In its first year, it produced 10 apples, 9 were taken away and it got 1 for itself. Outraged at this, the apple tree cut itself off and refused to grow. The next year, it bore 5 apples, 4 were taken and it got 1 for itself. "Haha, last year I got 10%, this year I got 20%! Doubled." The apple tree was mentally balanced.

But there's more: it continues to grow. For example, the next year, it produces 100 fruits, 90 are taken away, and it gets 10 for itself.

Most likely, it gets 99 taken away and gets 1 for itself. But it doesn't matter, it can continue to grow, and the third year it bears 1,000 fruits ......

In fact, how many fruits it gets is not the most important thing. The most important thing is that the apple tree is growing! By the time the apple tree grows into a huge tree, all those forces that had hindered its growth will be so weak that they can be ignored. Really, don't worry too much about the fruit, the growth is the most important thing.

Psychological ReviewAre you a wage earner who has broken your own veins?

When you first started working, you were so talented and excited that you believed "I was born to be useful". But the reality soon knocked you a few sticks, perhaps, you have made a big contribution to the unit no one attention; perhaps, only to get verbal attention but can not get the benefit; perhaps ...... In short, you feel like that apple tree, the fruit of their own only enjoy a very small part of the difference with your expectations.

So you were angry, you were chagrined, you were whiny ......Eventually, you decided to stop trying so hard and let what you did go to match what you got. After a few years have passed, you reflect on this and realize that now you don't have the same passion and talent that you had when you first started working.

"Old and mature." We're used to laughing at ourselves like this. But the essence is that you've stopped growing.

These stories are all around us.

The reason why we make this mistake is because we forget that life is a journey, a whole, and we feel that we have grown up, and now it is time to bear fruit. We care so much about the momentary gains and losses that we forget that growth is what matters.

The good thing is, it's not like cutting off our own meridians in a Jin Yong novel. We can always quit doing that and move on to the path of growth.

Remember: If you're a working person and you encounter a boss or corporate culture that doesn't know how to manage, manages savagely, or manages incorrectly, remind yourself of this and don't cut off your own meridians out of aggravation and a full-on whine. No matter what comes your way, be an ever-growing apple tree, because your growth will always be more important than how much money you get paid each month.

II. The Parable of the Motives: For Whom the Children Are Playing

A group of children were playing and screaming in front of an old man's house. A few days passed and the old man could hardly stand it.

So he came out and gave each of the children a quarter, saying to them, "You've made the place lively, and I feel a lot younger, so this is a token of my appreciation."

The children were delighted, and still came the next day, frolicking as usual. The old man came out again and gave each child 15 cents. He explained that he had no income and had to give less, and that 15 cents would be fine, and the children still went away happy.

On the third day, the old man gave each child only 5 cents.

The children were furious, "5 cents a day, do you know how hard we work!" They swore to the old man that they would never play for him again!

Mental note: Who are you "playing" for

This parable is a deeper answer to the parable of the apple tree: why did the apple tree cut itself off because it wasn't "playing" for itself?

There are two types of motivation: internal and external. If we act according to internal motives, we are our own masters. If we are driven by external motives, we will be swayed by external factors and become its slaves.

In this parable, the old man's calculation is very simple: he changed the children's internal motivation "to play for their own pleasure" into an external motivation "to play for cents", and he manipulated the external factor of the cents, and therefore the children's behavior. He manipulated the external factor of cents and therefore manipulated the behavior of the children. Does the old man in the parable look like your boss? And are the cents, like, your paychecks, bonuses, and other kinds of external rewards?

If we use external evaluations as reference coordinates, our moods will fluctuate easily. Because external factors are beyond our control, they can easily deviate from our internal expectations, leaving us dissatisfied and grumbling. Negative emotions such as dissatisfaction and whining make us miserable, and in order to minimize our misery, we have to lower our internal expectations, most often by working less hard.

The main reason why a person develops an external evaluation system is that his parents like to control him. Parents are too fond of controlling their children by using verbal rewards and punishments, material rewards and punishments, etc., to pay attention to the child's own motives. Over time, the child forgets his original motives and cares a lot about external evaluations in everything he does. When he goes to school, he forgets the original motivation for learning - curiosity and the joy of learning; after work, he forgets the original motivation for work - the joy of growth, and the appraisal of his supervisor and the ups and downs of his income become his motivation. The ups and downs of his income became the source of his greatest joy and pain at work.

