Chapter 16 accept the inevitable

To bear the inevitable lightly, just as the willow bears the wind and rain, and the water accepts all containers, we must also bear all the facts. One day when I was a kid, a few friends and I were playing in the attic of an old dilapidated log cabin in northern Missouri.When climbing down from the attic, I stood on the window rail for a while, and then jumped down.I was wearing a ring on the index finger of my left hand.As I was jumping, the ring caught on a nail, and my whole finger snapped off. I was terrified and immediately screamed, thinking I was going to die, but after my hand healed, I never bothered about it again.What's the use of worrying?I accepted this as an inescapable fact.It never occurs to me now that I have only three fingers and a thumb on my left hand.

A few years ago, I met a guy who ran a freight elevator in an office building in midtown New York.I noticed that his entire left hand was gone.I asked him if he was sad without his hand, and he said, "Oh no, I don't think about it at all. The only time I think about it is when I'm threading a needle." If necessary, we can accept almost any situation, adapt ourselves to it, and forget about it altogether. I often think of a line inscribed on the ruins of an old 15th-century church in Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands: "It is so, not otherwise." In the long years, we will inevitably encounter some unpleasant things, and if they are so, they cannot be otherwise.Of course, we also have a choice: we can accept them as inevitable and adapt to them; otherwise we have nothing to do but use worry to destroy our life and eventually cause a nervous breakdown.

My favorite philosopher, William James, once gave us this advice: "Be willing to admit that it is the way it is." He said, "To accept what happened is the first step in overcoming any misfortune that follows. One step." Elizabeth Conley, who lives in Portland, Oregon, learned this the hard way.Here is a letter she recently wrote to me: "On the day the United States celebrated the Army's victory in North Africa, I received a telegram, from the Department of Defense, that my nephew—one of my favorites—was missing in battle Yes. Not long after, there was another telegram saying he was dead.

"I was devastated. Before that happened, I always felt that fate was good to me, I had a dream job, and I was trying to raise this nephew. In my eyes, my nephew represents young people. Everything is beautiful. I feel that my previous efforts have been well rewarded now... Then this telegram came, my whole world was ruthlessly shattered, and I felt that there was no point in living any longer. I began to neglect my work, I neglected my friends, I threw everything away, cold and resentful. Why did my favorite nephew die? Why did such a good child - who hadn't started his life yet - have to Let him die on the battlefield? I couldn't accept the fact. I was so sad that I decided to give up my job and leave my hometown, drowning myself in tears and regret.

"Just as I was clearing the table and preparing to resign, I suddenly saw a letter that I had long since forgotten. This letter was written to me by my nephew who is dead. A few years ago, I When my mother died, he wrote me this letter: 'Of course we'll all miss her,' the letter said: 'Especially you. But I know you'll get through it - and with your personal respect view of life and you will get through it. I will never forget those beautiful truths you taught me: no matter where we are, no matter how far apart we are, I will always remember you taught me to smile, Be a man and take what's happened.'

"I read that letter over and over again, and it seemed like he was right next to me, talking to me. He seemed to be saying to me: 'Why don't you do what you taught me? Be strong, carry on, Whatever happens, hide your personal sorrow behind a smile and go on living.' "So, I went back to work again and stopped being rude to people. I told myself over and over again: 'Since it has happened, I have no power to change it, but I can continue to live as he wants.' I Putting all my thoughts and energy into work, I wrote letters to the soldiers at the front—they were other people's sons; at night, I took adult education classes again. I wanted to find new interests and make new friends .I can hardly believe all the new changes that have happened to me. Instead of grieving over things that have happened and gone forever, I am now filled with joy every day of my life - just like my nephew wants me to Arrived."

Elizabeth Conley has grasped what we all learn sooner or later, that we must accept and adapt to what we cannot avoid.This lesson is not easy to learn.Even the heads of state at the top often remind themselves that they must.For example, the late George V had the following words on his palace wall at Buckingham Palace: "I will not weep over the moon, nor regret anything." Schopenhauer expressed the same thought in the following words: " Being able to obey is the most important thing when you embark on the journey of life." It is clear that circumstances alone do not make us happy or unhappy, only our reactions to our surroundings determine how we feel.

We can all endure disaster and tragedy if necessary, and even overcome them.We may think we can't do it, but the truth is that there is an amazingly strong inner force that can help us overcome any difficulty if we just tap into it. The late Booth Tarkington always said it this way: "I can take anything life throws at me, except one: Blindness. That I can never bear." But this kind of misfortune happened. When he was in his 60s, when he looked down at the carpet on the ground, the color was blurred and he couldn't see the pattern of the carpet clearly.He went to an ophthalmologist, who confirmed the unfortunate fact that his eyesight was failing, and he was almost completely blind in one eye, not much better in the other.What he was most worried about finally happened to him.

