Zeng Guofan: What's the difference between a person who dare not look directly at his inner desires and a salted fish?

Whether it is salted fish or not, whether it is desire or not, it is important to know your identity and position. It is not ridiculous to admit that you are a salted fish with desire. The funny thing is that you dare not look directly at others, laugh at others in ignorance, and finally you become a smelly fish!

Does Zeng Guofan have any desire? Yes

Fame, wealth, these are all called desires, and they can be killed. -Zeng Guofan

Like ancient celebrities, he is famous not only for his greed, but also for his career, success and lust. Let's see how Zeng Guofan handled it.

He has experienced countless ups and downs in officialdom for decades, dealing with people, power and wealth, and he is well aware of the stakes.

He has expressed his "great wish" many times. In a letter to his son Ji Hong, he once said bluntly, "I am interested in learning to be a saint, and I have a gentleman's ambition. I have folk resources, and I have the inheritance of the inner saint and the outer king. Then I will not entangle my parents' life, and I am worthy of being a perfect person. "His life can be said to revolve around such a great wish.

What he is worried about is not whether he can make a name for himself, but whether he doesn't practice morality and learn not to talk, whether he bends or not, whether his family is hungry or not, but whether he stands in heaven and earth and achieves sages.

This kind of ambition is called the desire to recommend others, which is a waste of time.

Some people say that Zeng Guofan's ambition is hypocritical. The person who said this forgot the allusion that "the sparrow knows the ambition of the swan" and ignored the historical facts of all those who have made great achievements in history. Who can say that Liu Bang and Xiang Yu are hypocritical? Zhu Gekongming's "comparing himself to Guan Zhong Le Yi" and Cao Cao's "old-fashioned"?

Zeng Guofan's so-called sages have a Confucian tradition. The original meaning of a saint is a wise person, not just a person with high IQ, but a mysterious person with intelligence, wisdom, noble morality, strong perseverance, the ability to bring peace and stability to the country. In other words, a saint.

In the words of Confucius, it is "the so-called sage, whose virtue is in harmony with heaven and earth, and there is no flexibility, from the end of all things, assisting the nature of all things." The former is like the sun and the moon, and the deeds are like gods. The inferior people don't know their virtue, and the people they see don't know their neighbors. This is also a saint. ""a trip to a saint can also change customs, and teaching can be applied to the people, not a unique trip. "

It can be seen that "virtue" is the primary condition for becoming a saint. Secondly, an important aspect that a saint is different from ordinary people is that he can "change customs". It is not difficult to do this, but the ancients said that "everyone can think of Yao and Shun".

Aspiring needs courage as well as ability.

We were the same when we were young. Today we are determined to be a scientist, tomorrow we are determined to be a doctor, and the day after tomorrow we may be determined to be a teacher. Is this determination? Don't!

Desire is an ability.

The reason why determination is an ability lies in the establishment of interest and perseverance. Aspiring requires courage, but it also requires the ability to determine one's interests.

The ancients said: people have made a career and reached their talents. To stand up is to stand up and be self-reliant; Virtue means good results.

Zeng Guofan's emphasis on ambition is surprising. He said: "Teenagers are not terrible and ugly, but they must have crazy interests." With the growth of age, people's initiative gradually declines. As the saying goes, "if you don't work hard, the boss will be sad." When I was young, I had no determination to make progress. The older you get, the less enterprising you become. And the human potential is huge. People who are not satisfied with the status quo, ambitious and enterprising, the broader their horizons, the higher their interests and the greater their achievements.

So Zeng Guofan told us "Don't be afraid of desire".

If all the passions, desires and longings can bring us happiness, then we can embrace desire. If it brings us pain, we must be alert to its bewitch.

In addition, Zeng Guofan, who has always been famous for knowing people and making good use of them, is also closely related to his interests. He said: "The level of talent is determined by interest."

Zeng Guofan's most accurate description of ambition. "If you can make up your mind, you are a saint and a hero."

The key to determination is to look at "constancy"

Aspiring is a kind of ability, how to embody this ability? The key is to look at one word-constant.

"Constant" means persistence and seriousness. "And if you can stand on your own feet, you can study at home, that is, in the wilderness and hot places, you can study without pay. If you can't stand on your own feet, your home school is not suitable for studying.

So, how do you aspire to it? Zeng Guofan said: "Scholars must be ambitious first, knowledgeable second, and constant third. All three are indispensable.

Ambition is not dirty. If you have knowledge, you will know that knowledge is endless. You dare not be self-sufficient. If you have perseverance, you will never fail. Without ambition, a person will be at a loss and useless. "

This phone call expounds that reading is a prerequisite for Zeng Guofan's success. There is a saying in Hunan that "you can't kill a pig, but you can't finish reading a book". It is impossible for a person to read all the books in the world. Up to now, there are countless books to read, and the way to determine them is simple, that is, the word "unchanged"

Zeng Guofan's determination to persevere is enough to show that he keeps a diary to fix his perseverance. The 33-year diary not only recorded his mental journey, but also left a valuable wealth for future generations.

Determined to change yourself.

Zeng Guofan also said a word in a targeted way, which may have a thought-provoking effect on quite a few people:

Teachers and friends are held hostage, and cowards are also ambitious.

In this sentence, Zeng Guofan further clarified the ways and means of determination.

Zeng Guofan inherited Mencius' thought that "sages are like me" and thought that "mortals should take sages as their own responsibility". If a person "thinks highly of sages, feels ashamed and refuses to enter." At the same time, he believes that "sages have the same temperament as ordinary people" and "they are both the same as ordinary people and do not take sages as their own responsibility?" So he clearly said: "Where there are no seeds in the general, there are no seeds in the sages and heroes.

Anyone can do it as long as he is willing to make up his mind. "So he wrote a pair of couplets:

Lianshui Xiangshan has a spirit, and its exquisiteness must be Zhong Yingzhe;

Sages and heroes have no seeds, and Confucian scholars know it.

People can change themselves, including their temperament, as long as they make up their minds. "People's temperament, due to natural, it is difficult to change, only reading can change temperament. The ancient refined method (author) also said that reading can change bones. " And the method of seeking change, "always must first establish a firm and outstanding ambition."

In his view, we should "aspire" to re-examine the desires that always make us miserable at present and keep a certain distance from them. If you are too addicted to it, you will easily lose your mind. Always have the ability to control your desires, and never let them control you.