Old Li and I are old acquaintances. We used to work at the same company and were neighbors across the hall. Later, after the company went bankrupt, I bought a house in the county town, and unexpectedly, Old Li and I became neighbors in the same residential complex.
Old Li had a hard life. After losing his wife in middle age, he struggled to support his two children through school. After his children grew up and started their own families, he should have been able to enjoy his retirement, but unexpectedly, his son, who was over thirty, was in a car accident after drinking and became paralyzed. His daughter-in-law couldn't bear the blow and left without saying goodbye. Old Li had to take care of his son in bed and also look after his grandchildren who had just started elementary school. He was not yet sixty years old, but he looked over seventy
. Life was hard, and the neighbors helped him as much as they could, but they were powerless to help him with his emotional torment. When Old Li was young, he was an accompanist in a drama troupe and played the erhu very well. But since the misfortune in his family, we have never heard him play the erhu again. I'd urged him to pick up his erhu more than once, but he always sighed and said, "Look at this kind of life..."
That day, I visited him and told his son that on weekends, many middle-aged and elderly people gather at the riverside park to sing opera and play the erhu. His son understood what I meant and also encouraged him to go out for a stroll on weekends. Old Li finally listened and started taking his grandchildren to the park every weekend. I've listened to him many times; his melodies are sometimes soaring and joyful, and sometimes plaintive and sorrowful. Everyone praises his playing, but he just laughs and says he's "poor man's joy." "Poor man's joy," seemingly self-deprecating, but I could clearly see that Old Li was much more energetic than before.
Life is short, whether you're rich or poor, happy or sad; it's all up to you. To magnify sadness and sorrow, to be sad every day, is simply asking for trouble and suffering. Since we're all just passing the day anyway, why not choose to walk with joy and let smiles accompany us?
I once read a story about a master who practiced the art of moving mountains. He diligently cultivated his skills, studied assiduously, and devoted his entire life to it, finally mastering the art. People from all directions heard of his success and came to learn from him. They followed the master from one side of the mountain to the other, and the secret to his "mountain-moving technique" was: "If the mountain won't come to me, I'll go to the mountain!"
Life is often filled with disappointments, but "poverty has no roots, wealth has no sprouts." Sorrow and grief in poverty are futile. Rather than dwelling in sadness, it's better to "go to the mountain if it won't come to me," abandoning worries and forgetting sorrows, learning to find joy even in poverty. As the saying goes, "When your spirits are high, good fortune will naturally come." With a good spirit, a healthy body, and wholehearted action, life will eventually get better.
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