David Fang

Think bigger

In the long history of civilization, what is it do you think that distinguishes one person from another? It's thinking. It's thoughts. Leo Tolstoy oncesaid, “The establishment of civilization is not built by machines, but by thoughts". Our thoughts have the greatest impacts on ourselves, and even on ourplanet at large. So what becomes essential for all of us is to think, and to think bigger. 

Our thinking shapes the way we look at the world. As shown in the video, Huize and Zhuangze have different visions about the use of the large gourd. Compared with Huize, Zhuangze is more open-minded. To him, there are no useless things but narrow-minded people who do not know how to use them. And that's why a useless gourd to Huize can be turned into a good float in the eyes of Zhuangze.

Now let's think about a bee for amoment. A boy stung by a bee dreads the bee and may regard it as a terrible stinger. A beekeeper making money out of the bees may think that they are good honey producers and the source of his or her income. An observer may see themas diligent workers that gather honey to feed the young ones and the queen, and  to keep the colonies thriving. While an ecologist may point out that the well-being of bees is not only important for the species itself, but also vitalto the ecosystem of the earth.

Apparently, the bee is still the bee and so is the gourd, but people with different thinking endow them with different meanings, producing different results. If not for the unconventional thought of Zhuangze, the super large gourd would be nothing but a ready-to-gorubbish. If not the deeper perspective of ecologists, the continuing decline of bee population would not have been able to draw worldwide efforts in saving bees, the most important insect to mankind. Albert Einstein once predicted, “If the bee disappears from thesurface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live”. Thanks to the people with bigger visions, mankind can co-exist with bees on our planet, and our civilization can continue to last and prosper for many many years to come.

It is clear that we should not take things at their face values. We've got to break our limits so that we can look at things in a larger picture. Don't let stereotyped notions block our visions or crowd out our imagination. To make our thinking more powerful, and to mak eourselves more distinguished, all we need to do is to keep our mind open, and thinking bigger.