Less Money Can Also Promise a Better Life

By Qian Xing

speeches and Manuscripts at New Asia College is a collection of works written by Mr. Ch’ien Mu (or Qian Mu, 1895-1990), a master of Chinese traditional culture, which depicted his experience of ten years’ school management in Hong Kong. Here is a paragraph from it about how to live a better life:

“Today I’ll talk about how to live well, and I’ll quote the words in the Analects of Confucius: The master said, ‘Aspire to truth, rely on virtues, base on benevolence, and divert in arts.’ To live a good life, the first principle is that we must be reasonable. If not, we cannot live a better life. The second is that we must cultivate and develop our personalities based on virtues. With bad conscience or poor temper, we won’t be able to lead a better life. The third is to ‘stick to benevolence.’ It is barely possible for a man to stay or live alone. We depend on our parents, brothers and sisters at home while we rely on our classmates, colleagues and friends in society. One should not be partial to oneself, but be open-minded. We should love everyone around us and stay close to people of virtue before we can live a better life. And the fourth is to ‘divert in arts’ which means we should live in a variety of ways and achieve multifarious accomplishments to make our days colorful.”

This was his New Year speech to teachers and students at New Asia College. Nowadays, when people talk about living a better life, they tend to talk about money, but are the rich leading a better life? Is it true that poor couples are necessarily pessimistic about everything? Mr. Ch’ien’s remarks seem to be simple, not an “important speech”—yet very practical. To live up to these four principles, we can live a better life even if we have a pitiful income.

(From Wenhui Book Review. Translation: Qing Run)

錢少也能過好日子

文/錢行

《新亞遺鐸》是國學大師錢穆先生在香港辦學十多年中積累的文集，其中有一段講怎樣過日子：

“今天我且談談如何過日子，我又要引《論語》上的話：‘子曰：志于道，據于德，依于仁，游于藝。’過日子，第一要懂得道理，不懂道理，是不能過好日子的。第二要根據德性修養，壞良心，壞脾氣，也不能過好日子。第三是‘依于仁’，人不能離群獨居，不能單獨一人過日子。在家有父母兄弟姐妹，出外有同學同事朋友。一個人不能偏愛己身，應心胸開闊，‘泛愛眾而親仁’，而后才能過好日子。第四是‘游于藝’，過日子要多花樣，要多才多藝，使日子過得多姿多彩。”

這是他在新亞書院一次師生新年聯歡晚會上講話的一段。今人談到過好日子，往往好談錢，但是有錢人過的日子都好嗎？貧賤夫妻真的必然是百事哀嗎？錢先生這段話好像是隨口講講的，不算什么“重要講話”。但淺顯的道理很實用，做到這四條，即使收入低，也能過好日子。