Su Xun: Without academic qualifications, why should you be a winner in life?

Does the college entrance examination change your destiny? This sentence was confirmed in the Song Dynasty when the imperial examination system was becoming increasingly perfect. If you study hard in Hanchuang and win the first prize in one fell swoop, you will be able to enter officialdom and open a new chapter in your life. This is also the reason why many students are bent on gaining fame. However, there is never only one path to success. When the door to the scientific examination is closed and there are no nationally recognized academic qualifications, there are still people who can buck the trend and become winners in life.

Su Xun traveled all over the world when he was young, but he only started to study hard at the age of 27. Unlike his son Su Shi and Su Che, who succeeded in the first test, he failed repeatedly and gave up the scientific examination at the age of 37. After studying hard for more than ten years behind closed doors, he finally became a great thinker and became the only thinker among the eight great masters of the Tang and Song Dynasties who did not have the title of Jinshi. He single-handedly created the largest Su family in the history of Chinese literature. How could he, who had no academic qualifications, counterattack and become a winner in life?

There is a father who indulges his son and does not do his job properly

Su Xun, courtesy name Mingyun, is from Meishan, Meizhou. The Su family is a well-known local family, and his father, Su Xu, is broad-minded and philanthropic. After his two older brothers were admitted to Jinshi one after another, 18-year-old Su Xun took the first scientific examination in his life, but unfortunately failed. What no one expected was that Su Xun did not continue to study hard, but put away the book and ran out to travel around the mountains and rivers. He also wrote proudly: "A young man loves miracles, and he stays in the saddle horse." Gaze across the world and love the breadth of the universe. I get tired of looking at the mountains and rivers, so I forget to return them.

Father Su Xu taught Su Xun's two brothers a lesson, but he ignored Su Xun's neglect of his job. Others were curious and asked questions repeatedly. Su Xu replied: "It's not that he is worried that he is not a scholar." Su Xu believed that although Su Xun was smart, he was not good at poetry and memorizing questions in the imperial examination. Asking a student who is seriously partial to subjects to study the subjects he is least good at in order to take exams will naturally yield very little results. But as long as he is determined to study hard, he can study the Six Classics and hundreds of schools of thought. Of the two, Su Xun had great ambitions. He traveled to famous mountains and rivers, visited friends and became teachers, which was also a way of learning and broadening his horizons. Su Xu had full confidence in his son and did not need to constrain him with scientific examinations, giving him enough room for development.

Su Xun later recalled: "The only people who know me are my father and Mr. Ouyang."

Su Xu knew how to teach students in accordance with their aptitude and could tolerate Su Xun's "not doing his job properly". He studied by himself to ensure that he knew the righteousness, he did not engage in academic studies, and his attitude towards the imperial examination was also very indifferent. It is said that Su Xun's brother passed the imperial examination and the good news came. After Su Xu calmly played chess at the entrance of the village, he drunkenly rode his donkey home. His broad-mindedness and clear understanding of the imperial examinations had an impact on Su Xun and even Su Shi's generation.

Having a wife who tolerates her husband and waits for the flowers to bloom

At the age of 18, Su Xun married the daughter of Cheng Wenying, the chief minister of Dali Temple in Meishan. Mrs. Cheng was filial, respectful, diligent and thrifty, and was highly praised by her tribe. As the Su family's fortune gradually declined, some people advised Mrs. Cheng to seek help from her natal family, who was well off, but Mrs. Cheng refused. She didn't want Su Xun to be laughed at and ask for help from others to save his wife.

Su Xun failed in many trials and wandered around without learning. Mrs. Cheng was worried, but she never looked at him coldly. She knew that Su Xun was extremely talented and independent. So he quietly took care of the housework, took care of his husband and raised his children, and did not urge him to obtain fame, but waited for the opportunity to guide him.

At the age of 27, Su Xun suddenly woke up. He said to Mrs. Cheng: "I reflect on myself and feel that I can start learning again." But my family’s livelihood requires me, and studying will delay my livelihood. What should I do? Mrs. Cheng said: "Reading is your own business. If you don't want to read, I won't say anything." If you have ambitions, I will take care of things at home, and just study hard. ?Mrs. Cheng's words were like reassurance, and Su Xun studied hard from then on.

Mrs. Cheng gave birth to 6 children, 3 of whom died in infancy. After Su Xun studied hard, Su Shi and Su Che were born one after another. Su Xun either studied hard behind closed doors at home or went out on study tours. Mrs. Cheng took on the responsibility of enlightening Su Shi and Su Che.

Mrs. Cheng taught her sons poetry and calligraphy, encouraging them to have great ambitions, not to humiliate the Soviet Union, nor regret to the country. ?She tells stories of successes and failures in ancient and modern times to cultivate her son's moral character, sentiment and integrity. In her life, she helped her fellow villagers and personally demonstrated the need to be kind and generous. She taught her sons by words and deeds that a gentleman loves money and gets it wisely. Mrs. Cheng's teachings were skillful, which not only completed the educational enlightenment of Su Shi's brothers, but also helped them establish a positive and enterprising attitude towards life and a correct world outlook and outlook on life.

