一封給女儿的信
快高中毕业了，你将要离开父母上大学去过独立的生活。好处是将不再听到父亲的劝言或唠叨；但这种好处是要面对一个陌生的环境，在没有甚麽依靠的条件下自行解决各式各样的难题的。虽然你已届成人之年，但你的人生经验却是一片空白；所以在你去圣地牙哥之前，再次以父亲的角度和责任来烦你一次，希望你能把这信看完，更希望这些“废话”对你将来有所脾益。
1）人生起码有几次要对自己前程作重大决定，如选择学校，职业和婚姻。有些决定错了可以改，但有些只能说悔不当初。
2）首先要徹底明白自己是甚麽料，才好替自己定下奋斗的目标。以己之长去和别人之短竞争，方有胜算。如果说对自己还不很了解，可以对目标有所修改，但次数不要过多；因为人生苦短，不堪折腾。
3）知识可以学习；但经验一定要积累。多听长者的失败经验，可以使自己少走很多弯路。
4）有魄力的人会製造机会；聪明的人会善抓机会；安闲之人会耐心等待机会；愚笨的人只会错过机会。
5）按理在上游捕鱼比下游收获大。同样道理人生应该截住机会，而不是追随机会。今年热选的科目，到你毕业时可能已经过时了。
6）有些人费尽九牛二虎的力量去谋事却不成功；而有些人却不费吹灰之力能梦想成真。其中很大原因是谋事的时机是否成熟；谋事的方法是否正确；剩下的就是所谓的运气了。这玄而妙的东西是看不到的，算命先生也只能靠猜靠估；可是自己的努力是实实在在的。尽人事而听天命是比较积极的宿命论。记住，运气是喜欢降临到甚麽都准备好的人身上的；猫能逮到老鼠是因为它很有逮鼠的本领。
7）人对自己的失败除了作徹底检讨外，是需要有点阿Q精神的；不会自我解嘲的人是不堪一击的。
8） 有同情心的人很多；而没嫉妒心的人非常之少。社会上很多罪恶是因嫉妒心而起的；所以做人低调可免很多仇恨。害人之心不可有，防人之心不可无；在热闹的场所小心别人給的食物饮料，最好自己斟酌。人心不古，妒心难防。
9）书本知识容易学习掌握；但人际关系是最微妙最难处理的最高艺术，因为每个人都不一样。择友条件很多，但最基本一条是要有时间观念和信守承诺，因为那是决定将来事情合作能否成功的重要因素。
10） 要未雨绸缪，要有所储蓄以备急需；但不要为年老退休作过多打算而忘了年青时的人生享受，那是本末倒置。要知道年轻时的生活才是多姿多彩高质量和有意思的生活；到身体健康出了问题的晚年生活是没有质量和品味可言的。
11） 只有花了的钱才属于你的；否则，可以假想银行的钱全是你的，只不过是你没拿去花罢了。
12） 我从来没有祈望你的回报，我只希望你起码不要成为社会的累赘。
一零年三月三十日
A Letter To My Daughter
Pretty soon you will graduate from high school and you will leave your parent for your independent life in the university. The advantage of that is there will be no more advice and nagging from your father; but you have to face an unknown environment and to solve various problems by yourself. Even though you almost reach the number of eighteen, the age of adult indication, but in your mind, the column of life experience is blank. That is the reason why I want to bother you one more time with this letter before you move to UC San Diego; I hope you will read it and get some profitable stuff from my gossip.
1）Through your whole life you have to make some important decisions for yourself, such as selecting a school, a career or a spouse. For some mistakes you can correct it, but for some others you can do nothing but regret.
2）First of all, you have to evaluate yourself thoroughly before you set a goal for yourself. It will have a bigger chance to win with your strength to compete with the weakness of your rivals. If you do not understand yourself by now you can adjust your goal later; but no more than twice for the adjustment because life is too short to be twisted.
3）You can get your knowledge by learning while you have to get your experiences by accumulating. It will help you to avoid a lot of detour to listen to the failure experiences of old folks.
4) People with courage will create chances for themselves; smart men will grasp their chances wisely; people with leisure will wait for their chances with patience and only the foolish persons will miss their chances.
5) According to the logical analysis fishing at the upstream should gain more than at the down stream. With the same reason you should put yourself in the position ahead of the chance instead of following it. Hot jobs today might be obsolete when you graduate from university.
6) Some people can not achieve their goals even they have tried very hard and some people get what they want easily without much effort. Why? They should focus on whether the timing was perfect or the way was right in pursuit of their goals. The last thing they can not control is ‘Luck’ which is invisible and about which the only thing a fortune teller can do is to conjecture. However persons' efforts are real and visible; hence I would say the active fatalists should hand it to God after they have tried. Remember good Luck prefers to be close to the people who are ready for it. The cat with a rat in it's mouth just proves that the cat has capability to catch a rat.
7) Facing your failure, besides of figuring out what was the cause, you should learn something from the person A‘Q’(阿Q)who knows self-mockery. Without 阿Q spirit a person will become very fragile and can not stand up again when he would be defeated..
8) In the world there are a lot of people who have compassion but very few without jealousy. In the society there are a lot of crimes caused by human jealousy and low profile might avoid of some one's hatred. We should not have intention to harm any one while we should know how to defend ourselves. Be careful with the drink and food someone hands it to you in the party and it is better to get it by yourself. Today is not like the old day (moral degeneration) and hard to prevent someone's jealous heart.
9) It is easy to learn how to manipulate your knowledge from the book, but the relationship between people is very subtle, difficult to deal with and is kind of art because no one is the same. There are a lot of dating requirements , but the fundamental ones are his/her puctuality and trustworthness which are the main successful factors for doing partnership..
10) Save some money for the raining season, but do not over save for retirement fund because that is ‘Putting cart before the horse’. The life of young age should be joyful, wonderful and meaningful while health problem of old age, even with a lot of money, would make the quality of life declined.
11) Only the money you have spent belongs to you; otherwise you can imagine you own a bank and never touch the money.
12) I do not expect your feeding back; however the bottom line is at least you will not become the burden of the society.
03-30-2010
