Author: Dang Dang Thuc
Saigon University
Finance and accounting department
Banking and financial sector
Today, the economy - society goes up, information technology explodes, the Internet develops extremely fast, the search for information to serve study and work is for everyone in general, students - students. in particular becomes easier and has more choices. However, until now, no one can deny the role of books in providing knowledge to mankind. Because the book is the crystallization of the research works of philosophers, scientists, etc., the dedications of writers and poets… “All the spiritual capital of mankind is in the book” (Nguyen). Hien Le – “Self-study, a need of the times”). There is a lot of information on the Internet, but most of it has not been verified, in terms of accuracy, books are superior. Reading is also an art and an elegant pleasure. Science has proven that reading is an effective way to train the brain, a way to relieve stress and increase concentration.
Referring to books, everyone in life must have at least one book that makes a lot of impressions, the "bedside book", a manual to help us walk in life. In the books I have read, I pay special attention to the works of Nguyen Hien Le. Anyone who has read the book written or translated by Nguyen Hien Le must recognize that he is a talented author. He writes about many fields and in every field shows erudition and thorough research, his point of view is very simple "write to learn and learn to write", thanks to his eagerness to learn, he writes a lot. works (Over 100) but by writing a lot, he has learned more, from which his understanding is also broader. His writing is very simple, easy to understand, anyone who reads it can grasp the main content of the work. There are a few famous works that he has composed or translated such as Dale Carnegie's "Dac Nhan Tam", "Let go of worries and enjoy life" by Dale Carnegie, "World History" - written very easily, “Self-study – A need of the times” – is very practical for those who want to self-study but are “secret” of methods… All of which help our lives. Among the works of Nguyen Hien Le, the book "Strengthening the will to establish a self" has left the most impression and practicality for me.
"Strengthening the will to establish a self" is a handbook that helps us realize the essentials on the way of studying and working as well as the way we live in society, how to turn adversity into motivation to be able to achieve success. how to get rid of bad habits that hinder our willpower... thereby helping us to be firm to succeed in today's bustling and changing society. The book was written in the 50s of the last century, but the practicality is very high, it is worth checking out and practicing for students to lay the foundation for later life.
Nguyen Hien Le opened the book with a question: What is success? Surely all of us think: Having social status, beautiful wife, credit card ... is success. Was that really a success? He quoted a French story about a poor scribe who dreamed that his funeral would be big, and then one day he found a check with a huge amount of money inside, after wondering a Over time, he decided to take the money out of that check and become rich. Then he began to "smart", he used that money to speculate in politics, buy positions, buy rights, do all kinds of businesses and he became famous, when he died, the president also went to mourn with a large army. , he succeeded (achieved his wish). But Nguyen Hien Le said that if he succeeds in that way, it is better to fail like Confucius or Jesus ": A man who wandered from country to country without any king willing to use, one was crucified on the ground. cross between two thieves on the top of Mount Golgotha." We understand the word "success" in a different sense. “Success is the attainment of one's end by honest means, an end that is variable but never mean.” That is correct! And he also added: "In life, there are also real lives, but in ten cases, nine cases are caused by luck, not by external circumstances." Therefore, we should not blame fate to justify our bad deeds, which are all created by us. Successful people are those who know how to "take advantage" of those difficulties and overcome them and turn them into good results. “Edison had to experience failure a thousand times before he invented the electric light bulb, Beethoven became deaf in his old age but still composes immortal symphonies that are more famous than his predecessors… must overcome adversity. , building a new career worthy of praise?" "If you want to be successful like that, you can't rely on luck, but you have to have character." Most of Nguyen Hien Le's works emphasize personality; Because he was born into a Confucian family, and grew up in the "agrarian age" (the way he talked about the period before the August Revolution in 1945), so he was imbued with a lot of Confucian ethics. According to him, "education has the greatest influence on human behavior, but unfortunately, education today does not focus on virtue". In the past, children were disciplined by their parents very strictly, the way of teaching inadvertently made "many people become machines, losing their initiative" but thanks to being strict, people will have more self-control, win. emotions anymore. Today, children are free to roam, pamper, do whatever they want, become "tiny tyrants in the house", many children even talk nonsense with their parents, so how can there be a child? good manners from the start? At home, what about at school? He complained, “At school, people only focus on education, in order to teach young people that young people know a lot of science. Ethics became a subordinate subject and ethics teachers were criticized by students as antiquated. The selection of professors is only based on qualifications, not virtue, so many of them have very poor character, so how can students have good examples to follow?" He concluded, “The current education system does not practice character, so we have to practice it ourselves, the sooner the better.” Why is he so dignified, because “a high character is a powerful force, it greatly affects our life; Wherever we go, people will respect us, in any adversity we will be helped and will surely succeed.” “But if you want to practice character, you have to train your will first.” This is the main content and also the main purpose of the book as the title "Strengthening the will to establish a self".
