【Personal Growth and Reading】
Author: Bella
1 Why read?
From childhood to adulthood, we are all taught to study well.
Because "everything is inferior, only the reading is high", because "eating bitterly, only to be a superior person", because "knowledge changes fate".
So we work very hard to read, to do problems, to study.
But you will find two problems, one is that reading books does not seem to be the only way to change your destiny. You have been studying hard here for fifteen or six years, and after graduation, you feel very happy to find a high-paying job, and on the first day of entering the company, you found that the big leader turned out to be your classmate who did not graduate from high school.
Another problem is that too many classic books are "useless" from a functional point of view. You study law, and reading Dickens doesn't make you better at analyzing cases; you start a company and reading The Chronicles won't double your income the next year. From this point of view, it seems that reading does not directly affect our lives.
So why do we still have to read?
The story of the writer Mai Jia can give us some inspiration.
This name is a little strange to some people, but you must be familiar with "Dark Calculation" and "The Sound of the Wind", these classic film and television dramas are adapted from the novels of the Mai family.
The mai family's childhood was quite tragic.
Grandpa was a Christian, Grandpa was a big landlord, and my father was a rightist and "counter-revolutionary" element, and these "black hats" overwhelmed the whole family.
The children of the same village bullied and insulted him, and the angry father often vented his emotions on the Mai family.
Loneliness, bitterness, grievances, pain... Unable to say, can only write, the Mai family has developed the habit of writing a diary.
When he was 13 years old, his father took the Mai family to the village doctor A Niu's house to pay respects to the New Year. In the firewood pile of the Earth Stove of Ah Niu's family, the Mai family inadvertently found a copy of "Lin Hai Snow Field". The book was picked up by Ah Niu from the street to set fire for cooking, and the next dozen pages are gone. The Mai family was fascinated by reading in the stove room, and even read it when eating. Ah Niu gave him the book.
In the era of no books to read, "Lin Hai Xueyuan" became the complete spiritual pillar of the Mai family, he read it over and over again, copied it over and over again, and even skillfully recited the passages inside.
"Lin Hai Snow Field" opened a window for the Mai family to look at the world, and also let the Mai family have a taste of literature for the first time. Once ignited, the light of faith can illuminate a person's life. The Mai family began to find ways to find books to read, and then constantly strive to go to a larger world. It was the unexpected encounter with "Lin Hai Snow Field" that made the Mai family form a lifelong friendship with literature and set sail for his future literary road.
Telling the story of the Mai family is to talk to you about another role of reading. When your world is opened by another thought; when wisdom touches your heart in the form of words in a quiet time; when you use books to jump out of the limitations of the present moment and to see people, things, and the world—you will find that reading can really bring strength to people. This power can be a support, an opening, or even a renewal, a redemption.
This strength gives you the courage to endure hardship and realize your own smallness when things are going well. The power of books is truly irreplaceable.
2 Reading is about changing yourself
Many people will think: Hey I also want to read, but I can't remember ah, I read the back and forget the front!
Teacher Luo Xiang sent a video to discuss the problem of reading with everyone. Regarding "reading the secretary can't stop", he said this: "Reading is not to show off, reading is just to cultivate your wisdom."
Does any classmate remember what you ate yesterday? Remember what was your menu three days ago? You've forgotten, but these things have become your nourishment. The same is true of reading. Many times we are good at reading, and we don't seek much understanding. We don't need to memorize those wonderful passages, we just have to read them, and slowly they become our nourishment. We need to talk to the great souls of humanity. ”
Can reading change your destiny? Yes.
But the way to change is not that we remember a lot of things and then use those things to create the world we want, but through reading, receiving love and wisdom to edify, nourish, enlighten, and thus change ourselves.
Regarding the difference between reading and not reading, Fan Deng gave an example. He said that the fact that children do not write homework well is extremely painful and unacceptable for parents who do not read. Because it seems that the child should just write homework well. But the focus of parents who have read books is not here, but will see the fact that their children do not write homework as an opportunity for improvement, think about what places can be improved at home, and how to make children happy and voluntary to complete homework. And if you don't read, you won't even have the chance to find these blind spots.
You see, in fact, reading can not only change yourself, but also bring changes to the people around you. But this change does not occur because we have learned enough knowledge and then use preaching and accusation to direct others, but to first empty our own thoughts and emotions, let wisdom change us through words, and let us become the instruments and channels of wisdom ourselves. When wisdom flows through us, the people around us, even a community or a people, can benefit from it.
3 Remain humble
Jobs once read the "smart guy" this way: "Intelligence is very much the ability to narrow down, as if you were in a city and you could look down at the whole city from 80 floors down. While others are still struggling to find a path from point A to point B, you can clearly see the entire path through the minimap. You can see the whole picture. You can see the whole thing. ”
This view is a good explanation for why so many high-achieving, high-contribution people are keen to read. There is no doubt that books, especially those classics, are themselves the epitome of all kinds of things, that is, from the perspective of transcending time and space, to discover the laws of development of history, society, science, etc., to extract the most universally applicable truths. Therefore, reading can be said to be the simplest and most efficient way to broaden your horizons, collect opinions, and form a personal worldview.
In the process of reading, more important than extracting information, is to maintain a humble heart. Luvis's theorem tells us that modesty is not about thinking of oneself badly, but about not thinking of oneself at all.
When we can gradually take our attention away from ourselves and shift to the outside to things, we can devote ourselves more to observation and understanding. In this way, we can more peacefully accept the challenge of the ideas in the book, and not hold a strong opposition to all views that contradict our own ideas.
Such challenges do a good job of dispelling our prejudices. In fact, what is prejudice? It is to only stare at the part that you value, take the part you value as the whole, and turn a blind eye to other facts.
What is needed to open your horizons is precisely to eliminate prejudice. The more different things we see, the more we can allow different existences, the more our horizons are broadened. Because the open eye sees more differences than opposites.
Read well! Let those precious words melt into our blood, infuse our souls, and change our lives.