我踏马而来

In 2025, I read a book called 'The Surrender Experiment', which taught me a valuable lesson: the more you resist something, the more it entangles you; the more you allow it, the more it walks away. At the time, I only thought it made sense, but it wasn't until I heard the story of mathematician Wang Hong that I was truly struck by it. Wang Hong was a girl from a small town in Guangxi who studied mathematics at Peking University and later pursued further education in France. However, after arriving in France, she found herself surrounded by excellent people and struggled to keep up. During that time, she felt particularly lost. She said, 'My mind was full of question marks, and I didn't know what to do.' Most people would have forced themselves to work harder - staying up late, doing more exercises, and trying to catch up inch by inch. But Wang Hong didn't. She took a step back and temporarily put aside mathematics to study architecture. She thought that since she couldn't make progress in mathematics at the time, she might as well try a different path. After studying architecture for a while, she found that she still couldn't let go of mathematics. So she went back to it. Surprisingly, her state of mind had completely changed. She said she was 'no longer anxious' - the question marks in her mind had disappeared, her heart had calmed down, and she was able to continue her research with a clear mind. It was in this peaceful state that she proved the 'Three-Dimensional Hanging Conjecture', which had puzzled the academic community for years, and became the first Chinese woman to win the Fields Medal. Later, when she recalled this experience, she said something that has stayed with me: 'All detours are shortcuts; just keep walking, and every step counts.' We all encounter moments like Wang Hong's - feeling lost, unable to see the direction, and thinking that everyone around us is moving forward while we're stuck. At such times, most people's instinct is to 'resist': I must work harder, I must be faster, I must find the answer immediately. But Wang Hong did the opposite - she allowed herself to be lost, to take a detour. When I watched her interview, I suddenly thought of the desert I saw in Dunhuang last year. The endless yellow sand stretched out like the sea. I thought of Zhang Qian, who traveled to the Western Regions over 2,000 years ago, walking on a similar path. Without GPS or a map, he didn't even know if he could reach his destination alive. He just relied on his determination and took one step at a time. He didn't treat the desert as an enemy; he simply allowed himself to walk through it. And then, he made it through. We are all Zhang Qian in the desert of life. We don't know which direction to take, we don't know if the next step will lead to a dead end, and we don't know if we can reach our destination. The only thing we can do is walk our own path, allow ourselves to be lost, allow our direction to be temporarily unclear, and flow like water, going wherever it takes us, without questioning right or wrong, just flowing. Wang Hong's story made me realize that confusion is never a mistake; it's the pause button life gives you. It allows you to take a breath before turning a corner, to clarify what you truly want before embarking on a new path. So, if you're standing at a crossroads, unsure of which direction to take, don't rush to resist the confusion. Try stopping, allowing yourself to be temporarily uncertain, and allowing things to unfold without immediate answers. Just keep walking, even if it takes a detour.