After the death of Mrs. Cheng, Su Xun wrote in "In Honor of His Dead Wife Cheng Shiwen": With the death of my son, I have lost a good friend.

Living alone all day long, who has ever given me advice? ?For Su Xun, Mrs. Cheng was a lover and a good friend. She gave Su Xun the greatest tolerance and support, and gave the brothers Su Shi and Su Che the best enlightenment education. In the end, she became a three-Su Good story.

Have a heart that understands yourself? Where is your ambition?

At the age of 37, Su Xun, who had tried and failed many times, finally accepted his "poor body" constitution and decided not to do it again. Waste time on exams. After he burned hundreds of articles he had written for the exam in ten years, he continued to study hard. However, from now on, he is no longer the examinee Su Xun. He wants to read for himself and write to solve problems, so that he can become a true scholar, thinker and writer.

Su Xun devoted himself to studying the classics of the sages, examining the success and failure of ancient and modern politics, and absorbing the essence of ideas from the experiences of the sages. At first, he only read and did not write, until various thoughts accumulated layer by layer, and various emotions agitated in his chest. Five or six years later, he was finally able to think about the past and the present when he wrote, and he was able to think about the past and the present, and he was finally able to travel far and wide while criticizing the current ills. It was only then that his talents and talents, which had been burdened by examinations, burst out to the fullest.

Su Xun, who has great ambitions, always holds the expectation that if he excels in learning, he will become an official. In the early years of Jiayou's reign (1056), Su Xun took his two sons to Beijing to take the exam. The second son fully demonstrated his style of test domination and won the test in one try. Ouyang Xiu, a Hanlin scholar, read Su Xun's article and praised his article for its Xunzi style. Sansu's articles were widely circulated among the scholar-bureaucrats, literati all over the world imitated his writing style, and princes and nobles lined up to ask to meet him. Zeng Gong described the scene at that time as "Everyone knows his name and every family has his book".

The trump card for counterattack

Among the three Sus, Su Shi is the most famous and Su Che has the highest official position. Everyone in the world envied Su Xun for having two good sons. Some people even slandered Su Xun for being among the eight great masters of the Tang and Song dynasties. In fact, he deserves this honor.

In literature, Su Xun had no teachers and was completely self-taught. He admired the articles of strategists during the Warring States Period and insisted that articles written must have true insights and be meaningful. The articles he wrote, "Extensive and Magnificent", can compete with the articles of Mencius in the pre-Qin Dynasty and Liu Xiang and Jia Yi of the Han Dynasty; at the bottom, they can compete with Han Yu and Ouyang Xiu, the first-rate essayists of the Tang and Song Dynasties. There are famous works such as "Book of Quan", "Lun on Heng" and "Several Strategies" that have been handed down to the world.

In terms of education, although Su Shi and Su Che were extremely talented, they were able to "become better than their masters" thanks to Su Xun's careful education. Su Xun led them to read hundreds of classics and history books, and discussed the success and failure of previous dynasties with his underage son. Strict training in thinking and writing made Su Shi and Su Che have rigorous logic and profound thinking as an adult. Su Xun became a literary master in the Song Dynasty through hard study, and started the literary life of Su Shi and Su Che.

Although Su Xun moved the world with his literary fame, his official career was not smooth. Recruited by the imperial court, the 51-year-old Su Xun became the Secretary and Provincial Examination School Secretary. The imperial court revised the book of rites and appointed him as the chief registrar of Wen'an County in Bazhou. In 1066 AD, Su Xun died in his eighth rank at the age of fifty-eight. The emperor specially gave silk and silver, but Su Shi declined and asked only for officials. The emperor specially gave Su Xun the title of Prime Minister of Guanglu Temple.

Back to the original question: Can one become a winner in life without a degree? able! Su Xun did it. Looking at today’s business world, how many big names have done it! Industrialist Li Ka-shing has a primary school education, private entrepreneur representative Lu Guanqiu dropped out of school at the age of 15, and welder Zhang Yong single-handedly built Haidilao with a market value of nearly 100 billion? They did not have high education, but they counterattacked in the ups and downs of the business world and became the envy of everyone. winner in life.

So, how did they do it?

After Su Xun gave up the imperial examination, he adjusted his goals and began to study hard and write for decades; Li Ka-shing never stopped reading books on new technologies and new knowledge; Lu Guanqiu firmly believed that life is wonderful and wonderful. , the key is how to learn?

It can be seen that the brilliance or bleakness of life has nothing to do with academic qualifications, because not having academic qualifications does not mean not learning. Purposeful and methodical learning, supplemented by perseverance and hard work, will reverse the problem. A successful attack is just around the corner.