“Once upon a time， there was a king who had a daughter as beautiful as a blooming rose. To all the suitors who came to the king's palace to ask for the hand of the princess, the old king assigned three tasks to be accomplished, each next to impossible. One day, into the king's palace came a handsome young prince…" Well, you know the rest. The three tasks may be different in different versions, but the main plot is always the same, with the prince claiming the princess's hand triumphantly.
And the ending is always the same, finishing with the line "And they live happily every after."
Why aren't we tired of something so fanciful, so unrealistic, and, I would say, so unimaginative? How can a story like that endure generations of repetition`? Because, I think, it is a typical success story. It is highly philosophical and symbolic. By implication, we see a 4-step definition of success: 1 ) a goal to be set. as represented by the beautiful princess; 2 ) challenges to be met, as represented by the three tasks; 3 ) the process of surmounting difficulties, as represented by the ordeals the youth goes through; and 4 ) the reward of success, as represented by the happy marriage.
The story not only caters to everyone's inward yearning for success, but also emphasizes the inseparability of the process and the result. The reward of success will be much amplified if the path leading towards it is treacherous, and vice versa. If a person inherits his father's millions and leads an easy life, he is not a successful person even in material terms, because there are no difficulties involved in his achieving affluence. The term "success", to be sure. will not sit still for easy definition. But as I understand it, the true meaning of success entails a combination of both the process and the satisfactory result of an endeavor. To clarify my view, let me give another analogy.
when i was nine years old i went off to summer camp for the first time. and my mother packed me a suitcase full of books, which to me seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. because in my family, reading was the primary group activity. and this might sound antisocial to you, but for us it was really just a different way of being social. you have the animal warmth of your family sitting right next to you, but you are also free to go roaming around the adventureland inside your own mind. and i had this idea that camp was going to be just like this, but better. (laughter) i had a vision of 10 girls sitting in a cabin cozily reading books in their matching nightgowns.
camp was more like a keg party without any alcohol. and on the very first day our counselor gathered us all together and she taught us a cheer that she said we would be doing every day for the rest of the summer to instill camp spirit. and it went like this: “r-o-w-d-i-e, that's the way we spell rowdie. rowdie, rowdie, let's get rowdie.“ yeah. so i couldn't figure out for the life of me why we were supposed to be so rowdy, or why we had to spell this word incorrectly. (laughter) but i recited a cheer. i recited a cheer along with everybody else. i did my best. and i just waited for the time that i could go off and read my books.
today i am very glad to be here to share with you my ideas of success. what is success? it is what everyone is longing for.sometimes success would be rather simple. winning a game is success; getting a high grade in the exam is success; making a new friend is success; even now i am standing here giving my speech is somehow also success.
however, as a person's whole life is concerned, success becomes very complicated. is fortune success? is fame success? is high social status success? no, i don’t think so. i believe success is the realization of people's hopes and ideals.nowadays, in the modern society there are many people who are regarded as the successful. and the most obvious characteristics of them are money, high position and luxurious life. so most people believe that s success and all that they do is for this purpose. but the problem is wether it is real success. we all know there are always more money, higher position and better condition in front of us. if we keep chasing them, where is the end? what will satisfy us at last? therefore, we can see, to get the real success we must need something inside, which is the realization of people's hopes and ideals.
different people have different ideas about success; cause people's hopes and ideas vary from one another. but i am sure every success is dear to everybody, cause it is not easy to come by, cause in the process of our striving for success, we got both our body and soul tempted, meanwhile we are enlightened by the most valuable qualities of human beings: love, patient, courage and sense of responsibility. these are the best treasures. so now i am very proud that i have this opportunity to stand here speaking to all of you. it is my success, cause i raise up to challenge my hope.
what is success? everyone has his own interpretation as i do. but i am sure every success leads to an ever-brighter future. so ladies and gentlemen, believe in our hopes, believe in ourselves, we, every one of us, can make a successful life!
wish you all good success!
and what i'm saying is that culturally we need a much better balance. we need more of a yin and yang between these two types. this is especially important when it comes to creativity and to productivity, because when psychologists look at the lives of the most creative people, what they find are people who are very good at exchanging ideas and advancing ideas, but who also have a serious streak of introversion in them.
and this is because solitude is a crucial ingredient often to creativity. so darwin, he took long walks alone in the woods and emphatically turned down dinner party invitations. theodor geisel, better known as dr. seuss, he dreamed up many of his amazing creations in a lonely bell tower office that he had in the back of his house in la jolla, california. and he was actually afraid to meet the young children who read his books for fear that they were expecting him this kind of jolly santa claus-like figure and would be disappointed with his more reserved persona. steve wozniak invented the first apple computer sitting alone in his cubical in hewlett-packard where he was working at the time. and he says that he never would have become such an expert in the first place had he not been too introverted to leave the house when he was growing up.
this is no surprise though if you look at the insights of contemporary psychology. it turns out that we can't even be in a group of people without instinctively mirroring, mimicking their opinions. even about seemingly personal and visceral things like who you're attracted to, you will start aping the beliefs of the people around you without even realizing that that's what you're doing.
A person in the shelter under the eaves, Guanyin is Chengsan see through. This person said: "Avalokiteshvara, Purdue beings, with me for a while?"
Yin said: "I am in the rain, you are under the eaves, and no rain, you do not need my degree." the man immediately jumped out, standing in the rain: "now I was in the rain, and the degree of me?" Yin said: "you in the rain, I also the rain, I will not be poured, because there are umbrella; you are the rain, because no umbrella. So I am not of their own, but in my umbrella. You want, do not look for me, please ask for the umbrella to go!" he will go.
On the second day, the man met a difficult task, he went to the temple to ask the goddess of mercy. He went into the temple, only to find that there was a man in front of the goddess of mercy
The man asked, "are you a goddess of mercy?"
The man replied, "I am the goddess of mercy"
The man asked, "why do you worship yourself?"
Guanyin said with a smile: "I have encountered difficulties, but I know, ask for help"
The life of the wind and rain, the plight of the lost, where the rain, when the crossing, in order to really free, only on their own