🙅‍♂️ Finding My Place

During Spring Festival, preparing meals with my mother isn’t just physically exhausting—it also requires careful attention to etiquette and others’ feelings. At family gatherings, I’ve always struggled to find my place: too old for the children’s table, yet unwilling to drink at the adults’ table.

Caught in this dilemma, I realized it stems from not having found myself, lacking unwavering personal convictions. It’s not about communication skills; when responding to others, I can’t find my own stance.

Without finding my place, I lack the courage to face situations and the confidence to be persistent or stubborn. If I could find my own goals and confidence, I wouldn’t need to bother with these mundane formalities and pleasantries—I could simply live my life as I choose.

Once you understand how you want to live and your position and progress in life, why worry too much about harsh words and gossip?

👥 Family Bonds During Spring Festival

I increasingly find Spring Festival tedious. After exhaustively preparing lunch since yesterday, the hosts are still busy cooking while guests enjoy the meal. What connections does this foster, what emotions does it maintain? It’s become a mere formality, providing others a venue for socializing while the hosts become almost irrelevant.

Brothers are no longer harmonious; Spring Festival gatherings are just forced reunions. Emotional bonds need regular maintenance. Spring Festival is definitely not the right time for this.

📝 memos

Siddhartha

I expected it to be a difficult read, but it turned out surprisingly easy. While I couldn’t understand many of the metaphors, I could still feel that this was truly a poetic work written as a book.

Reading about Siddhartha entering different periods of his life, I might not grasp the author’s intended meaning, but I understand that Siddhartha was exploring his essence and inner self—the key is that he kept walking this path. I don’t seek to understand life’s essence, but I hope to keep walking the path of searching for life’s meaning.

In continuously exploring outward and questioning inward, life remains interesting even without results.

Cowen’s Economics

Discovered this book through the author’s blog. Since I couldn’t get through Mankiw’s economics text, I thought I’d try someone else’s book.

First Run After Spring Festival

Yesterday, I completed my first run after the Spring Festival. All the walking around during the holiday seems to have built up my stamina—despite not running for a while, it felt easier than before.

Using Others as Mirrors

Chatting with a potential match these days, I suddenly understood that “using others as mirrors” isn’t about taking people as role models to imitate. Rather, it’s about achieving self-reflection through communication with others. During interactions, we gauge our words and actions, measure and examine our value boundaries, and discover who we are and who we want to become and present ourselves as.

In some ways, communicating with others can probe our inner selves more effectively than self-reflection alone.