How did Tarkington react to this "intolerable" disaster?Does he feel that "this game is over, my whole life is over here"?No, it didn't occur to him himself that he could still be very happy, or even use his humor.Before, he had been troubled by the floating "dark spots" that swam past him and blocked his vision, but now he would say, "Hey, The old black-spotted grandpa is here again, I don’t know where he is going in such a fine weather today.” When Tarkington became completely blind, he said: "I found that I could bear the loss of vision, just as a person can bear anything else. Even if I lost all five senses, I knew I could live on. In my thoughts, because only in thoughts can we see, only in thoughts can we live, whether we know it or not."

Tarkington underwent 12 surgeries over the course of a year to restore his vision, all performed by local ophthalmologists.Is he afraid?No, he knew it was necessary, he knew he had no way to escape, so the only way to alleviate his pain was to accept it bravely.He refused to use a private room in the hospital and was admitted to a large ward with other patients.He tried to make everyone happy, and when he had to undergo several surgeries - and he knew exactly what had been done to his eyes - he always tried to make himself think how lucky he was . "How wonderful," said he, "how wonderful that science has now developed the skill to operate on something as delicate as the human eye."

If the average person has experienced more than 12 operations and lived in darkness for a long time, they will probably become neurotic.But Tarkington said: "I don't want to exchange this experience for something happier." This incident taught him how to accept disasters and made him realize that nothing that life brings to him is beyond his ability This incident also made him realize the truth of what Fulton said, "It's not sad to be blind, the sad thing is that you can't bear to be blind." Conversely, if we recoil from it, or resist it, or feel sorry for it, we cannot change the inevitable fact that has happened.But we can change ourselves, I know, because I've tried it myself. Once, refusing to accept an inevitability in my life, I did something stupid to fight it, and I lost sleep for several nights and was miserable.I started to make myself think of all the things I didn't want to think about, and after a year of self-abuse like this, I finally came to terms with the fact that I couldn't change it. I recited Whitman's verse several years ago: In my 12 years of cattle herding, I have never seen a cow dry out because of lack of water in the pasture, or the weather was too cold, or a bull chased another cow and got mad.Animals can face night, storm and hunger with great calm.So they never have a nervous breakdown or a stomach ulcer, and they never go crazy. Does this mean that when you encounter any setbacks, you should be humble and obedient?No, absolutely not, that would be fatalist.In either case, as long as there is any chance of salvation, we will do our best; but when common sense tells us that things are inevitable--and there can be no chance of turning around--then, in order to maintain With our rationality, we should not "look around and worry about nothing". The late Hawkes Dean of Columbia University once told me that he wrote himself a limerick as his motto: While writing this book, I have interviewed many well-known businessmen in the United States.What impresses me the most is that most of them can accept those inevitable facts and live a carefree life.If they cannot do so, they will be crushed under the tremendous pressure.Here are a few good examples: Penny, who founded the nationwide chain of Pan's stores, told me, "Even if I lost all my money, I wouldn't worry because I couldn't see what worrying would get me. I would fight for it with all my might." Do your job and I'll take it no matter what the outcome is." Henry Ford told me something similar. "Whenever something I can't handle," he said, "I let them figure it out." When I asked Mr. Keller, the general manager of Chrysler, how he avoided worry, he replied: "If I encounter a difficult situation, I will try my best to solve it. If I If it can’t be solved, I just put it aside. I never worry about the future, because no one can know what will happen in the future, there are too many factors that affect the future, and no one can tell where these effects come from .In that case, why worry about them?" If you say Keller is a philosopher, he must feel a little uncomfortable, he is just a good businessman.But what he meant was similar to the theory of the great Roman philosopher Epitutus before the 19th century. “There is no other way to be happy than to worry about things that are beyond our will power.” Sarah Banhart is arguably the woman who knows best how to adapt to the inevitable. For 50 years, she has been the only "Queen" of the Four State theaters and a favorite actress with audiences around the world.But then, at the age of 71, she went bankrupt, lost all her money, and was told by her doctor, Professor Pokey in Paris, that she had to have her leg amputated. Here's how it happened: She was caught in a storm while crossing the Atlantic, slipped and fell on deck, and badly injured her leg with phlebitis and leg cramps.The severe pain made the doctor think that her leg must be