The World Is Always Beautiful, Keep a Broad Heart
2. For those who harbor kindness in their hearts, the road of life will only grow broader and wider.
A masked robber burst into a shop in Cesky Tesin, a town in northern Czechia. He drew his gun and demanded money from the clerk. Marketa Vachova, the 59-year-old shop assistant, neither fought back nor handed over cash. Instead, she calmly offered him a cup of tea and a piece of cake.
A miracle happened: the robber put down his hostility and started chatting with Vachova. Their conversation was relaxed and harmonious. "I asked him why he did this, and we just talked. Since there was no one else in the shop, I guess he felt more at ease," Vachova said.
Vachova even told the robber that if he wished, he could share his story with her, and enjoy the tea and cake. The robber unexpectedly agreed, and before leaving, he remembered to apologize and thank her.
With just a cup of tea and a piece of cake, Vachova quietly turned a dangerous situation into safety. Though the robber had pointed a gun at her, Vachova still chose to believe, "He’s actually a good young man."—it was precisely this kind thought that saved Vachova herself.
A true story once happened in a southern city in China: two completely inexperienced kidnappers abducted a six-year-old child. While waiting for the ransom, they were penniless. One went out and borrowed twenty yuan, bought two boxed meals, gave one to the child, and the other was shared between the two kidnappers. After being rescued, the child told the police, "Officer, please let these two uncles go. They’re not bad people, they’re just too poor."
The two 'completely inexperienced' kidnappers failed in their crime, yet won the sympathy and forgiveness of their six-year-old hostage. All this stemmed from one small act of kindness—giving the child one of the boxed meals bought with borrowed money, while the two grown men shared the other.
It sounds almost unbelievable, but in the eyes of a six-year-old child, the impression of kindness was far stronger and deeper than the fear brought by the kidnapping. This is the power of goodwill.
In Tyre, a city in southern Lebanon, there is a very ordinary barbershop. The owner, Faris, greeted a ragged, disheveled man warmly and invited him to sit for a haircut. The man said his name was Sammy, and that he worked on a nearby construction site. After his haircut, Sammy looked refreshed, as if he were a different person entirely.
When it came time to pay, Sammy said he had no money at all, only a lottery ticket he’d bought days before. Sammy told Faris that if he won, he’d give half the prize to Faris. Faris laughed—he knew the odds were slim, but happily agreed.
No one could have expected that a miracle would truly happen. A few days later, Sammy returned with $75,000 to pay for his haircut. His lottery ticket had actually won, with a prize of $150,000.
An Indian once said, "If someone finds a person struck by an arrow on the road, he won’t care where the arrow came from, what wood the shaft is made of, or what metal the tip is, nor will he care about the social status of the wounded person. He won’t ask so many questions; he’ll simply try to pull out the arrow." This is kindness, the most instinctive and primal human capacity. It is this kindness that has allowed humanity to endure and thrive across generations.
The ancients said: "A pure heart gives birth to wisdom, kind deeds bring fortune." The heart is like a seed, growing between heaven and earth; emotions such as joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness shape the heart toward good or evil. With a heart full of kindness, one’s actions and words will be very different. For those who harbor kindness, the road of life will only become broader.
Your mindset is your true master.
Living in this world, we are inevitably bound by the troubles of reality. Sometimes, we wish to escape the hustle and bustle and seek a pure, untouched spiritual sanctuary. In truth, the spiritual mountain is not ten thousand miles away—it lies within the three inches of our own heart. We do not need to search for that pure land; instead, we must gradually learn to find our own peace and happiness within life.
Your mindset is your true master: either you steer your life, or life steers you. Your mindset determines who is the rider and who is the mount. By cultivating our inner world with care, we may not have the most perfect environment, but we can give ourselves the most beautiful state of mind.
Life is like a mirror; the key is how you choose to face it. If you smile at the mirror, life will smile back at you. If your heart is full of sunshine, your life will surely be bright and radiant.
1. Stay calm and focused, reject restlessness.
Chinese culture has always felt calm and reserved, much like Tai Chi—peaceful and unhurried. The Analects says: "If you rush, you will not reach your goal; those who focus only on small gains cannot accomplish great things." Yet today, with rapid economic growth and rising material standards, many people have less patience and more impatience; less calm, more impulsiveness; less grounded, more eager for quick success... In the context of a market economy, few people can restrain their restless hearts and hold onto precious solitude and loneliness. Instead, they become increasingly restless and obsessed with quick gains.
Restlessness refers to being frivolous, lacking perseverance, easily distracted, unable to settle down, impatient, and always seeking shortcuts. Restlessness is an emotion, an undesirable attitude toward life. Those who are restless lack focus and patience for their current goals, and harbor unrealistic ideas and hopes.
When people become restless, they end up in a constant state of busy urgency and irritation. Tempers flare, nerves tighten, and over time, they are swept away by the currents of life. This emotion accumulates in the heart, gradually shaping certain personalities that can never find calm, making impulsive decisions under blind agitation, causing greater mental stress and increasing impatience, ultimately creating a vicious cycle. Therefore, those who wish to accomplish great things must keep lofty goals and remain grounded.
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Deep within some people’s hearts, there is always a force that leaves them restless and unable to find peace—this force is restlessness.
Long ago, there were two brothers who were both very filial. Every day, they went up the mountain to chop wood and earn money to treat their mother’s illness.
