By Zhu Guangqian

Leisure in Life

By Zhu Guangqian

It is generally believed that working extra hours will be rewarded. That is to say, if a person is able to cover one hundred li a day (about 30 miles), he should be able to multiply the miles he covers if he spends more days on it. However, the presupposition that a person can walk without a break is like some fantasy. Any sensible men will know a person will not walk with the same speed for days, because human beings will feel fatigued and slow down and eventually wear themselves out. Therefore, the ancient Chinese proverb“walking without taking a break will lead to a faster pace” is not as wise as it sounds to us.

For many people, the common practice in life is, as the saying goes, to“walk without a break” is better than“no walking at all.” Their working hours are long, but we don’t see the accomplishment from working these long hours. They occupy their working desk day after day, but the work doesn’t diminish at all, while the deadline is approaching.

Traditional working ethics advocate diligence over efficiency. Yet in modern society, working with poor efficiency will hinder the progress. According to many psychological experiments on this issue, working with regular rests achieves far better efficiency than working nonstop, as far as the same tasks and working time are concerned.

Everywhere in the world, there are so many excessively hard-working and bored people—they are live examples of “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” They work like machines, without the fun a human being can derive from the work. The people with such working ethics stand little chance to become the top practitioners in his or her domain of career. We might come across people like that in all walks of life. It occurred to me that the humble farmers in the farmland, the woodheaded bookworms and the office fetish are some typical examples of such people.

We need to work, but more importantly, we need to reflect on our work. Laboring without pondering over life, is like driving the car with full speed without refueling. It is another form of wasting our life, which will ultimately kill the fun of life, the creativity of the work and the wisdom of human beings.

Never in my life have I come across any expressions more enlightening than the poemSelf Eulogyby the ancient Chinese idealistic poet Tao Yuanming (365-427). It says: “When working, we spare no efforts; when rest, we spare no fun.” Whereas the modern epidemic of workaholic put the horse before the cart; they advocate, “Work always takes the first place, leaving no room for leisure.”

(FromAbout Self-cultivation,East China Normal University Press. Translation: Xiang Feng)