1. Cactus sharpen their leaves to survive.
2. At the beginning, Monroe only knew how to dance with knives and guns, but she could not be diligent in the cultivation of cultural knowledge. After Sun Quan pointed this out to Monroe, Monroe studied hard. Later, even Lu Su said, "Don't stay with me for three days." Because of Sun Quan's words, he changed himself and truly achieved both civil and military skills, laying the foundation for the achievement of Wu's hegemony. Monroe naturally perfected her personality and self-cultivation and successfully changed herself.
Tao Yuanming changed himself after only 70 days as an official. He can't change the darkness of officialdom. He can only change himself. He doesn't bow down for a bucket of rice, but keeps company with chrysanthemums. Although his official career is gone, his lofty aspirations are appreciated by history and remembered by future generations.
When Li Bai, an imperial scholar, raised him as a white deer among the cliffs, that is, when he rode a horse to visit a famous mountain, he changed himself. Li Bai thought he would show his ambition, but he didn't think he was just singing a hymn for the court. Unable to change the officialdom, I had to change my ambition, show my affection for mountains and rivers, and see famous mountains and rivers. Although he failed to fulfill his dream of crossing the celestial latitude, he created half a poem in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, which was praised by later generations.
5. Although the old shoemaker in The Quality of John Galsworthy has the best shoemaking skills in the city, he is unwilling to change himself, so that he can't keep up with the era of mechanization, insists on making every pair of shoes by hand, and finally starves to death in his own shoe store.
Example: change yourself and base yourself on reality.
Human ancestors jumped on trees for millions of years until they became food gatherers. They found that the fruits on the trees are decreasing and the climate is changing. Smart people can't change nature, so they learn to change themselves and walk upright on the vast plains. And this is the wisdom of Homo sapiens ancestors to adapt to the environment by changing themselves.
Our ancestors learned to use fire, build houses and smelt steel in the process of changing themselves, so human beings evolved to change their living conditions by adapting to the environment.
Nature's choice of creatures is cruel. However, after the once dominant dinosaurs disappeared from this earth for millions of years, my ancestors still exist vigorously. This is because our ancestors knew that it is better to change themselves than to disappear in natural changes.
As descendants of these Homo sapiens, we seem to have fulfilled the last wish that our ancestors failed to fulfill. We try to change nature and create miracles. We cut down forests and pollute water sources. We seem to be fighting against nature. What is the result? We are blinded by sandstorms, our backs are washed away by mudslides, our hearts are corroded by acid rain, and we are conquered by nature because we can't change it. We want to change ourselves, and eventually we will pay a huge price to atone for nature. This is the price paid for blindly destroying nature and violating the laws of nature.
Isn't that what society is like?
Human choice is more cruel than nature. When society doesn't choose us, when there is a gap between reality and ideal, we should learn to change ourselves.
Tao Yuanming could not let his transcendence be changed by the secular world, so he chose to change his lifestyle, retire to the mountains and gather chrysanthemums under the hedge, making the history of China literature a monument worthy of the name; Lu Xun abandoned medicine to pursue literature because he found that physical strength could not change the present situation of China at all, so he changed his way of struggle, and an outstanding master came out of China literary world.
People in modern society are always ambitious, and those who can become great people will grasp themselves first. In the torrent of social development and change, they are changing themselves and balancing the gap between dreams and reality. What they change is the way to achieve their goals, and it is a better way to adapt to society. Their firm beliefs and their pursuit of life have not changed. However, because they can stand on the social reality and proceed from the national conditions, they can promote the magnificent social changes, and then their thoughts and views make the whole society change accordingly. They created new ideas and civilizations and promoted social progress.
Although we are not great men, each of us has our own thoughts, wills and goals within the spiritual scope, but the realization of thoughts, wills and goals needs a basic premise based on reality. Marx said: the essence of man lies in his sociality. People can't be divorced from reality. People must adapt to the environment before they can change it. This is a truth that all our ancestors understood. Unfortunately, many of us don't understand today: either complain that I am born useless or complain.
Some people may say that people are too realistic to have imagination, but Einstein said that imagination sums up everything in the world and is the source of social progress, so we can't live without imagination. In fact, imagination should also be based on reality: the Wright brothers imagined that the plane was built because of the inspiration of birds; Wu Cheng'en created the Monkey King because there are prototypes of monkeys in reality.
Most students yearn for Tsinghua of Peking University and dream of a successful future, but it is absolutely impossible to study hard without being based on reality. Furthermore, it is unrealistic to blindly set the goals of Peking University and Tsinghua without considering their own conditions. So people can fantasize, but not dream. People should be based on reality, down-to-earth, mature in changing themselves and create the future they want.