Chapter 35 Don't complain about the sky, don't give in to others

Don't complain about the sky above, and don't favor others at the bottom.Therefore, a gentleman lives in an easy place to wait for his life, and a villain takes risks to get lucky.The Master said: "Shooting you is like a gentleman, who misses the right goal, and instead seeks what is in his own body." —— "The Doctrine of the Mean" (excerpt) On June 30, 2003, Premier Wen Jiabao attended a gathering of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to commend medical staff and all walks of life for successfully overcoming SARS, and delivered an important speech.In his speech, Premier Wen first borrowed from "The Doctrine of the Mean" "Don't complain about heaven and don't favor others" to encourage Hong Kong people. Then, Premier Wen said emotionally: "It is true that our nation is getting more and more frustrated and frustrated. "The cohesion formed by a nation in a disaster will definitely promote the unity and progress of the nation; what a nation loses in a disaster will be compensated in the progress of the nation."

The saying "Don't complain about the sky, don't blame others" tells us that when encountering setbacks and failures, don't attribute your loss and depression to God, and don't blame your own faults and mistakes on others, because this is the truth. A timidity to hide from the world is a kind of selfish selfishness.Just like archery, when you fail to hit the target, you have to find the reason from yourself and review your own lack of skills.Confucius said: "Don't worry about what others don't know, worry about what they can't." This also emphasizes the importance of personal criticism and self-criticism in moral cultivation.

"Don't complain about the sky, don't favor others" is still a positive attitude towards life.As the saying goes, "There are unpredictable things in the sky, and people have misfortunes and blessings." Only by giving up endless complaints can a person always maintain an optimistic and healthy attitude, so as to be positive and make a difference.Those who blame others can only be "born less than a hundred years old, and often worry about a thousand years old". "Xunzi·Rectification of Names" says: "When the heart is worried and fearful, it will hold the grass in the mouth but not know its taste, listen to the bells and drums but not know the sound, look at the cockroaches but not know its shape, and lightly warm and flat mat but not know the safety of the body. "Yu Shenxing, a famous litterateur and historian in the Ming Dynasty, said: "Those who express their grievances will take precautions, and those who hide their grievances will kill themselves." ("Taniguchi Bichen") The Taoist classic "Taiping Jing" in the Han Dynasty of my country also said: "There is no human being. Worry, so I live long."

In the view of Confucianism, "Don't complain about the sky above, and don't favor others at the bottom" not only represents a positive attitude towards life, but also a moral realm of personal cultivation.Confucius said: "If you don't worry about having a position, you can stand if you don't worry about it. If you don't worry about what you know, you can know what you know." Don't be afraid that you won't get a certain position. What matters is what you use to stand on your own.In Confucianism's view, what makes a person self-reliant, of course, requires knowledge, then virtue, and more importantly, the state of life.Confucius faced life with an optimistic attitude and a happy mood for life. He summed up his deeply affectionate spiritual world with "forgetting food in anger, forgetting worries in joy, not knowing the coming of old age".He said: "Those who know are not as good as those who are good, and those who are good are not as good as those who are happy." From knowing to being good, from being good to being happy, is actually the improvement of the realm of life.For this reason, the Confucian classic "The Doctrine of the Mean" emphasizes the idea of ​​"neutralization". The first chapter of "The Doctrine of the Mean" says: "When happiness, anger, sorrow, and joy are not released, it is called the middle; when they are all in the middle, it is called harmony. The middle is the foundation of the world; the harmonious is the world's Dao." To neutralize, the heaven and earth are in harmony, and all things are nurtured." It means that when a person has not shown emotions of joy, anger, sorrow and joy, his heart is always calm and impartial, so it is called "Zhong".But people's joys, sorrows, sorrows and joys always have to be expressed. If they are expressed with restraint and without faults, this is called "harmony".If everyone can maintain a state of neutrality, then the whole society will be harmonious and upward, and the world will be peaceful.This is also just as Confucius said: "A gentleman goes up, and a villain goes down." Those who pursue are motivated upwards, while those who have nothing to do sink downwards.Those who go up transcend, those who go down fall.

Premier Wen Jiabao quoted this sentence from "The Doctrine of the Mean" at a gathering attended by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government to praise all walks of life for defeating SARS. It is to tell everyone that in the face of this disaster, they should not blame others, but accept challenges, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. Overcoming difficulties together.Just as Premier Wen said when visiting students at Peking University in April 2003: "This disaster is a test for the government and the people of the whole country. I believe that after going through this test, our country will make greater strides forward."