深圳大学 赖小琪
Today one of my friends handed over me a book full of inspiring articles. My friend told me that the articles inside are really uplifting and reveal a wealth of wisdoms. To his surprise, I simply threw it back to him without even flipping through the book, saying, “It is not my cup of tea any more. Thank you all the same!” my friend was stunned to move with his eyes opening real round. He felt awfully confused and asked me when and why I quitted my favorite kind of books. As I was in a hurry then, I did not explain further. But now I would like to share with all of you why I do not show my affection to those seemingly inspiring books any more.
I remember when I was in primary school, middle school and then senior middle school, I loved reading books that emitted the aroma of youth and were full of common senses and wisdoms about life, for the reason that they could guide me to behave properly in my future life. At that time, I thought with the aid of those books, I could become wiser and sidewalk a lot of troubles in the course of life. So as many of my friends know, I bought tons of those books and devoured them thirstily. Nonetheless, with time passing by and my reading more and more, I realized that there were actually a lot of contradictories in the books. For instance, as is extremely familiar to us all, many articles enlighten us to be perseverant and persistent until the end when we decide to undertake a task. However, there are also an ocean of articles persuading us to give up in due course in order not to go on wasting our energy and resources since we can never accomplish something that is beyond our ability. At this moment, maybe most of us will ask with great puzzle: when shall we insist and when shall we give up? It is really a paradox that can never be combated with a simple answer. And I dare say no one in the world can give you a definite answer! So when it comes to reality, it is you who exactly should make a choice according to the specific situation. So based on this, the book, or put it more precisely, the article, can never lead you to the right track. Another typical example that can illustrate my point is that a load of articles instruct us to be honest, while a multitude of others are telling us that we should tell lies in some occasions. At that moment, many people, especially the young teenagers will feel at a loss, wondering when we should tell the truth and when lies. So again, when it comes to our practical life, we need to rely on ourselves to choose our reactions when facing a certain situation. If you simply follow the books, either telling the truth or telling lies, you life will be greatly disturbed and you can barely win others’ respect. Therefore, it again comes to a conclusion that those books cannot help us to decide our deeds to a large extent. They cannot provide us with some definite answers. We need to count on our own judgment ultimately. So why do we still read them? As with myself, I choose to give it up and read more other meaningful books.
We often say that we will be taken in by some fakes. But how many of us have realized that we are more vulnerable to some books. When we buy one book and find it considerably interesting due to lots of philosophies or wisdoms that can enlighten us inside, we will try to read it through to the end and think that we have learnt a lot. But if you put down the book and reflect carefully, you will reach a conclusion which even you yourself do not believe. That is you have learnt nothing at all. When it comes to real life, you still have to rely on yourself and do what you used to do! Hence, when buying such kind of so-called inspiring books, think twice before you act!
