A middle-aged man leads a bad life. To get rid of it, he went to the Zen master for advice.

The Zen master didn't say anything, just let him carry a basket, walk along the rugged path, pick up stones and put them in the basket.

Middle-aged people made it. After a long walk, there are more and more stones in the basket and his shoulders are getting heavier and heavier.

He couldn't bear it and had to turn around and return.

The Zen master asked him how he felt, and he replied, "I am very tired and heavy."

The Zen master revealed to him: "When people came into this world, the basket they were carrying at first was empty. With more and more contacts and experiences, all the engraved marks, like those pebbles, remain in my heart.

However, the carrying capacity of the heart is limited. Fatigue is inevitable when you catch too much, pack too much and are overwhelmed. "

People always have greed, always want everything, and feel that the more they have, the happier they will be. For example, the more clothes the better, the more friends the better, the more opportunities the better, the more houses the better ... So I desperately want to get more choices, only to find that many people are getting more and more anxious and lost in various choices.

Wu Jun analyzed this in his book Knowledge. He is the former vice president of Tencent and the main designer of Google's search algorithm in China, Japan and South Korea. He is the author of Beauty of Mathematics, Top of the Trend and Light of Civilization. In the book, he shared his own experience and the experience of contemporary leaders in a wise way, providing readers with a unique perspective worthy of in-depth thinking.

Wu Jun used a large number of cases to analyze "happiness without choice" in his book. The key to living a relaxed and happy life is to subtract life.

Why are relatively backward Indians more successful?

"People's nature is like to increase, don't like to reduce, like to get and don't like to give up. However, many times, reducing and giving up will make us live better. "

Wu Jun shared such a set of data in the book: China people are smart and diligent, but in recent years, there are many Indian immigrants who serve as CEOs in large American companies, while there are almost no China people at the same level; There are also many more Indians as vice presidents in Fortune 500 companies than in China.

Professor Kaiyuan Hsee from the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago gave an explanation from the perspective of happiness-because Indians lack choices, and the happiness and sense of accomplishment brought by not choosing help their elites succeed in the company.

China's current marriage advocates free love, and everyone is free to choose a partner. However, the survey found that China's willingness to get married reached a record low, and the divorce rate was getting higher and higher. Because people have more and more choices, their attitudes towards marriage are becoming more and more casual.

In India, deeply influenced by the caste system and traditional concepts, they pay attention to "parents' orders and matchmakers' words" and require that they must be of the same caste, so their choice of marriage partners is very limited.

It is precisely because Indians have no choice in marriage that they are much happier than those countries that only pay attention to choice but not family.

Apart from marriage, Indians have limited career choices. Therefore, they have to be dead set to run their own jobs and try their best to climb up.

Compared with Indians, China people have too many choices, which makes them impetuous. Riding a donkey to find a horse is very common. They don't want to operate in one place and one field for a long time, and spend too much energy on choice instead of operation, so it is difficult to make progress.

Bai Zeng said in his speech "The Story of Time": "The greatest feeling of life at the age of 30 is to look back. I think it's important to do subtraction.

Why do you want to do subtraction?

You are not suitable for everything, whatever you want to do suits you. Eight lines are tied to you, and how far you can run, you may contain each other.

Architect van der Rohe has a famous saying: Less is more. That is, "less is more."

Nowadays, many people generally commit a disease called "difficulty in choosing", which is because they are entangled in too many choices. Ma Song mentioned a psychological phenomenon in Top Students in Friends Circle: decision paralysis, because there are too many choices, and you spend too much energy comparing options, but you don't know how to choose.

Eiko Yamashita of Japan wrote a book "Running away from home", advocating "minimalism" and returning life to the most essential simple needs.

1845, American scholar Thoreau ran to Walden Lake.

I built a log cabin and lived alone for 2 years and 2 months.

He said: "I am willing to go deep into life and absorb the essence of life.

Live a solid and simple life and get rid of everything that doesn't belong to life.

Drive life to the wall, in the most basic form, simple, simple, simple again. "

First, do subtraction in material desires.

There is a saying: girls are always short of clothes in their closets.

Obviously a wardrobe full of clothes, when dating, before going to work, before going out, I have to try it on for a long time, and I still complain mentally that I have no clothes to wear. We always can't satisfy our material desires like a bottomless pit, so we have been on the road of "buying while buying" and become a group of soldiers.

Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, is the youngest billionaire in the world. But he is a loyal supporter of minimalism. Wearing gray short sleeves for many years, he said:

"I bought a lot of identical gray short-sleeved T-shirts. I want to make my life as simple as possible without worrying about making too many decisions."

Zuckerberg

The more successful people are, the more they pursue a simple life, and the less they will be controlled by material desires.

Second, do subtraction in doing things.

Some people are called "poor and busy people". They always seem to be very busy and diligent, especially "progressive". They go to work during the day, come back from work, learn painting, photography, English, wps…… .................................................................................................................................................

The biggest problem of such people is that they are too greedy. They want to learn everything and do everything, but they can't do it, are inefficient and busy, and finally accomplish nothing.

Buffett's rule of managing time is to write down 25 things that you think are important, and then pick out 5 important things from these 25 things. Many people ask the remaining 20 things and then do it slowly? That's not true. Those 20 things were cut off and not done.

Buffett's strategy of managing time is subtraction, not addition. Treat those things that can and can't be done with strategy, cut and cut, cut them all.

Buffett (male name)

Because only by cutting off all unimportant things can you ensure that all your energy, time and wisdom are spent on very important things.

Wu Jun mentioned in Insight that the secret of management is not to choose.

Samsung has cut hundreds of mobile phones to only a few that can be slapped. With these models, Samsung has occupied the first position in the market share for a long time. Nicholas George Heyek, the god of Swiss watch industry, once said that the category of Omega watches has been reduced from several thousand to more than 100, but the sales volume has increased greatly.

It can be seen that whether it is an individual or a business operator, knowing how to do subtraction is the way of wisdom.

Third, do subtraction socially.

With the convenience of communication, we constantly want to make as many friends as possible, whether in virtual social software or in real life. In order to maintain some "brothers" friends, I am often busy with various parties, having dinner today and singing K songs tomorrow. ...

On social software, join various communities, drown in various group messages, and spend a lot of time "climbing stairs" every day for fear of missing any information. ...

Many times we think we are maintaining social ties, but in fact we are just wasting ourselves, being kidnapped by others and wasting our time.

Clean up your "circle of friends", subtract social interaction and get rid of some superficial contacts, so that you can better understand who is really important.

"We discard the unimportant 90% in life, and the remaining 10% will make us gain more."

People who know how to live actually inherit the wisdom of subtraction life.

When I grow up to a certain age, I find that people who can really live are actually people who know how to do subtraction for life. Knowing what you don't want, you should decisively throw away what you want, all redundant items and ineffective interpersonal relationships, and focus on the most important things, so that you can breathe freely, have a clear goal and move forward lightly.