I strive to live my life to the fullest, not to impress anyone.
There are things in this world that can be undone and things that cannot, and the passage of time is one of those things that cannot be undone. Perhaps, making the most of our time is the best effort we can make, and making an effort is making ourselves the best version of ourselves.
A few days ago, my cousin from the countryside bought a house in the county town, and everyone was celebrating with him: before he was even forty, he had become the general manager of the best hotel in the area; he had bought a house worth two million yuan; he had a personal secretary and no longer had to worry about any trivial matters. His parents also joined him, living a life of “five days in the city, two days in the countryside.” His success seemed to have made the whole family proud.
Someone said to my aunt, “Your child is really promising.” My aunt was overjoyed. As ordinary farmers, besides the fields, their only hope rests on their children. In fact, like our parents’ generation, who didn’t pour all their love into their children and gamble everything on them?
My cousin’s family used to have a very hard life. I remember when he came to visit us as a child, he never carried any bags, usually just a plastic bag with two large sacks of vegetables from his family, the mud from which stained his trousers. His white sneakers were always patched, and those patches always got dirty very quickly. My mother always felt sorry for him when she saw him, and his shy yet determined “It’s okay, it’s okay” was always a comforting reminder. His family lived in a typical rural house, with just a bed, a stove, a table, a radio, and a cabinet—that was all they had. When I visited, I always saw him sitting at the door doing his homework until dark before going inside. He was reluctant to turn on the lights, often doing his homework by candlelight inside. Thankfully, he still doesn’t have nearsightedness.
People’s tendency to fawn over the powerful and look down on the weak doesn’t happen overnight. Back then, whenever my cousin and I talked at our door, our so-called neighbors would always say irritably, “You two wild kids, so noisy!” and then slam the door shut. One rainy winter, because we’d forgotten our keys, my cousin and I stood under a neighbor’s eaves. The neighbor complained we were blocking their light and yelled at us to move. My cousin and I stood there against our door, half our bodies exposed to the rain, for two hours.
He would often say something like, “Things will always get better.”
My cousin had always had excellent grades, and after the high school entrance exam, he chose to attend a vocational school. My uncle was the first to disagree, always feeling that no matter how hard things were, the child shouldn’t suffer. He dragged him to the school to change his application, but my cousin said, “It’s okay, even if I go to vocational school, as long as I work hard, I won’t do too badly.” For a poor family, being able to share the burden of the family as soon as possible was much more important than a so-called higher education. After graduating from vocational school, he became an ordinary waiter in a hotel.
After years of hard work, he became general manager in his tenth year, frequenting upscale places, buying cars and houses—everything went as he wished. As a result, his neighbors had become familiar faces, offering to hang their clothes out to dry and warmly greeting any guest in their home.
Once, when we sat down for coffee together, we talked about the path we’d walked over the years. I said, “You’ve really done well, especially for your parents.” He said, “My achievements aren’t for anyone else to see, nor to prove anything. I just want to test a truth: ‘Does life reward hard work?'” That night, he smoked a lot. I could still see the image of him from over twenty years ago when I first met him: small eyes, always smiling, covered in mud, carrying a bag of vegetables, his small body seemingly saying, “I can do it, really, I can!”
Let me tell you about another person, a friend from my middle school days—Ms. Wei. She was probably my closest friend during my student years. After graduating from university, she went to work for a foreign company. Honestly, over the years, aside from occasionally seeing her posts on Weibo, she has almost never shared anything about her life with us on social media. And my greetings to her have been limited to friendly greetings on holidays.
Last month, when we had a gathering, I asked her if she wanted to come, hoping she would come back from Shaoxing to attend. For some reason, she immediately agreed, and so this became our reunion after many years.
Her reunion after so long was truly stunning: I must say, she, who had once been overweight, had completely shed all her excess fat and was now lean and attractive. Her face was now oval, and her deep-set eyes sparkled. A person’s appearance speaks volumes about how well they’ve fared over the years. The business card she handed me was mostly in English with a few lines of Chinese below. My companion remarked, “Who would have thought? She’s a certified public accountant!” Ms. Wei smiled, radiating professional beauty and genuine warmth.
I want to say that a person’s goodness never needs to be deliberately expressed; just sitting next to you, you can feel the qualities she exudes, whether they are good or bad. Ms. Wei sat next to me, and we happily raised our glasses, drinking in moderation. She currently works for a foreign company and has already made a down payment on an apartment in Beijing, where land is incredibly expensive. She said that after paying the mortgage each month, she can still manage to get by. Her “get by” sounded very modest.
She seemed to be well-trained, handling the situation at the dinner table with ease, and everything was normal and friendly.
Suddenly, Lao Huang raised his glass and rushed towards Miss Wei, saying, “Wei, tell me, you’ve become so much better now, will Lao Qiao regret it back then?” Lao Huang, this dangerous guy, started talking nonsense when he got drunk. The Lao Qiao he was talking about was the guy Miss Wei had been pursuing. Unfortunately, Lao Qiao was a “looks-obsessed” guy. In front of the whole class, during a self-study period, he yelled, “You look like a fat pig, you should just study!” Miss Wei lost control of her emotions and cried for two whole self-study periods. She didn’t eat for several days afterward. Lao Qiao didn’t feel any remorse. A group of boys always gave Miss Wei a sidelong glance when they walked past her seat.
The situation became a little awkward for a moment…
Miss Wei said, “I’ve worked so hard all these years, not just to sit and drink coffee with him!” She then clinked glasses with Old Huang. Once a person has confidence, the ability to turn conflict into harmony seems to be entirely under their control.
Frankly speaking, no matter what achievements we make or what others think of us, it doesn’t matter to us.
We never know how long life’s journey will be, nor how long our hearts truly desire to run, but we are acutely aware that striving forward is the best gift we can give to life. We work so hard not to impress anyone, nor to prove anything to anyone, but perhaps simply because we are unwilling to let the best version of ourselves be innocently abandoned, and we tell ourselves day and night never to give up.
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