A deity was moved by their filial piety and decided to help them. He told the brothers to seal wheat from April, sorghum from August, rice from September, beans from October, and snow from December in a large vat made of thousand-year-old clay for forty-nine days. After the rooster crows three times, they could open the vat and sell the juice for money.
Both brothers followed the deity’s instructions and prepared a vat. On the forty-ninth day, when the rooster crowed a second time, the elder brother couldn’t wait and opened his vat, only to find foul-smelling, sour water, which he angrily poured out. The younger brother waited until the third crow and found fragrant, mellow wine.
The difference between "wine" and "wasted" is just one small stroke, and the elder brother was only a little earlier than the younger, yet the gap was enormous. Sometimes, we need to add fuel to our hearts to ignite hope; at other times, we need to sprinkle water to cultivate patience and extinguish the urge for quick results. If we can truly calm our hearts and study or work seriously, we will do better than before.
In life, people are often full of enthusiasm and eager to try everything, which is not a bad thing—life needs this kind of energy. But enthusiasm must be applied in the right way and with a positive attitude; then it is a driving force. Restlessness, on the other hand, is a misuse of enthusiasm.
Restless people do not lack enthusiasm, but lack the ability to allocate and use it wisely. They often lack rationality, easily give up halfway, and are prone to superficial efforts, letting their enthusiasm become negative. As Liang Shih-chiu said, being anxious to finish something leads to restlessness, which results in excessive words and actions, harming relationships, scattering focus, reducing efficiency, or missing opportunities.
Charles Tan opened up his business market with a small wooden comb, founding the brand Tan’s Carpenter Shop and becoming a successful businessman, or rather a successful entrepreneur. After his success, Tan became somewhat inflated and restless. Because of this restlessness, he once made a failed investment—an "off-track" venture into the television industry.
After his success, Charles Tan, encouraged by several friends, decided to invest in producing a dialect TV drama called "Climbing Up the Hill." After investing 2.5 million yuan, the drama initially brought him pleasant surprises: before the Spring Festival, many TV stations called to reserve the show, and the company’s two phone lines were overloaded. However, Tan felt bigger buyers would come, so he decided to wait. After the holiday, the phones were silent, and he had to sell the drama for 1.5 million yuan, losing 1 million.
For Charles Tan, this was a lesson. He realized his restlessness and, after careful consideration, set a direction for himself: he would not pursue "diversified" development, but focus on his strengths. Today, Tan’s Carpenter Shop has more than 500 franchise stores, including in Singapore and Malaysia.
Success and failure, the ordinary and the great, often hinge on a single moment of patience. Many successful people’s secret is that they devote all their energy and focus to one goal, and are good at waiting; while others, though intelligent, are restless, unfocused, and lack perseverance, and end up achieving nothing.
To change a restless temperament, you can start from the following aspects:
(1) Practice patience in daily life. Patience is cultivated; lacking patience means missing opportunities for success. Exercise patience in life, and when doing anything, learn to settle your mind, focus on doing things well rather than worrying about the outcome.
(2) Read or watch uplifting movies or books. This not only relaxes you and adjusts your pace of life, but also brings stronger motivation and greater enthusiasm.
(3) Stay calm when facing urgent matters. Anxiety will not help you solve problems; only thinking will. Consider how to minimize losses and handle urgent issues reasonably, then act promptly.
(4) Learn to proceed step by step. Don’t be greedy for big achievements; success comes gradually. First, calm your mind, set up a framework, then start from the smallest part and advance step by step.
A young monk, whenever he meditated, hallucinated a giant spider weaving a web before his eyes. No matter how he tried, it wouldn’t leave, so he asked his master for help. The master told him to bring a pen during meditation and mark the spider when it appeared, to see where it came from. The monk followed the instructions, and when the spider appeared, he drew a circle on it. After the spider left, he fell into deep meditation.
When the monk finished meditating, he found the circle on his own belly. It turned out the spider wasn’t the problem—he was. Because his mind was unsettled, he couldn’t reach calm. As the Buddhist saying goes: "If the mind is not empty, it cannot be spiritual."
Calmness is a kind of happiness, as precious as wisdom, and more valuable than gold. True calmness is psychological balance, inner peace, and emotional stability.
2. Let the light in, and darkness will naturally flee.
Although we can’t drive darkness out of a room, just letting in the light will make it disappear! The same goes for breaking our negative mindset. Just light up the lamp in your heart, and everything will gradually get better.
We sink into sadness and fail to see the light because we forget to open the window, so the sunlight cannot enter. We often feel lost and lose ourselves because we forget to enjoy the sunshine.
Life is like the seasons, with cold and heat; like the weather, with sunshine and storms; like roads, with smooth and rough stretches. But whenever you let light into your heart, you won’t feel sad or depressed.
A pessimistic woman went to visit an optimistic woman. As she approached, she saw a beautiful revolving door. She gently pushed it, and the door spun. She followed the glass door inside, where the optimistic woman was waiting for her.
The pessimistic woman sincerely asked, "I came today to ask you: what is the secret to happiness?" The optimistic woman pointed to the door behind her: "It’s that door behind you."
The pessimistic woman turned around and saw the revolving door slowly spinning, bringing people in from outside and sending people out from inside. Everyone moved along the same path, in and out, without interfering with each other.