一封給女兒的信
快高中畢業了，你將要離開父母上大學去過獨立的生活。好處是將不再聽到父親的勸言或嘮叨；但這種好處是要麵對一個陌生的環境，在沒有甚麽依靠的條件下自行解決各式各樣的難題的。雖然你已屆成人之年，但你的人生經驗卻是一片空白；所以在你去聖地牙哥之前，再次以父親的角度和責任來煩你一次，希望你能把這信看完，更希望這些“廢話”對你將來有所脾益。
1）人生起碼有幾次要對自己前程作重大決定，如選擇學校，職業和婚姻。有些決定錯了可以改，但有些隻能說悔不當初。
2）首先要徹底明白自己是甚麽料，才好替自己定下奮鬥的目標。以己之長去和別人之短競爭，方有勝算。如果說對自己還不很了解，可以對目標有所修改，但次數不要過多；因為人生苦短，不堪折騰。
3）知識可以學習；但經驗一定要積累。多聽長者的失敗經驗，可以使自己少走很多彎路。
4）有魄力的人會製造機會；聰明的人會善抓機會；安閑之人會耐心等待機會；愚笨的人隻會錯過機會。
5）按理在上遊捕魚比下遊收獲大。同樣道理人生應該截住機會，而不是追隨機會。今年熱選的科目，到你畢業時可能已經過時了。
6）有些人費盡九牛二虎的力量去謀事卻不成功；而有些人卻不費吹灰之力能夢想成真。其中很大原因是謀事的時機是否成熟；謀事的方法是否正確；剩下的就是所謂的運氣了。這玄而妙的東西是看不到的，算命先生也隻能靠猜靠估；可是自己的努力是實實在在的。盡人事而聽天命是比較積極的宿命論。記住，運氣是喜歡降臨到甚麽都準備好的人身上的；貓能逮到老鼠是因為它很有逮鼠的本領。
7）人對自己的失敗除了作徹底檢討外，是需要有點阿Q精神的；不會自我解嘲的人是不堪一擊的。
8） 有同情心的人很多；而沒嫉妒心的人非常之少。社會上很多罪惡是因嫉妒心而起的；所以做人低調可免很多仇恨。害人之心不可有，防人之心不可無；在熱鬧的場所小心別人給的食物飲料，最好自己斟酌。人心不古，妒心難防。
9）書本知識容易學習掌握；但人際關係是最微妙最難處理的最高藝術，因為每個人都不一樣。擇友條件很多，但最基本一條是要有時間觀念和信守承諾，因為那是決定將來事情合作能否成功的重要因素。
10） 要未雨綢繆，要有所儲蓄以備急需；但不要為年老退休作過多打算而忘了年青時的人生享受，那是本末倒置。要知道年輕時的生活才是多姿多彩高質量和有意思的生活；到身體健康出了問題的晚年生活是沒有質量和品味可言的。
11） 隻有花了的錢才屬於你的；否則，可以假想銀行的錢全是你的，隻不過是你沒拿去花罷了。
12） 我從來沒有祈望你的回報，我隻希望你起碼不要成為社會的累贅。
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