Nguyen Hien Le affirmed that "Each of us has energy"! Because we have never stayed up late, missed the great movies, hung out with our friends before each exam, or had to wait in line for hours to buy a promotional product. somehow… Isn't that having the will to do it? Therefore, "no one is born without energy", just because we want to or not. He called it the "sickness of will". Reading the writing of this "energy disease", surely all of us will come across a part of our image. I find myself in this situation: “: We think that being human does not want to be free; but no, there are people who don't like freedom; they want some power to compel them and if they are set free they will do nothing. They don't lack initiative, but they don't make decisions, let others decide for them and then push them, they are reluctant to go forward." When entering the university door, almost every student is like "entering a paradise", going to school does not have to study, go to the lecture hall if you want, if you don't want to, stay at home, no more pressure like back in high school. information should be carefree playing, 4 years "given" that! Then the exam came to roll in like "crazy", of course the results could not be excellent, but indeed, studying first was "not in", there was nothing stimulating so it was impossible to concentrate. This way of learning makes the knowledge not stay long in the subconscious and is extremely harmful to the will. Then there are people who decide too quickly because of not thinking carefully, leading to impatience later on affecting their willpower... Too little will is not good, too much energy is also harmful, too much energy is successful. out of stubbornness, these people have no hesitation, make decisions very quickly, but anyone who has any suggestions will not listen, insisting on believing that they are right, "they are slaves to their will, closing their eyes and putting their heads in front of them." go first”, is that good? Those are the "energy diseases" that Nguyen Hien Le used very subtle and easy to understand examples to clarify the causes of the decline in people's willpower.
So how do you train your willpower? In addition to a clear mind, "it is necessary to know how to use the energy of emotions, especially the desire for profit, the desire for fame and love, to work enthusiastically and persistently." Sounds strange right? Let's take a look at how these emotions affect strength training: According to Nguyen Hien Le " greed Not noble, but powerful. Because of the love of money, so many people work hard from early morning until late at night, never opening their hands, forgetting even their children, not taking time off from illness, danger, and not giving up, selling their conscience and honor for cheap"; " greed for fame A little more noble, thanks to it, many writers have suffered poverty for decades, working on books all day to write… Admiral Bryd wants to explore the North Pole, the US government does not help him with money, he has to go. don't get much; then he smacked people's lust for fame, promising to take the names of the biggest donors and name the mountains he would earn in the North Pole; immediately dozens of millionaires gleefully signed him checks"; “The noblest is love , love your loved ones, love your countrymen, love humanity, love things America , female Foot , female Thien ... from sages like Shakyamuni, Confucius, Jesus, and savants like Pasteur, Berthelot, Curie, Einstein…. to the nameless sage mothers who sacrificed their lives to save their children… all of them, despite their high and low morale, love is a pure color, with the same intensity.” After analyzing those influences, he gave a practical example right away “: ..you want to learn more English… you will tell yourself, knowing that language, later easily earn more money, have the pleasure of reading again. understand English books, understand English literature. Can you be famous again… your friends will admire you for being well educated… After all, knowing English, you will teach your children and grandchildren, they will be good at that subject, what can be more enjoyable and proud? With that in mind, I'm sure you won't be afraid to study anymore." A very vivid and practical application for us when the country is on the way of development and integration, foreign languages are a condition to help us reach out to the world.
