Never carry garbage with you.

Seeing such a comic☝️

A man with a sorrowful expression was walking down the street, carrying several bags, completely oblivious to the strange looks from passersby.

The items in his hands emitted a foul odor, causing people around him to cover their noses.

Someone couldn't help but remind him, and only then did the man realize that he had been walking around carrying garbage.

In life, many people have experiences of "carrying garbage while walking":

For instance, after encountering some troubles, they remain gloomy for several days;

After experiencing a regret, they often feel sorrowful and cannot let go;

When dealing with unreasonable people, they insist on arguing, determined to prove who is right and who is wrong...

These bad emotions, small regrets, and troublesome people and events are essentially no different from garbage.

Yet many people still prefer to carry them around, refusing to let go, ultimately allowing themselves to be tainted by the stench.

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Don't let temporary setbacks drain you.

There's a perspective that says: one can experience setbacks, but shouldn't develop a sense of defeat.

A sense of defeat refers to the feelings of disappointment, frustration, self-blame, or helplessness that arise when facing difficulties or failures.

Once a person falls deeply into this sense of defeat, it's easy for them to be overwhelmed by setbacks, leading to a state of despair and discouragement.

Let me share two stories with you.

The protagonist of the first story is a writer named Howard.

He was passionate about writing novels, but for a long time, several of his works were repeatedly rejected by publishers.

Faced with such blows, Howard worried day and night, even convincing himself that he could never write a good piece again.

When he received the final rejection letter, he was utterly disheartened and ended his life with a gunshot.

The other story is about the writer Thomas Carlyle.

When Thomas Carlyle was 40 years old, he completed his first book.

After writing the last page, he was so excited that he went out to the garden for a walk to calm down, without even putting away his manuscript.

While he was away, a gust of wind blew his manuscript into the fireplace, burning it to ashes.

When Carlyle returned and saw his work destroyed, he was devastated.

However, after reflecting on it, he decided to move on and continue his writing efforts.

Three years later, his perseverance paid off, and he gained worldwide fame with his book "The French Revolution."

In the first story, the writer was consumed by a sense of defeat and ultimately paid with his life.

In the second story, the writer treated setbacks as a part of life, moved on decisively, and achieved great success later.

This reminds me of the two states of life mentioned in the book "Antifragile":

The first type of person, when faced with misfortune, is like a glass ball that shatters upon hitting the ground.

The other type of person is like a rubber ball that not only doesn't break when it hits the ground but bounces back even higher.

So, when life knocks us down, whether we break or bounce back depends entirely on our choice.

Truly smart people always know how to move forward and look ahead, never allowing themselves to be mired in a sense of defeat.

If you don't want to be stuck in setbacks, quickly shed the burden of internal friction and choose a life that becomes stronger with each challenge.

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Don't Dwell on Past Regrets

There was an Indian philosopher who was deeply admired by a woman.

One day, the woman boldly approached the philosopher and expressed her desire to marry him. The philosopher, however, said he needed time to think about it.

He ended up considering it for ten years before finally deciding to marry her.

By then, the woman was already married and had three children.

Upon learning this, the philosopher was devastated and succumbed to depression two years later.

Before he passed away, he threw all his works into the fire, leaving behind only one annotation on life:

"If we divide life into two parts, the philosophy for the first half should be 'Don't hesitate,' and for the second half, it should be 'Don't regret.'"

Before it's too late, we should strive to seize and salvage every opportunity. But once everything has become the past, we should learn to let go and not torment ourselves with memories.

Actress Carman Lee once chose to retire from her career for a decade at its peak for the sake of love, only to end up with nothing.

Devastated, she immersed herself in sorrow, neglecting her family.

During this time, her father fell ill unexpectedly and passed away a year later.

Carman Lee was heartbroken. In her autobiographical essay "Living Well," she wrote:

"Because I was immersed in the sadness of a broken relationship, I didn't spend enough time with my father."

Her father's passing made her realize that being consumed by past regrets causes us to miss out on many other important things.

Life is full of regrets, and if we can't let go in time, we'll miss even more.

Those unforgettable people, unaccomplished tasks, and bygone days only interfere with our present life.

Life must always move forward; if you constantly look back, you'll only repeat the tragedies of the past.

Mo Yan once said: "Life is like a book, turning page by page. One must look forward and not dwell on past chapters."

The more we dwell on a regret, the more it brings us pain.

Learning to let go and understanding when to say "enough" is the best salvation for ourselves.

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Life is Long, and We Have a Long Way to Go

We all have a long journey ahead of us and many experiences to go through.

But if you hold onto every troubling thing you encounter along the way, it will be hard to move forward.

It's better to discard all the garbage that makes you feel upset and shake off the negative emotions that pollute your mind and body.

Only then can we make room for the beauty of life and find peace for our mind and body.

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