Confucius
Over the last couple of years, I’ve begun to study the work of a lot of philosophers – to this day Socrates remains the most influential in my way of living, however, one of the great beliefs I feel everyone should embrace and live by is one from Confucius.
Born in China in 551 BC (over 2500 years ago). The philosophy of Confucius emphasized personal and governmental morality, the correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.
A lot of his quotes you can regularly see people uploading to Instagram / Facebook with the “🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼” emoji as the caption, an example of these quotes are:
“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop”
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
Though they are incredibly impactful if you live your life by these principals, there are 2 of Confucius famous sayings in which I strongly believe people need to adopt in life to find happiness. Firstly,
“Study the past if you would define the future.”
This quote is a powerful statement and if you dissect its meaning and actively study the past you can equip yourself with knowledge and insight – which when situation arise in the future you’re in a better position to deal with them.
The past doesn’t mean History – although that depth of knowledge would make you even more informed – it relates to your past, taking learnings from your own situation and life events.
But this could be a whole other article.
For this piece I want to focus on the following:
Facts:
- 50% of your total waking hours during any given working day.
- 35% of your total waking hours over a 50-year working-life period assuming 8 hours of sleep a night
- Britons also spend a total of 12 years at work during their lifetimes
Loving your job is a wonderful thing. Not only are you bringing home income, but you also get the added reward of feeling fulfilled, accomplished, and satisfied each time you stroll out of your office.
But, loving your livelihood requires hard work. It’s pretty much human nature to enjoy the things we’re good at. And, in order to be good at your position, you need to put in hard work – if you never put in hard work, you’ll more than likely never find something you are good at – thus enjoy.
Oftentimes, it’s not just the work that we love. It’s the reward and satisfaction we get after doing it well. And we all know that getting things done well involves exerting effort and staying at the office for the occasional late night.
If your day at work leaves you feeling like you’ve achieved something and you’re motivated, while skipping out the office this mood will seep into your wider activities giving you the energy to go to the gym, have a nice meal or just visit that place you want to see.
The negative energy built up from disliking what you do is the anchor which holds you down in life – the voice in your head that tells you that you should go home and drink a bottle of wine or just get into bed and watch TV.
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