Remember: the external evaluation system often runs in the family, but you can break it by cultivating your own internal evaluation system from now on, so that learning and working can become "playing for yourself".

The parable of the plan: Folding a piece of paper 51 times

Imagine you have a large enough piece of white paper in your hand. Now, your task is to fold it 51 times. So, how tall is it?

A refrigerator? A floor? Or as tall as a skyscraper? No, not even close, this thickness exceeds the distance between the earth and the sun.

Mental note

By now, I've asked about a dozen people with this parable, and only two of them have said that it's probably an unimaginable height, and the highest anyone else can think of is as high as a skyscraper.

Folding 51 times is such a terrifying height, but what if you simply folded 51 sheets of white paper together?

This comparison has shocked many people. Because a life without direction and planning is like simply folding 51 pieces of white paper together. Do this today, do that tomorrow, and there isn't a connection between each endeavor. In this way, even if you do a great job on each of these endeavors, they are just a simple stack for your entire life.

Of course, life is a little more complicated than this parable. There are some people who have determined a simple direction in their lives and have done it with determination, and they end up reaching heights in their lives that are unattainable for others. For example, a friend of mine, whose life direction is English, has spent more than ten years trying to memorize more than 100,000 words, which is an unattainable height for the general public.

There are also some people who have a clear direction in life, such as starting a company and becoming a boss, so that they need many skills -- professional skills, management skills, communication skills, decision-making skills, and so on. They may try to do this and that at the beginning, none of which they are particularly proficient in, but in the end, the direction of opening a company and becoming a boss unites all these seemingly fragmented efforts into one, which is a complex folding of life, rather than a simple superposition.

Remember: visible power is more useful than invisible power.

Nowadays, it is popular to look for answers from unseen places, such as potential development, such as success, thinking that our life depends on some miracles to be saved. But, in my opinion, Mao Zhengqiang, a counselor at the Dongguan Heng Yuan Psychological Counseling Center, puts it more correctly, "It is far more important to make good use of existing abilities through planning than to tap the so-called potential."

Four, the parable of the escape: kittens escape from the shadow of the trick

"Shadows are nasty!" Tom and Toby the kittens both thought, "We must get rid of it."

However, wherever they go, Tom and Toby find that as soon as the sun appears, they see their own shadows that drive them crazy.

But both Tom and Toby eventually found their own solutions. Tom's solution was to always keep his eyes closed. Toby's solution, on the other hand, was to always stay in the shadow of something else.

Mental noteThis parable shows how a small mental problem can become a bigger mental problem.

It can be said that all psychological problems stem from a distortion of the facts. What facts? Mainly the negative events that cause us pain.

Because of the painful experience, we don't want to face the negative event. But once it has happened, such negative events are destined to stay with us for the rest of our lives, and the most we can do is to repress them into the subconscious, which is called forgetting.

But, they will still function in the subconscious mind as they always have. And, even if we forget the facts as much as we can, the pain that accompanies those facts still attacks us, making us inexplicably sad and uncontrollable. This pain makes us work further to escape.

Toward the end of the progression, the usual solutions are these two: either, like Tom the kitten, we completely distort our experience and turn a blind eye to all the important negative facts of our lives; or, like Toby the kitten, we simply throw ourselves on the pain and make everything very bad for ourselves, and, since everything's so bad, that original event that made us the saddest of the saddest of the saddest doesn't so painful.

Li Ling, a counselor at Baiyun Psychological Hospital, said 99 percent of drug addicts have had painful encounters. The reason they take drugs is so they can escape those pains. It's like hiding in the shadows, where the painful truth is a demon, and in order to avoid that demon, one simply sells oneself to a bigger one.

There are many other alcoholic adults who have had an alcoholic and tyrannical dad, and have taken a lot of torture from him. To forget that pain, they learned to do the same.

Besides these visible wrong ways, we humans have invented countless other ways of escaping pain in all shapes and sizes, which Freud called psychological defense mechanisms. These defense mechanisms are necessary when there is too much pain, but the bad thing is that if the psychological defense mechanisms distort the truth too much, it will bring out more psychological problems such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, social anxiety disorder, multiple personalities, and even mental **** disorders. There is only one way to truly arrive at health - facing pain head on. Those who face their pain directly will get many unexpected gains from their pain, and they will eventually become the wealth of the person's life.