A big problem to form a person's will is to know " what do i want? ". Nguyen Hien Le made a remark that, although it is more than 50 years old, this statement is still true today and perhaps in the distant future “: Most young people at school do not know what they want to do. what?" Knowing what we want is very important, desire is the goal for us to reach, the motivation for us to overcome difficulties. " Would like indeed the most important thing in life and know want is the first step to success”. The reason is that from the school chair, most of the motivations in learning are not actually made by us, "what student does not want to memorize the lesson, do the lesson, be loved by the teacher, be more you, get the reward, get the exam? But that desire is not really wanted because it is due to habit, not by initiative… the program and timetable are meticulously regulated… students do not have to arbitrarily choose, decide on something, so when at school out, no longer being led step by step, they become confused, like people who have lost their way.” Because they don't know what they want, when choosing a career for themselves, many students choose because of the majority, because of their family, according to the "hot" level of the profession... leading to reluctant choice of profession, if lucky later they feel If you love it, it's still better, if you don't like it, it will be a burden to work, so life will be much less fun, if you don't enjoy it, you can work hard; and then the result is not successful at work, then we think that our life is gone, there is no future anymore, is it because we lack the energy to work! However, we must want what is within our reach, "don't want what is opposite or what we cannot do". But there are also wishes that, if you know how to divide it into small steps and then follow it in order, it will also be successful, like the company's short-term and long-term programs and plans.
After knowing "what you want", you should start training your willpower! First must know to decide quickly and accurately because "those who hesitate, do not know the decision is weak". In order to do that, after setting out the goals and programs, it is necessary to “think carefully and then specify each stage and method in practice so that later, we will not change our mind but decide to go and decide again. three or four times.” One of his decision-making practices that I find quite good is that when someone asks you for your opinion on how good a book is, which shirt is better… it's not a good idea to respond in general, “It's up to you. ” or “Whatever”, “although those choices are not important… but that attitude of not knowing the decision must be abandoned.” The decision is quick and right, you still have to know how to take the opportunity. "If Nguyen Hue did not know how to seize the opportunity that the Qing army was enjoying the Tet holiday, without any precaution but attacking like a storm at Dong Da camp, would he be honored as the first hero?... Napoleon ( Napoleon) had the same tactics as him… but once he made a mistake. On the morning of the last day of the Battle of Waterloo, he attacked a little late, he lost, had to be exiled to the island of Sainte Hélène, and changed the fortunes of France." Nguyen Hien Le concluded "Time flows steadily, but there are important minutes more than a year, determining the life of one person, sometimes tens of hundreds of millions of other people". Therefore, for young people, it is necessary to know how to seize opportunities quickly and at the right time to succeed. In terms of action, he advised us "no tomorrow", sounds strange, but actually if we want to have any work today, we should solve it immediately because "a job can be done today but can't be done". Tomorrow is hard to do because tomorrow has tomorrow's work." That is also the meaning of the familiar saying that we often hear when sitting in school chairs "do not leave today's work for tomorrow". Next, it is necessary to concentrate on thinking, to do that, one should practice "killing the daydreaming habit, especially the erotic daydreaming of young people, which evokes lust and makes people lazy and cowardly". “Love is necessary for human life, but it is always superfluous, so why mention it over and over again, only adding spears to the enemy. There are many noble feelings such as compassion, defending the weak, leniency, patience, solidarity... why don't people use them as themes to build useful plots for the education of young people? ?” It is true that when it comes to love, no one has enough spirit to do their best for the job because it's all in the "other half" already! Knowing how to control to be able to do a good job without distraction is already someone who has enough focus for energy. Focus and then be patient, he advises us to be patient with a very good sentence “If you want to succeed, never be disappointed; But if there is a time when you are frustrated, then just work in the disappointment.” Knowing how to make the most of your free time is equally important for success. “A little time may not be worth much, but a lot of little time is enough to do great things.” That's true! As long as we use our time on the bus to learn English vocabulary - one word will do - about a year later we will be surprised at the improvement in our vocabulary. In addition, Nguyen Hien Le also offers many other methods to help us train our willpower quite well, I would like to give a few ideas:
• If you are used to getting up late, you will definitely wake up before leaving tomorrow.
• You are used to lying on the bed for five or ten minutes after waking up, you should give up that habit and jump to the floor immediately.
• Every time we feel like taking a break, we should put in a little more effort, just a little bit. For example, you have studied English for an hour, and you feel that you want to "no longer come in", you plan to close your book and go out, but wait, please sit down for another five minutes, review the old lesson first. That extra five minutes may not do much for your studies, but it is very beneficial for building willpower. It is true that a certain school in France told students: "No one has yet set out where the end of fatigue is and where the beginning of laziness."
(Articles participating in the book review contest)
English 
Vietnamese