Text/Huigot Tan
2022/04/07
Qingming Festival small long holiday, rest for three days, camping for three days, compared to the previous holidays are more relaxed.
These three days can completely relax and "postpone" the one thing that was originally planned to be done until the first day after the festival, because through research, I know that this thing may not be so simple. If I started dealing with this during the holidays, the result would be that neither I nor a few of my colleagues would be able to enjoy the holiday well, and things might not have moved forward very well. So it was decided that the holidays would be completely empty and that I would go all out after going to work.
This is a very important choice, in the past weekends, holidays, although nominally non-working days, but I have actually been in a state of tension. For example, if you take a week off in March, in fact, only two days of time at Universal Studios are really vacation time, and other times you are busy with conference calls, dealing with company affairs, and even staying up until midnight for several nights.
Therefore, it seems to be a vacation, but in fact, it is not really rested. After returning to the company, a new round of intense work began. This cycle continues, the body and mind have been in a state of tension, and the work efficiency continues to decline. It manifests itself as difficulty in really concentrating, spending a lot of time dealing with chores, but not much progress on the really important things. There are a lot of procrastinations, many things are not decided, repeated discussions, and finally they and their colleagues around them are not satisfied – this is really a vicious circle.
These three days, finally chose to completely empty, in addition to looking at the company's information every morning and evening, the daytime time was completely reserved for himself and his family. In these three days, I found three campsites on the outskirts of the city and went camping with my family and friends. Camping in the suburbs of the city is a more relaxing way than staying at home, going to the mall, or going out on a long trip.
Every family's entire belongings are a tent, large or small, simple drinks, convenient food, a picnic mat, a book or two, a Bluetooth speaker, some small toys, and the whole family can spend the whole day happily. The wind and the sun are beautiful outdoors, you can fully enjoy the rare spring in Beijing, and you don't have to worry too much about the impact of the epidemic.
I have found that not only myself, but also my friends in the surrounding area have chosen to camp in the suburbs of the city or in the park in recent times. It may be the impact of the epidemic (unable to leave the city where you live), or it may be related to the rapid growth of the economy, and everyone finally has time to gradually calm down, slow down, and find time to get along with themselves and their families. It is said that Japan's "driving camping" culture arose out of "the search for the true self after the collapse of the bubble disillusionment."
During these three days, I read "two and a half books", namely "Deng Xiaoping Era", "Lightism" and "Invention: James Dyson's Creative Journey" (of which "Invention" has not yet been fully read, so it is only half a book). These books are highly recommended, especially "Deng Xiaoping Era" and "Lightness", which are very inspiring.
If you're a very busy office worker, these two books have a special meaning, because I took a similar inspiration from these two books, which is "relax, concentrate, and do the most critical things in the right way."
Deng Xiaoping had "three ups and three downs" in his life, and when he returned in 1977, he was already in his seventies. Deng Xiaoping's very important work habit was to "grasp the big and let go of the small", spending only time doing the most important and crucial things, and leaving other things to others to complete.
Deng Xiaoping, who has enjoyed a reputation from an early age, was adept at distinguishing between big and small, focusing on the things that would bring the greatest change to China: formulating long-term strategies; evaluating policies that might determine the success or failure of long-term goals; winning the support of lower-level cadres and the masses; and publicizing typical policies that reflected the policies he wanted to implement. In important but complex areas, such as economics or science and technology, Mr. Deng relied on others to think about strategy, then explain different options to him, and finally make decisions.
In his later years, in order to save his strength, he avoided attending various meetings, but instead learned about the situation by reading the minutes of the meetings. At the same time, he devoted more time to preparing for the annual Central Committee Plenary Session and the Five-Year Party Congress, the two most crucial congresses for unifying everyone's thinking. Because he insists on "grasping the big and letting go of the small" and always focuses on the most critical things, he has plenty of time to exercise, read, think, spend time with his family and rest. Deng Xiaoping's trip to the South in 1992 was crucial to China's reform and opening up, and by this time he was 87 years old, with impressive energy, physical strength and thinking. This has a lot to do with his long-term insistence on doing things in the right way.
And the author of "Lightness" emphasizes:
In order to make our journey easier, try to choose an easier path. If you can only get one message out of this book, I hope it goes like this: Life doesn't have to be hard and complicated. As Robert Frost, an American writer who has won the Pulitzer Prize four times, wrote, each of us must "keep our promise and walk this road to sleep forever." No matter what challenges, obstacles, and difficulties you face, you can always look for an easier and easier path.
How to achieve "ease", the author's point of view is to spend time only doing the most critical things, and to do the most critical things in the right way, only in this way, life can be truly easy and efficient.
In the opening preface, "Making The Key Things Easier," the author asks, "If you make the key things easy and the important things easy, how will your life change?" This question is worth thinking about for each of us.
Whether we like it or not, life is undoubtedly tough and complicated. Like Greg McGivern, the author of "Lightness," whose daughter Eve contracted a strange neurological disorder at the age of 14, the whole family was in trouble. But he eventually decided to choose an easy way.
Of course, we don't try to take on all of it all by ourselves. Instead, we decided to focus on the simple, light-hearted things that we could control: we would sing around the piano, walk together, read books together, play games together. We will go and find everything I have to affirm and point it out. We would pray for each other's blessings, eat together, and toast each other as we ate. After dinner, we would sit together and tell stories. We laugh together and be thankful for life.
We went through each day like this, and soon we noticed an almost magical force at work. We felt the burden seemed to lighten, we felt less tired, we didn't collapse.
Eve isn't fully recovered, but the McGifern family is out of the woods because he realizes that everyone has a choice about the moment. He advises everyone to choose an easier path, because "if your job is to keep the flame burning for a while, you can't throw all the fuel into the flames in the first place."
The future may be difficult, but I hope we can all learn from them a "relaxed" attitude towards life: take it easy, life will be better!