别让故事只是故事

文/杨易梅

我做的事情很有意思，每天大江南北的热心人将励志故事丢给我，我负责审核它们是否能够起到使大部分读到的人都激昂澎湃地想要做一番事业，或者能否拯救一些失恋、失意以及失落的心。

励志的名人、草根、英雄们用各自不同的故事展示着他们的人生，或许他们想说“成功可以复制的”，快来看我走的路线啊，你也可以有。事实上，谁的成功能被轻易复制呢？

有一类故事说，某人在失误中发现了商机，或者科学家由于误差创造了人类大发现。生活里，我们每天都会犯各式各样的错误，多得叫人烦躁甚至抓狂，哪有心思去想什么大发现？如果没有一双善于发现的眼睛，你还是你，成功者还是成功者，故事永远只是个故事。

更多的一类讲某人贫困潦倒，但志向不改，通过自己的恒心终于天降奇遇，稳准狠地抓住了机遇并开创新天地。每当看完之后我都热血沸腾，就像看壮丽恢宏的电影大结局。慨叹对方的坚持与幸运的同时，我总会反观渺小的自己。我为什么不这么坚强？为什么我没有这个运气？甚至于感叹为什么我没有经历过这些挫折与成功。之后很可能是自我防卫般条件反射，让自己找几个台阶下。我之所以所有未曾达到辉煌的是因为经历平淡，而之所以缺乏决心与毅力，是由于缺乏锻炼……人们就怕这种文过饰非。

还有一些这样的故事，它们情节跌宕起伏，看上去光怪陆离，不论是真或假，看上去却缺少现实性。不禁让我发出了好笑——我们看了会发出一声赞叹，然后忽略掉这段本身意义。这类似于生活本来就比戏剧还要戏剧化。

而有一类-story-I call it "the last half of the pancake." Some celebrities and great men, after being pointed out by a master or receiving a wake-up call from someone, suddenly break through and embark on a glorious journey. Or perhaps we watch these stories and think, "I just need this one spark to change me into something more." This is like modern-day waiting for a rabbit to appear while standing still. A simple truth: The masters' breakthroughs are made possible by steady effort over time; they are simply triggered by an external factor. There is a story in the "One Hundred Parables" called "The Man Who Ate Only Half the Pancake," who regretted not eating only the last half when he finished his sixth half-pancake. We laugh at this foolish person without realizing that we may be making similar mistakes - laughing at others while ourselves being wasteful.

If someone's self-protection is unshakeable, even grand stories cannot move them. Philosopher Osho once said that one should become a "weak person," which means having an open heart capable of accepting any creation. A completely weak heart is like blank paper ready for any kind of writing.

In Jin Yong's novel "Legend of the Condor Hero," Guo Jing had such a weak heart - he was ignorant and stupid when learning from each master but was stronger than their disciples because he could learn from them all. Which teacher would choose an idiot as their apprentice? It can be inferred that every teacher knew that such vulnerability was most precious.

There is also something called internal stress in physics - material deformation under external factors causes interaction between its parts within to resist these factors' actions. Each person has internal stress too, which makes guarding one's mental fortress more difficult if it becomes too strong.

This world does not lack stories or emotions; what it lacks is action following inspiration. Knowledge alone leads nowhere; inspiring stories remain just inspirational tales until translated into action people take based on those inspirations.