At Fifteen I Set My Heart on Learning

Second: every decade brings a new level. At thirty he stood firm. Free of doubts at forty: plenty of twenty-year-olds can recite that line, but what does a twenty-year-old know about doubt? At that age parents and teachers tell you what to do. Real confusion tends to arrive around forty, when you face life on your own and the questions start coming. That is exactly when Confucius saw his direction clearly. At fifty he understood what his life was meant to carry. At sixty his ear was attuned: praise and criticism alike went in and made sense. It is a staircase going up. Turn it around: if someone stays in the same place for decades, so that forty looks just like twenty, something precious has been wasted.

Third: “following my heart without crossing the line” is the top step. The first half is what everyone wants. The second half is the hard part. If Confucius reached it only at seventy, then before that, following his heart could still take him over the line. Nor did he wake up on his seventieth birthday transformed: it was built up, a little at a time, over decades. At this level, what you naturally want to do is exactly what you ought to do, and what you ought to do comes naturally. We often live the other way round: what we want is what we shouldn't, and what we should feels forced. No wonder we are tired.