Chapter 147: Borrowing The Derivation Engine
A few days later, when the boy was returning home with groceries, he actually met the owner of the pothos plant sitting at the doorway. He politely stepped forward and asked, “Hello, Sister, is this pothos?”
He knew it was a silly question, but he just wanted to strike up a conversation because he knew it would be impolite to ask directly.
If he had just said, “Give me some of these pothos leaves.” it would have been like he expected someone to owe him something, and that would have been pure provocation.
The Elder Sister sitting at the doorway was stunned upon hearing this, “Yes, what do you need them for?”
She looked at the boy with a confused expression.
The boy smiled sheepishly, “Sister, may I have some of these pothos leaves? I want to take them back to grow. They can root and sprout just by soaking them in water, and they’ll grow a lot.”
“Ah? Hahaha, I thought you wanted something else. Okay.”
After the Elder Sister understood what the boy wanted, she quickly plucked several handfuls of leaves for him.
The boy quickly stopped her, “No, no, Elder Sister.”
The Elder Sister thought the boy was just being polite, “Oh, it’s alright. Take them, you can take as many as you want. These leaves aren’t worth much money.”
Unexpectedly, the next second, the boy awkwardly explained, “Haha, Elder Sister, I need leaves with stems. Otherwise, just leaves won’t root, hahaha.”
The Elder Sister smiled, “Ah? I didn’t know that. Come, you can pick them yourself. Pick a few more.”
“Thank you, Sister.”
The boy casually picked three, and also took the ones the Elder Sister had just plucked for him. Although he knew that leaves without stems wouldn’t root and wouldn’t survive, it was the Elder Sister’s good intentions, so he had to take them. It wouldn’t be good to be picky when someone was helping him.
Seeing that the boy wasn’t picking many, the Elder Sister urged him to take more. The boy quickly thanked her, “That’s enough, Sister, that’s enough. I’ll just trim them when I get back, haha, thank you, Sister.”
The Elder Sister’s door was not closed. The Big Brother sitting inside also very politely called out, “It’s fine, pick a few more. You’ve only picked a few. Take whatever you want.”
The boy turned his head again and smiled, thanking the Big Brother, “Thank you, Big Brother, that’s enough, that’s enough for now.”
“Yes, if it’s not enough, take more, okay?”
“Okay!”
After getting the pothos leaves, the boy went home and gently bathed each leaf, very carefully. While bathing them, he even sang to the leaves, “Little ones, you are the most beautiful. Stick with Big Brother, okay? You are all the best. You will root, sprout, and grow vigorously, becoming more and more beautiful. You are the most beautiful, hahaha.”
Even the leaves without stems, which the boy knew would die, he did not give up on, and still washed them the same way.
In the beginning, he changed the water every day to bathe them, feeling delighted. It didn’t seem like he was growing flowers, but rather like he was raising little babies.
After some time, the leaves without stems slowly turned yellow and withered. The boy was not too sad, because it was something he already knew would happen.
The leaves with stems gradually rooted, grew longer, and started to grow new leaves. The boy changed the water every two or three days to bathe them, still saying, “Hehe, little ones, Big Brother is giving you a bath. You are the most beautiful, and you will become more and more beautiful. You will grow many leaves and keep growing, getting better and better, la la la la la.”
The boy was infusing the leaves with energy, upward energy. Three or four leaves turned into four or five, and four or five turned into over ten. Among them was one without a stem, a very small leaf with a piece of stem. The boy was reluctant to give up on it and continued to nurture it. Later, this smallest leaf also began to sprout other branches, although it hadn’t rooted yet. However, the boy believed that this little fellow would definitely grow.
In the boy’s eyes,
Growing flowers is actually the same principle as doing anything else: believe and persevere.
Growing flowers means believing that the flowers you are growing will do well. Take care of them with your heart, and slowly the flowers will get better and better.
This is the same principle as making money.
Ordinary people who acquire wealth often wish to suddenly become fat, like winning the lottery.
Can flowers grow just by watering them?
Even if there were such flowers, or people who win the lottery, such cases are very rare.
So how do you acquire wealth? Wealth is not necessarily equal to money, but money is a form of wealth.
A person can increase their own wealth and exchange wealth for money.
Wealth is divided into two types: spiritual wealth and material wealth.
There is a saying that talks about the thinking patterns of the rich versus the poor.
The rich teach their children how to gain experience, while the poor teach their children to honestly work for a salary. The results are bound to be different.
