reach middle age, they are a bit successful, and they also hope to regain their inner love. You want to know what it would be like to stick to that thing that you gave up on yourself.
Hao Yu, who has been a civil servant for a long time, knows that Beijing has a talk show, and he is so excited that he has not slept all night.
Start various series of scenes.
Last year, he participated in a talk show competition, and on the eve of the competition, he drank Red Bull and carried it, burying his head in the tinkering. He expressed his life: "My fans asked me when I would come back, and my mom asked me when I would mention the deputy office. ”
He said: "In the shell of your 30s, you feel like you are aging, but you rush forward and do what you love, as if you are back in 18 years old." ”
It is always said that no one can be young forever, but you who are doing what you like can walk on the road of youth.
Four
Maybe when people reach middle age, the more they understand the trade-offs of life.
When we are young, it is easy for us to pursue all aspects of life to win -
There must be a car and a house and a consummated family.
It's just that when these things are realized, people pursue it in middle age.
Don't live at the top all the time, as long as you can pursue this momentary experience.
Even this hobby does not achieve success in the secular sense. They are also satisfied.
Wang Wei, the founder of tudou.com, was very successful in the eyes of others. But I still envy the kind of people who have been clear about what they like and what they want to do since they were young. For example, director Zhang Chun, who has dyslexia, can only paint, and finally filmed "Big Fish and Begonias";
For example, a friend of his, who read a copy of "Interview with Farage" in junior high school, wanted to be a reporter. He is now the editor-in-chief of a foreign journal. Wang Wei sometimes asks himself, "Is this really me?" Will I be like this for the rest of my life? ”
It's not that I'm not satisfied with what's in front of me, but I don't feel enough—
Isn't there enough time to do what you really love?
After leaving Tudou, he considered buying a 100-hectare wasteland on the shores of Lake Wanaka in the new southwest. But in the end, I decided to do animation and thought it was something I could watch with my son.
The first feature film "Little Door God" failed miserably at the box office;
The second feature film ,"The Adventures of Atang", was not ideal in terms of ratings and box office.
But he felt that doing animation allowed him to find meaning, which was a very specific picture: watching his own movie with his son.
Finally, it came to the fourth animated feature film "White Snake", which won word of mouth and box office.
Zhang Jing, who sold his house to make a documentary, has already completed his responsibilities and paid for his love.
He said he made a documentary: "Even if you don't make money, you have to let more people see it."
After becoming a documentary filmmaker, his "Looking for a Craft" was evaluated by professionals like this:
"First of all, speaking of photography, I can kill you in a second after pulling a 90s;
Speaking of copywriting, I can pull a company ordinary copywriter at will also kill you in a second;
Speaking of dubbing, I can kill you in a second by pulling a county-level TV announcer. ”
But he was not reconciled and put the film on station B.
On the first day of launch, it received more than 10,000 hits, less than 1% of the negative reviews, and a rating of 9.9.
Now click on this film, when it is played to 1 minute, the bullet screen is full of bullet screens saying their dreams -
Protect wildlife; become a professional boxer; become a good judicial worker.
These hobbies, though, are not worldly successes. But for them, it's about winning life.
In fact, I think people are middle-aged —
Compared with when they were young, they have recognized part of the truth of life, that is, the world does not give them special preferential treatment.
But they still have hope for what they love, and they are ready to be disappointed, and then they go after it.
That's enough, a lifetime of heroism.