Remember: Shadows are as much a treasure of life as light.

One of the most important psychological laws is that no matter how painful something is, you cannot escape it. You can only go to face it bravely, dissolve it, transcend it, and finally reconcile with it. If you lack the strength to do this yourself for the time being, you can look for help, for help from friends and family, or for professional help, so that someone you trust can be there with you to face these painful things.

The American psychologist Rogers was once the loneliest man alive, but when he faced this fact and dissolved it, he became a true master of relationships; the American psychologist Frank had a tyrannical and alcoholic stepfather and a terrible mother, but when he challenged this fact and finally forgave his parents from the bottom of his heart, he became an expert in treating this aspect of the problem; the Japanese psychologist Masuma Morita was a severe Japanese psychologist Masuma Morita was a severe neurotic, but he challenged this fact and eventually invented the Morita Therapy ...... The most painful facts of their lives turned out to be their most important assets. You, too, can do the same.

V. A Fable of Action - The Crab, the Owl, and the Bat

The crab, the owl, and the bat went to a cram school for bad habits. After several years have passed, they all graduate and receive their doctorates. However, the crab is still rampant, the owl still sleeps during the day and is active at night, and the bat is still hanging upside down.

Mental noteThis is a fable by Master Huang Yongyu, and its moral is simple: action is more important than knowledge.

Used in mental health, this parable is also thought-provoking.

The knowledge of psychology is vast. But more and better knowledge of psychology does not automatically help a person become healthier. In fact, I know of people who have studied psychology for years, and one of their goals in studying psychology was to cure themselves, but after so many years of study, their problems remain the same.

An important reason why this happens is that they don't do it physically, so that the knowledge is just distant knowledge, and the knowledge doesn't turn into their own life experience.

A friend of mine who is into psychology was once considered by several psychologists to be insensitive and unsuitable for psychology. But it turns out that this speculation was not correct. He was insensitive enough, but he had one very great advantage: knowing a good knowledge, he immediately went ahead and implemented it in his own life. In this way, the distant knowledge becomes a real life experience, and he doesn't have to "know" much to help himself and many others.

If high sensitivity is a quality of genius, then high mobility is an even more important quality of genius.

This parable also leads to another meaning: don't count too much on the magic of mystical psychotherapy. The most important power is always in you, and mystical knowledge, subtle potential development, dazzling success stories, etc., are not nearly as important as the power you already have in yourself. We are so used to looking outside for answers and to others for power that we forget that the power is in us.

Remember: other people's knowledge cannot automatically save you.

If some streak of witticisms strikes you, if some words or new creed inspire you. Then all these other people's words and experiences are just the beginning; it's more important that you take the knowledge you thought was good and actually apply it to your own life.

Jewish philosopher Martin Buber's quote, which I've always considered to be the most important: You must begin on your own. If you yourself do not go deeper into existence with positive love, if you do not reveal the meaning of existence for yourself in your own way, then it will remain meaningless to you.

Sixth: The Parable of Renunciation: The Bee and the Flower

The rose withered, and still the bee sucked desperately, for it had sucked sweetness from this flower before. But now on this flower the bee sucks poisonous juice. The bee knew this, for the poisonous juice was bitter and a far cry from its former flavor. So the bee was indignant; it took one puff and raised its head to complain to the whole world why the taste had changed! Finally one day, for some reason, the bee vibrated its wings and flew a little higher. That's when it realized that there were flowers everywhere around the wilted rose.

Psychological Review

This is a fable about love, a true epiphany of a young language teacher. For some time, she had fallen out of love and was in pain, and had been trying to make an appointment to talk to me, hoping that my knowledge of psychology could give her some help. We kept asking for an appointment, but almost two months passed, and the two of us could not happen to get together at the same time. The last time I asked her out, she said, "Thanks! No, I figured it out."

