I was watching Channel U on tuesday nights and really enjoyed the show 于丹《论语》心得. The show explains the different concepts of confucious teachings. For the skeptics or pragmatics, they may be loads of crap that ain't applicable in these seemingly troubled times.
Why do i say troubled times? Old prices are increasing encouraging inflation. The war on terror news no longer splashed across the Straits Times but nevertheless still raging in the far western end of asia. Problems for the us continues to pound and it is at these difficult times we try to comfort ourselves that everything will be better. The frustrations that we faced cause us to react in certain way to counter and protect ourselves. It is also where by i believe the teachings of ancient books can find me some respite from the teacherous world of problems and boredom.
There lives a family with a very bad-tempered kid. The kid would always expressed his anger by shouting, destroying and hitting people or things. To curb this problem his father implored him to punch a nail into the wooden fence outside their house whenever he shouts, screams or beats up people. In no time the wooden fence was so full of nails that it began to hit him that getting so worked up so often really isn't getting him anywhere and he got quite embarassed about it. The kid decided to seek his father of help.
His father said:" For everyday that you curb your temper, you are allowed to remove a single nail from the wooden fences. However, for everytime you burst into flames and cause me anguish, put one nail back on."
The young kid was determined to remove all the nails with his pride at stake. He controlled and curbed the propensity to be angry and soon enough, most nails were removed from the fence after a period of time. By this time the kid had already refined himself and brought his father to the wooden fence.
His father said:" The nails may have been removed, you can apologized, but the holes that the nails made will always be there."
《论语》“言寡尤，行寡悔”
说话要用脑子，做事要考虑后果，这是为人处世很重要的一点。
要想在纷繁复杂的现代社会中，处理好各种各样的人际关系，更重要的是自己要懂礼节。
Adapted from: http://www.ldbj.com/yudan_lunyu_xinde/yudan_lunyu_xinde_21.htm
Before we do or speak about anything, we have to be cautious and be careful. Think far ahead to prevent hurt to others and regrets to yourself.
To find solutions to the bigger problems, let just start to find solutions to problems beginning with yourself.