The rich teach their children to do everything with purpose. For example, working as a waiter is to let the child learn the procedures and gain experience.
The poor, however, teach their children to consider how much salary they can earn each month.
One exchanges time for experience, while the other exchanges time for survival. Although both are surviving, can they be the same?
This kind of experience belongs to spiritual wealth.
A person in the catering industry, starting from a waiter, researches how to provide service. After researching service, they then research management, and after researching management, they research development.
Another person working as a waiter in catering spends all day researching how much money they can make this month and how to spend it.
One continuously absorbs nutrients and grows upward, and naturally, one day they will blossom.
The other stands still, just staying there, not absorbing any nutrients. How can they blossom?
The more anxious one is, the more steady they need to be. The more one wants to be fast, the more they need to slow down and calm down.
Only by finding the pattern can one achieve twice the result with half the effort. Blindly working hard can only lead to wasted effort.
Every pattern is a kind of “Dao” (way/principle), this is called “borrowing the Dao to derive opportunities.”
It’s like learning to recognize characters. If you want to learn many characters, learning one a day, over time, you will naturally learn many. If you try to learn a pile at once, you will remember only a few.
In life, learning and growing, or to put it bluntly, if you want to have money, it’s very easy. Find something you like and center everything you do around it. Work on it, focus on it, think about it. One small step a day, one big step a year. After a few years, you’ll gradually become prosperous.
For example, wanting to become a painter. Just wanting to be one is clearly impossible. But if you don’t give up, and paint one or a few pictures every day, while also learning, what about ten years from now? It’s not to say you will become a very famous painter, but think about ten years ago, and look back. There will be a world of difference.
Where does the saying “Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river” come from? It’s not just about living for those thirty years, but about continuously growing during those thirty years.
Most people worry about their livelihood and want to make money but find it difficult. Actually, their direction is wrong. They only do things they don’t want to do and go with the flow. The method of gaining experience will naturally be slow, or rather, they gain a little here and a little there, and in the end, they accomplish nothing.
However, if you focus on just one thing that you really like, you will definitely become more and more skilled.
Some people say they want to do it too, but life pressure is too great, and they can’t make a choice?
Someone who likes painting, as long as it’s related to painting, no matter what it is, they will gain experience very quickly.
All the things you do centered around this path, you will have exceptional talent for.
Putting your mental energy into one area will lead to a flow state. Naturally, you will be awesome and achieve twice the result with half the effort.
How do you know what you like? Think about it. Tomorrow might be gone, and it’s the last day. If there’s one thing you would regret not doing, or not having done, that is the path you should take.
The key to “choice being greater than effort” lies here. If you choose a bunch of things and just dabble in each, you will naturally have no achievements to speak of.
Just choose one. Even if you’re just dabbling, if you dabble for a good portion of your life, you’ll become an expert.
Most outstanding people are not that they know or understand more than others, but in their field, they are dazzling.
In fact, you don’t need to learn this and that. Just leverage your strengths. Someone who is humorous can carry forward their humor and become a sketch comedian.
Someone who likes cultivation can carry forward their cultivation and become a teacher.
How do you carry it forward? Using live broadcasting as a metaphor, if you are humorous and talkative, you leverage that when you are live broadcasting. If you are good at storytelling, leverage that. If you practice cultivation, leverage cultivation. If you grow flowers, leverage growing flowers. If you raise dogs, if you cook, if you can do anything, even if you are crazy and jump around, or like sleeping and lying down, or have long legs and wear stockings to show them off. Live broadcasting is live broadcasting, but are the things they can do the same? They are different. And this difference becomes the standout point.
In other words, no matter what you do, you need to leverage your specialty and apply it flexibly.
What if you can’t do anything? What if you have no strengths? Then discover strengths. If you really have none, then absorb from others. If you want to be eloquent, observe the characteristics of eloquent people and absorb them. After practicing for a long time, you will be able to speak. If you want to be humorous, absorb it, and after practicing for a long time, you will be humorous.
Observe more, think more, learn more, train more.
Dripping water can pierce a stone.
Just like the boy, who was the most introverted among everyone when he was a young man, the most tongue-tied, and not humorous at all. But look at him now. Even looking back three generations in his entire family, there isn’t anyone who can talk more than him. Let alone the people around him.
Why? He absorbed from others. He learned to appreciate others’ strengths and learn from them, and to tolerate others’ shortcomings, taking the essence and discarding the dross.
Over time, he gained those strengths and integrated them into himself.
