Each of us carries with us long-established habits as we leave the protection of our parents and enter society. We often try to influence our children with these ingrained habits, or demand the same of them our unchangeable positive ones, leading them to follow in our footsteps or become something incongruous with our own behavior.
A person is born like a blank sheet of paper; aside from occasional physical defects, you can hardly say what their strengths or weaknesses are. Perhaps at this moment, they have no inherent strengths or weaknesses; everything is in its most primal, pure, and instinctive stage. With different family and educational environments, those individuals from that initial stage develop differences later in life, and the depth of these differences often defines a person's entire life, except for those who are naturally gifted.
Upbringing is the key to their development at this stage, while refinement is a personal cultivation that continues after upbringing. Perhaps many babies are being born right now, but among adults, whether alive or dead, who didn't grow up from an infant? Whether they are living adults or deceased elders, we can easily discern their many habits from their circumstances or final resting place. At this point, we can always rely on conventional standards of judgment to know what is good and bad, what is true, good, and beautiful, and what is false, evil, and ugly! But these so-called superiorities and inferiorities, truths and goodness, falsehoods and evils can appear in a person at different stages and moments, because we cannot find absolutely evil people, nor absolutely good people.
We are merely looking at a person with a dialectical perspective in a relative world. Thus, those who transgress morality and trample on the law may become the objects of criticism and judgment because of a momentary transgression or violation. They are often the most authentic people because they undeniably possess all the elements of humanity—the bright side and the dark side. In fact, humanity is not only found in those who transgress morality and trample on the law; those who are law-abiding also possess these qualities without exception, only their luck or self-control is better than the former.
Why do people end up like this? It lies in the expansion of desires and the inability to break ingrained habits. While the expansion of desires can make people excessively greedy, it is precisely because of human desires that society develops; it's just that we sometimes lack self-control. The inability to break ingrained habits is a major factor contributing to our limitations. In infancy, aside from the instinct for survival, everyone is almost without desires. But as they grow, parents may simply spoil them unconditionally. Thus, starting in early childhood, their pampering and indulgence lead to certain habits that are difficult to define, and within this limited period of pampering and indulgence, these habits begin to amplify indefinitely. Another scenario involves parents who, due to their own cultural refinement and material scarcity, are unable to raise their infants according to healthy principles, or are simply unable to provide for them, leaving them to grow up naturally. Children lacking proper upbringing and guidance naturally develop incurable ingrained habits in adulthood.
Thus, these two children, raised in vastly different environments, will face two drastically different paths in their future lives. It's impossible to say which is superior or inferior; perhaps they are equally superior, equally inferior, or perhaps the former is superior and the latter inferior, or vice versa. When these ingrained habits accompany their growth and become an unavoidable trend, if they cannot adjust themselves later in life, then these ingrained habits are truly difficult to change. Take those of us just entering society, for most of us, these ingrained habits are already difficult to change because many of our habits are from a long time ago, like ice formed over a long period. Many of these habits, due to our natural innate nature, become ingrained by inertia and an inescapable tendency to stagnate, making us a fixed type of person. Perhaps at this point, you can also tell which habits are good and which are bad, and even know which habits you need to maintain and which bad habits you need to discard. So most people try to correct themselves, but the inertia of habit makes countless efforts go to waste, because they unknowingly return to their natural state. Of course, not everyone fails, but most do.
The ordinary and the extraordinary are distinguished in this evolutionary process. The former cling to the notion that ingrained habits are hard to break, while the latter, by overturning this notion, become outstanding, excellent, and successful. My friend, I don't know if you share the struggle of ingrained habits, but I do. The bright and dark sides of human nature are intertwined within me; truth, goodness, and beauty, falsehood, evil, and ugliness, are unwittingly revealed. I have tried to correct myself, but the results have been less than ideal. However, I am willing to continue with renewed effort, because my journey is long, and many ingrained habits have influenced and limited me. In my self-indulgence, the negative aspects of human nature have expanded infinitely, while the positive aspects have shrunk.
I must continue, because I have a son in his early childhood. We need to provide him with a good upbringing from the very beginning, and guide him without suffocating his natural instincts. Many habits originate from this, and cultivating good habits starts now. This is far more important than focusing on making money to provide him with a comfortable environment to grow up in. I must always lead by example when the time is right. Of course, the role of money cannot be ignored, because it is not only the foundation for my child's growth, but also the foundation for my own development. When I shed my stubborn, ingrained habits, I will not only be a successful and ambitious person, but also a persuasive educator.
I know the road ahead will be difficult, with inertia and laziness, but even if every step is difficult, I must keep going, because hope is there, and so is my destination. Only by letting go of the confusion caused by stubborn, ingrained habits can I be relaxed and truly be a good teacher!
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