A Letter to My Younger Sister

This article was extracted from my early NetEase blog. NetEase Blog is no longer operating, but looking back, these words are still quite interesting, so I decided to move them over as intact as possible. This is mainly kept as a record; after all these years, the quality of the text, images, and links may all have been affected.

This article was originally published on April 29, 2009. I was about 20 years old at the time and was in college.

Little sister:

Yesterday, when I received your text message, I felt the helplessness and disappointment revealed between your lines. I wrote this reply to you, hoping it can help you somehow.

"Brother… I completely messed up the exam… What should I do… Mom has already given up on me… Mom is not even willing to talk to me anymore… I am so useless!"

I was thinking: would Mom really completely give up on you just because of one exam, and then ignore every sentence of your explanation? Perhaps that is not what she meant! This is not true giving up. True giving up is the kind where someone lets you live or die on your own and never asks about you. A mother's intentions for her children are sometimes really impossible for us to understand at the time. As the saying goes, "the person involved is confused, while the bystander sees clearly." Maybe what she wants to give you is a lesson, a lesson in failure. She hopes you can calm down from it and understand something from it.

"I am like this every time… I do badly every time… I am afraid I will not even get into college… Brother… I cannot go on… I really have no confidence at all…"

Confidence is not something you have just because you say you have it. It needs to be cultivated. Maybe many times you always think of yourself as a "weak one." From the time we met until now, there is one sentence you have said to me twice: "It feels like everyone in the class has come to hate me." The first time was in your first letter, and another time was recently when you told me about having a conflict with a classmate. Sometimes old sayings can give us a lot of inspiration. "Difficulties are like springs: if you are strong, they are weak; if you are weak, they are strong." Life is the same. You might as well try to become a little stronger and walk your own road well. As long as you are right, do not worry about how others see you. The pure are naturally pure. Believe in yourself and keep going!!

"I want to go to college, but I cannot get in… I can never control myself and work hard… I cannot understand physics and biology at all… I cannot hold on anymore…"

I have told you many times to work hard, and there were also many times when you promised to study properly, but… Laziness is everyone's nature. Successful people are not different in any special way; they simply did what they were supposed to do. It may be very hard to overcome laziness, but sometimes even a tiny little thing can touch someone and give that person unlimited potential. I hope you can learn something from this. Maybe it will be another starting point in your life.

"I want to work hard. I want to get into college. I will definitely get into the college I want."

Seeing words like these made me really happy, really happy. Confidence and ambition can sometimes give us strength like magic. Work hard toward this goal!

"I want to hide my tears in my heart. On the day I cry them out in the future, I hope the tears represent victory, not weakness!"

After falling down, not crying, getting back up, and smiling at the stone under your feet: "So it was you!" There are very, very few people like this, but such a person is absolutely an optimistic person. Absolutely nothing can trap them in helplessness or difficulty. After meeting difficulties, get up, smile, and then continue marching toward a new goal. I hope you can become this kind of person!

From today on, make a plan for yourself, then realize it little by little. Although it will be tiring, it will also be meaningful and wonderful! I have said so much. I hope you can learn a lesson from this failure and understand what you should do. Maybe this letter is of no use to you, or maybe it can help you understand something. In any case, where to go and what to follow, the future road is in your own hands.