She had just returned from Jiuzhaigou. The pain of her lost love was still haunting her, leaving her in a trance and unable to enjoy the beauty of Jiuzhaigou. Without realizing it, she noticed a small bee collecting honey on a flower. In that instant, a phrase appeared in her mind like lightning: "On wilted flowers, bees can only suck the poisonous juice." Of course, little bees in nature don't do that, only humans are that stupid, and the bee in her sentence of course referred to herself. In that moment, she had an epiphany about giving up. In the past, she had tried to get me to help her walk out, but the wings were actually growing on her, and she could fly if she wanted to.

Giving up is not easy, and giving up in love is especially painful. For love is a replica of the parent-child relationship we had when we were young. A young child, in every way, cannot live without mom and dad. If mom or dad completely denies him, it means death to him, which is the ultimate hurt and fear. We have all more or less experienced the pain and fear of being denied by mom and dad, so it's easy for us to get very emotionally upset when love - a replica of the parent-child relationship - allows us to experience that pain and fear once again.

However, there is a huge difference between love and the parent-child relationship: when we were children, we were powerless and everything was up to our parents; but now that we are grown up, we have the power to choose our own destiny on our own. It can be said that in childhood, we were little bees without wings, but now we have a pair of strong wings.

But when y in love, we return to our childhood and we forget that we have wings to fly. When we realize this for ourselves, love will no longer be an automatic copy of the parent-child relationship, and we will be free of our love and have the strength to give it up.

Remember: love is a matter of two people, two completely equal and independent human beings. You can work at it, but it is not true that if you work at it, it will always work, because the other person, you don't have sway over.

So, no matter how much you care about love at one time, if the other person is adamant about leaving you, respect their choice. And, also, remember that you are no longer a child, who can only listen to the pain. You're an adult, you have strong wings, and you're perfectly capable of flying out of a relationship that has turned toxic.

Seven, intimate fables: the unique rose

The little prince had a tiny planet, and suddenly a delicate rose bloomed on the planet. Previously, there were only a few nameless flowers on the planet, and the little prince had never seen such a beautiful flower. He fell in love with the rose and took good care of her. For a while, he thought that this was the only flower in the world, only on his planet, and nowhere else. However, when he came to Earth, he found that there were 5,000 of these exact same flowers in just one garden. That's when he realized that what he had was just an ordinary flower. At first, this discovery, made the little prince very sad. But in the end, the little prince realized that even though there were countless roses in the world, the one on his planet was still unique, because that rose, he had watered, covered her with a flower cover, protected her with a screen, got rid of the caterpillars on her body, and listened to her grumbles and boasts, listened to her silences ...... In a word, he had tamed her, and she had tamed him; she was his unique rose.

"It's because you take the time for your rose that makes it so important." A fox tamed by the young prince said to him.

Mental note

This is a famous fable from the French masterpiece The Little Prince, which I have read dozens of times but still didn't understand until 2005. Faced with 5,000 roses, the Little Prince says, "You are beautiful, but you are empty, and no one can die for you." Intimacy is only meaningful if love is poured out. But now we have a growing epidemic of empty "intimacy," typified by the one-night stands that have proliferated on the Internet.

We are in a hurry to have it. It's as if every rose you own is worth one more point in your life. In the age of the Internet, having dozens of lovers is no longer too rare. But none of these promiscuous lovers I know are not empty. They don't enjoy relationships, they only enjoy conquest. "The stronger the desire to conquer, the less interested they are in the intimacy of the relationship." Rong Wei Ling, a counselor at Guangzhou Baiyun Psychological Hospital, said, "Before they have it, they will do everything they can to bring the relationship closer. But once possessed, they will quickly lose interest in the intimacy of the relationship. The stronger the desire to conquer, the faster the loss."

For such people, a rose garden is more attractive than a unique rose.

The beauty of a relationship, however, is precisely in the degree to which both people are committed and tamed. When both people are naturally committed and naturally tamed, the relationship becomes life-nourishing, making one's life fuller and better.

But no matter how intimate. The little prince is still the little prince, and Rose is still Rose; they are still two individuals. If the rose doesn't let the little prince travel, or if the little prince doesn't take the rose with him when he travels, and the two must stick together, the relationship ceases to be enjoyable and becomes a chore.

Remember: a relationship that is both intimate and independent of each other is better than a thousand average relationships. Such a relationship will save us from an irredeemable sense of loneliness and is the most important kind of salvation in our lives.

You can't know the beauty of such a relationship unless you've experienced it.