diskusbooks Chapter 732 - 583: May We Still Drink by Morning and Dance by Night
Chapter 732 - 583: May We Still Drink by Morning and Dance by Night
A bowl accidentally falls to the ground; to the Zen master, it’s like hearing the sound of the universe, every bone in his body loosening and relaxing at once.
Yet many of us nowadays can hear bowls shatter hundreds of times and feel nothing at all.
Because we live on the surface of the world: shallow joy, shallow moods, shallow work... living shallowly.
But going on a trip isn’t like that.
Especially when it’s a trip with no preset goals, no frantic rushing from place to place.
You’re given a stretch of sky and earth, and everything else is up to you.
In that case, limited as the time may be, everyone can still arrange their days according to their own free will and throw themselves into it, body and soul.
Over the next few days—
Some people went to the nearby Heartbeat Park to play.
Some hid away in a bookstore deep in the mountains, looking out from the transparent book house at nothing but green—clear and natural—immersed in the experience of deep reading.
Some went out to take photos of mountains and rivers and to enjoy the scenery, tasting snatches of leisure stolen from a busy life, feeling the everyday warmth of the human world.
No matter what expectations everyone had when they came,
At least in these few days spent in the mountains, each person fully experienced what they most wanted to experience.
Each person, in a way that looked a bit like muddling through, chose to let themselves off the hook, to rest and be nourished, surrounded by a constant stream of small happinesses.
The longer you’re in a state of flow, the faster time passes.
On the day of departure,
The sky above everyone’s heads was so blue; the thin, gauzy clouds were brilliant and varied, like a precious oil painting brushed softly across the dome of the sky—so beautiful.
Looking up at the sky, Ning Youguang felt as if she were reading an ancient book while soaking in hot water—completely at ease.
This little stolen holiday in the midst of busyness gave the whole "Starlight" team-building group a real sense of healing and relaxation.
When the bus for the return trip slowly started up,
There were still many teammates with sunny, playful personalities whose energy was overflowing.
They rolled down the windows, waving to the green mountains and fields all around, shouting loudly—
"May the green hills remain, and may we still drink in the morning and dance at night."
"May what we wish for still arrive on time, and arrive as we wish."
Just like it’s written in the book:
"The sea and the sunset don’t belong to everyone, but everyone longs for the sunset and the sea."
...
By the time Xia Hui found out that Ning Youguang had gone with Shi Wangyue on a team-building trip and heard from her again, three days had already passed.
"I messaged you the past two days—why did you say a few words and then just stop?"
"Because I was on vacation." Sitting in her office, Ning Youguang said this to Xia Hui on the video call.
"What does you being on vacation have to do with answering my calls?" Xia Hui, in soft home loungewear, was holding an empty baby bottle.
"Of course it has to do with it." Ning Youguang said, "I can’t explain what you asked me in just a few words. I could only wait till my vacation was over to talk."
"If you can’t explain it in a few words, can’t you just say a few more?" On the phone screen, Xia Hui rolled her eyes.
"No." Ning Youguang shook her head righteously.
"Why not?"
"Because it would interfere with me enjoying the scenery."
Xia Hui was speechless. "Come on, talk to me properly. I only asked you a few questions—how is that disturbing your vacation? I’m thousands of miles away. Am I really capable of using up your entire holiday from that far?"
"It’s not that you could use up my vacation." Ning Youguang said seriously. "It’s that talking to you would affect my vacation mood."
"Drama queen." Xia Hui grumbled.
"This isn’t being dramatic." Ning Youguang refuted with a smile. "On vacation, the mind should be free of entanglements. I go to work every day and carefully provide counseling for my clients so that I can enjoy my vacations better. If I go away to relax, sitting in front of valleys and streams, and I’m still talking to you about all sorts of problems, wouldn’t that be a waste of the scenery around me?"
After all, people you can talk problems with are everywhere; people you can simply and peacefully go on vacation with are always rare.
So when you have that, you should cherish it all the more.
On screen, Xia Hui fell into thought.
After a while, she put down the baby bottle in her hand, said a few words to the maternity nanny at home, and slipped into her own room. "Now can you talk to me properly?"
"Of course." Ning Youguang took a sip of water from her thermos. "Last time you told me your mother-in-law’s arrangement for the baby’s solid food wasn’t appropriate, right?"
"Yeah."
At the mention of her own issues, Xia Hui’s mood visibly sank.
Her whole body was radiating fatigue. "Besides the problem with the baby’s solid food, I’ve realized my mother-in-law has a very rigid parenting routine: the baby must drink 100ml of milk every two hours, sleep at a fixed time, add solid food according to a fixed amount. She’s way too anxious. With everything scheduled to the minute and the gram like this, the child will lose the initiative to eat on their own."
"Anything else?" Ning Youguang listened quietly.
At the same time, she couldn’t help thinking, "Mother-in-law and daughter-in-law really have been a difficult issue since ancient times."
"Also, whenever I offer parenting suggestions that better fit the baby’s actual needs, my mother-in-law is always stubborn and says, ’What you’re saying makes a lot of sense, but my methods are ones I studied specially before—they’re very scientific parenting methods. Look at your husband; he turned out perfectly fine, didn’t he?’"
"What’s worse is my husband. I asked him to talk to his mom properly and tell her not to interfere too much with the baby, and he just says he did talk to her but couldn’t persuade her, and that I should be more tolerant. Do you know what it’s like? In our home, as soon as my mother-in-law gets involved in anything about the baby, everyone gets incredibly irritable. When she doesn’t interfere, my husband and I are very chill, and the baby’s great too..."
Even through the screen, Ning Youguang could feel Xia Hui’s torment.
As she listened, she also understood that on the surface Xia Hui was talking about parenting issues, but that was only the outer layer.
The underlying problem was the clash of parenting beliefs between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
The key difficulty she currently faced did not really lie in raising the child.
It lay with the adults, in the relationships between the adults.
"You and your mother-in-law are from different generations, so it’s perfectly normal for your parenting views to differ and for friction to arise. And for your mother-in-law’s generation, once they’ve tested their methods and found them effective, it’s very hard for them to change. In that case, you all need to set aside your respective positions and start from the child’s actual needs. Pay more attention to what the child truly requires, and based on the child’s real condition and characteristics, communicate and discuss more constructively within the family. Combine the wisdom of family members and eventually form a child‑rearing approach that’s most suitable for your kid. After all, raising a child to be healthy, strong, and smart is the most fundamental wish of the whole family."
"That’s what I’ve been saying too." On video, Xia Hui lay back on the bed, her whole body tense and agitated—it was obvious how tricky the situation felt to her. "We often discuss this very issue, and we even agree beforehand on what problem we’re trying to solve when we talk. But halfway through, the conversation starts going off track, and in the end we just can’t reach any agreement."
"Then you also need to adjust the way you communicate." Ning Youguang said.1314