On destined fortune

This link leads to a listing of web pages containing a statement the honorable Minister of Qing Empire, Zeng Guo Fan, once said: "... believe in the destined fortune and not the acquired knowledge...(信運氣﹐不信書)". My understanding of his statement is that he believes that any of our achievement manifests by our destined fortune and not just simply from careful planning and persistent effort. He must have made this conclusion from all of his life experience.

I also agree with some other bloggers' view point of this quote. Some said that Zeng's statement was just a reflection of his characteristic of being humble and modest. while some said that instead of emphasizing his accomplishments were the result of his intelligence and hard working, he attributed all of the abundant fruition to the manifestation of his good luck. However, I personally believe that either of the aforesaid point of view shares only 30% of the truth, There is this thing labeled as Karma which is similar to the notion of fortune moving all the trivial and major incidents of our life around, and that force takes up 70% or even more of the end result.

What triggered my intent of writing on this topic was from a chat with my wife this morning. "Jean, Chi-an (our son), started his first class at 9 am, he is teaching those school boys in the school now," I continued, "how lucky he is to get a good jobuch as this." Jean replied,"yeah, two months ago, we were still worried about his job issue, and suddenly the changes brought up this happy opportunity." she said while doing the laundry. "This reminded me of a remark the honorable scholar and government minister of Qing Dynasty, Zeng Guo Fan, once said '...believe in the destined fortune and not the acquired knowledge...'" I said, "I am going to write a blog about my perception of his famous remark."

May 2 of 2011 marked the day my son started his involvement in the music education in a state run college and another five primary schools and intermediate schools. A few days earlier, he was required to be interviewed by the head of the school's music department and the principal to make sure he was the right one they wanted to recruit to train the four rock bands of the school.

The interview went well and Chi-an was formerly employed by that college. His first class will be on May 5. With this guitar tuition in the state schools plus his other two sectors of practices, his work day hours are reasonably fully booked, and so his income is expected to be sustainable. All that had happened to result in this reality to come true were so unbelievably played one after another, just as dramatic as a playwright containing the various parts of longing , anxious, frustrated, nervous, exciting, disappointing, and all sorts of feelings you name it. Fortunately the desired and expected ending turns out to be a happy one. And now I am, as the father, is noting down the bits and pieces of thoughts with regard to this remarkable episode of Chen family.