The reason why I think so, not for that rehired double salary, but to prove themselves, the rest of their lives and "value", can be for the unit "shine".
I don't want to do the square dance crowd in the big mom, also don't want to become a regular visitor to the mahjong hall every day, I don't want to be annihilated in the neighborhood with the children's old lady, and I don't want to become a passer-by without achievement.
For this reason, I tense nerves every day, hoping to learn more knowledge, rapid growth, at the same time, people also become more and more anxious.
It wasn't until I saw this book, If We Are Meant to Be Ordinary, that I suddenly realized that everyone's life is just a mess, and that we're all working hard all day long, but it's the opposite of what we really want to do.
The author of this book, Qi XI, had a period of despondency before she went to Dali, and then she went to Dali and found a spiritual utopia.
She wrote 12 stories about 12 ordinary people she met and shared them with all those who have lost their passion for life. Through the eyes of these people, perhaps we will be able to have an epiphany: what we have to accomplish in our life is just to become a good ordinary person. The greatest practice in our lives is to accept our own ordinariness.
In the 1950s, Adi was born into a poor family in Hong Kong, and his parents could not afford to pay for him to finish high school. In order to complete his studies, he started working in construction sites and factories at the age of thirteen, earning every penny he needed for his studies and his life.
When Adi was 14 or 15 years old, he went to work at a construction site one summer, doing the hardest work of rolling iron. Under the hot summer sun, Adi had to work very hard to roll the sunburnt steel into one piece.
Once a worker asked him: you are just a kid, why do you want to choose the hardest and most exhausting iron rolling work? Adi replied: only because it is a very profitable work - a month can earn three thousand dollars.
During the non-summer vacation period, Adi attended classes during the day from Monday to Friday, worked in a shoe factory at night, and did cleaning work in an electronics factory on Saturdays and Sundays for ten years until he graduated from college.
Adi didn't want to be like other poor kids, who were poor for the first generation and then for the next. The idea of getting out of poverty and away from mediocrity became a source of courage and strength for Adi.
Rabindranath Tagore once said: faith is a bird, which in the dawn is still dark, feel the light, sing a song. After all those earthly hardships, Adi finally lived the life of his dreams as he wished.
He worked as an elementary school teacher, teaching English and art, and was the principal of an elementary school for 15 years. After a full thirty-eight years in elementary school, Adi retired at the age of sixty.
Adi made two lists for his retirement, one of places he wanted to go and one of things he wanted to do. At first count, there were no less than fifty places he wanted to go and pages of things he wanted to do.
After three years of planning, Adi ushered in his retirement, but also formally opened his second life after retirement, but he did not expect that the plan has been going smoothly, but because of an "accident", become different.
He happened to see a photo of a café posted by a former colleague, with the Cangshan Mountains at its back and the Erhai Sea in its face, which Adi had never experienced before, and so he came to Dali, Yunnan Province, to this beautiful countryside.
Here, Adi chose to volunteer at a cafe, serving tea, pouring water and sweeping the floor every day. The customers in the store would never have guessed that this unassuming gray-haired old man was an expert in the field of education.
Under the baptism of time, Adi's state of mind has also changed a little: to be an ordinary ordinary person, but also so happy!
There is a saying that everyone is not an island. We will never be able to imagine what will happen next. However, what is certain is that ordinary people still have the power to influence others.
Adi always encouraged his two sons to have fun, visit different places and meet different people. That's why they both went on working trips to Australia.
The eldest son has been traveling in Australia and New Zealand for two years, and now he is back in Hong Kong, doing his favorite job, photography. The younger son has just graduated from university and is now also working and traveling in Australia.
When Adi was volunteering at a café, he became friends with the twenty-two-year-old shopkeeper, Ah Hing.
Ah Xing also learned a lot from Adi, as he watched him go to every place in advance in order to welcome his family to Dali for a trip; watched him write postcards to his friends and send them his sincere wishes; and also farmed the fields together, discussing how to weed, turn the soil, and plant the land ......
As Ah Xing said: "It's not just what he said, but because of what he did." The greatest practice in life is to accept one's own ordinariness, and what Adi possesses is the power of that ordinariness.
Adi, the sunny, optimistic, cheerful retired old man, always smiling, with white hair and beard, like a Santa Claus. Today, he lives in Dali, where he lives a life of "facing the sea, blossoming flowers".
Some people may question whether an elementary school principal and education expert who volunteers at a café can live the rest of his life in such a mediocre way.
But who says that a mediocre life has no value?
If we are destined to be ordinary people, then in the long years, to keep the heart of the love, accept their own ordinary, is the short life of the people, the biggest practice!