amputated.The doctor was a little afraid to break the news to the grumpy Sarah.Because he thought the dreadful news would make Sarah very angry.But he was wrong, Sarah just looked at him for a while, and then said very calmly: "If it really has to be this way, it must be this way." This is fate. As she was wheeled into the operating room, her son stood by and couldn't help crying.But she waved to him and said with a smile: "Don't go away, I'll be right back." On the way to the operating room, Sarah had been reciting a line from a play she had acted in.Someone asked her if she was doing it to cheer herself up, but she said: "No, I want to cheer up the doctors and nurses, they are all under a lot of pressure." When the surgery was complete and her health was restored, Sarah continued to travel the world, captivating her audience for another seven years. Elsie McMick said in an article in Reader's Digest: "When we stop fighting against the inevitable, we can save our energy and create a richer life." No one has enough emotion and energy to resist the inevitable and at the same time create a new life.You can only choose one of two things: you can bend over under the inevitable storms that life throws at you, or you can resist them and be destroyed. I've seen this happen on my own farm in Missouri.At that time, I planted dozens of trees on the farm. At first they grew very fast, and then a hailstorm came, and every tiny branch was covered with a thick layer of ice.These branches, instead of bowing obediently under the weight, stood proudly stiff, and at last broke under the weight--and had to be destroyed.They are not as intelligent as northern trees.I have seen hundreds of miles of evergreen forests in Canada, and never saw a cypress or a pine crushed by ice or hail.These evergreens know how to obey, how to bend their branches, how to adapt to the inevitable. Japanese judo masters teach their students to "be supple like a willow and not straight like an oak." Do you know why the tires of a car can last so long on the road and endure so many bumps?At first, some people wanted to make a tire that could resist the bumps in the road, and the tire was crushed to pieces before long.Then they made a tire that could absorb all kinds of pressure encountered on the road, so that the tire could "take everything".If we can bear all the setbacks and bumps in the difficult journey of life, we can live longer and enjoy smoother journeys. What will happen to us if we don't obey, but rebel against the various setbacks we encounter in life?The answer is quite simple: we develop a cascade of inner conflicts—worried, tense, and irritable. If we go one step further, throwing away the unpleasantnesses of the real world and retreating into a dream world of our own making, then we become insane. In wartime, countless fearful soldiers had only two choices: accept the inevitable, or break down under the pressure.Let us take, for example, the case of William Caselius.Here's an award-winning story he told an adult education class in New York: "Shortly after I joined the Coast Guard, I was assigned to one of the scariest units this side of the Atlantic. They put me in charge of explosives. Come to think of it, I was just a cracker clerk and now I'm an explosives man Just the thought of standing on top of 10 million tons of TNT makes my bones freeze. I only had two days of training, and what I learned fills my heart fear. "I'll never forget my first mission. It was dark, cold, and foggy, and I was ordered to Cavan Pointe Pier, New Jersey. I was in charge of the fifth cabin on the ship, and Five dock workers working together. They are strong, but know nothing about explosives. They are loading the ship with bombs weighing 2,000 to 4,000 pounds. Each bomb contains 1 ton of TNT, enough to turn the old ship. It blew up to pieces. We hoisted the bomb to the boat with two wires, and I kept saying to myself, If one of the wires slips, or breaks, oh my God! I'm terrified. I was trembling, my mouth was dry, my legs were weak, and my heart was beating almost out of my chest. But I couldn't run away. To do so would be to flee, and not only would I lose face, but my parents would also lose face, and I might I was shot for fleeing. I couldn't run, I had to stay. I kept watching the dock workers move the bombs around with no care, thinking that the ship would be blown up at any moment. "After more than an hour of being scared and terrified, I finally started to use my common sense. I talked to myself and I said, 'Look, so what if you get killed? You're nothing. I feel it. This kind of death is very painful and quicker. It is much better than dying of cancer. Don’t be a fool, you can’t live forever, you have to do this job, or you will be shot. Might as well have fun doing it.' "I said this to myself for a long time, and then I felt lighter. Finally, I got over my worries and fears and allowed myself to accept the inevitability. "I'll never forget that experience. Now, whenever I have to worry about something I can't change, I shrug my shoulders and say, 'Forget it.'" Great, let's be loud Cheers, cheers for the cookie clerk. "Look lightly at the inevitable." These words were spoken 399 years before Jesus Christ was born.But in today's worry-ridden world, people need the words more than ever: "Take the inevitable lightly."