The tea leaves unfold in boiling water, just as life grows full through what it has to bear. Some people say I am calm, but it takes a great many tears to become a calm person. Every tear burns down one of the fantasies I have carried inside me. It washes away the walls I built by refusing to let go, and it dissolves the false image of myself. Looking back, I have found that my inner building - taking things in and making them part of myself - matters greatly to the state I am in and to the way I grow. That is why I now put part of my effort into building that inner life more deliberately. The most direct way to solve a psychological problem is to let the thought go. As soon as a thought starts to move, the body releases hormones, and many mental problems are caused in exactly this way.
I often notice that I treat the life I have now as a stage I simply have to get through, as if I were surviving a disaster sent from above. I look on every setback as a test for me, and I place real happiness on the far shore, the one that begins after some goal is reached. Because of this, my life is filled with endurance, while the dream of a good life always waits at the next stop, out of reach and never arrived at. But life is not made of separate stages stuck together, each one labelled pain or pleasure. Life is really a river that keeps flowing without stopping. Do not be the donkey that keeps chasing the carrot and forgets that the grass by the road can fill its belly too, and tastes real.
Therefore, do not trade the patience of getting through for a future that has no shape; put yourself into living seriously instead, and feel every real moment of the present. The meaning of life is not on the distant shore; it is in the waves and the scenery of each moment while we cross the river.
Carried along by the bright light of fate, I do not want to keep comforting myself with the words that everything is arranged for the best. If I think back to the years behind me, which single thing happened without my own hardship in it? At this age, doing something is better than doing nothing.
On the question of whether talent or hard work matters more, what Pan Zhoudan said fits what I believe right now: the most important state is to believe that you have a talent, and then to work hard for it.
Life has no meaning of its own; our actions give it one. Life is an experience, not a performance. Let everything happen, accept that you are not perfect, go through things bravely, love, and enjoy the present, so that you can feel that you are truly alive. Your existence itself is the greatest meaning of all.
Last, I want to say this to myself: do not put too much pressure on yourself. I know you want to make something of yourself, but do not forget your body, do not forget that you are still young, do not forget to feel the good things in the present and to enjoy them, treasure every moment, and do not forget yourself.
I have ten thousand words in me and none of them will come out smoothly; I hope that all this wild, tangled growth of yours will turn out better than an everlasting spring.