Our PotentialZhang Baotong 2017.12.24

What is potential? There's a true story to tell you. A young mother went out to buy groceries, and just about 100 meters out of the building, she noticed that her child was sliding down the drain pipe outside the window on the sixth floor. But he didn't catch it, and he fell from the height of the 6th floor all at once. At this time, the young mother dropped the basket and ran downstairs, catching the falling child with both hands in time. It's a miracle to say, because she ran the 100-meter distance in just four seconds, more than half faster than Jamaica's Usain Bolt's 100-meter world record of 9.69 seconds! That is, if you are asked to carry 100 kilograms of bricks, you may not be able to carry them at all. But if you were to carry 100 kilograms of gold. You're sure to be able to carry it for a run. That's potential. Potential is potential energy. Human potential is limitless, depending on whether you have the ability to develop it.

Last night, I watched the live broadcast of the "2017 12th Love Award Ceremony" on Hong Kong Phoenix Satellite TV, and I was very moved by the deeds of an award-winning person named Yuan Cunquan, which inspired me to write this article. Yuan Cunquan is a high-ranking paraplegic youth in Hei Blind Zigou Village, Nanshan Town, Qingyuan Manchu Autonomous County. In 1996, 21-year-old Yuan Cunquan had an accident while helping others pull firewood, and his cervical spine was trampled by a cow, resulting in high paraplegia. Yuan Cunquan has no sensation below the cervical spine, and all he can do is blink. At that time, doctors predicted that Yuan Cunquan would not live for more than two years at most. In order to treat Yuan Cunquan, the family spent all their savings, but his father couldn't withstand the heavy blow and died of illness, and his wife also left a child and left him. Many people believe that for Yuan Cunquan, death may be a relief; But Yuan Cunquan did not give up appreciating the meaning of life. In the 17 years from 1996 to 2013, he lay on his bed, bit a pencil in his mouth, and wrote 2 million words of literary works on manuscript paper, more than 40 of which were published in national, provincial and municipal newspapers and magazines. He also wrote a 400,000-word long story "Ice Cream Blossom" based on his own experience.

I was shocked to see Yuan Cunquan's deeds and achievements. If I hadn't seen him lying on the bed, biting a pencil in his mouth, writing stroke by stroke, I wouldn't have believed it. For such a disabled person, it is already a miracle to survive. However, he was able to write with his mouth and wrote more than 2 million words. Such an achievement is unattainable not only for many writers who love literature, but also for some professional writers.

Compared with my own life, after graduating from university, I also set an ideal goal and wanted to become a writer. However, now that I have retired, I have written some works and become writers who have signed contracts with the website, but my works have always been mediocre and have not had much impact. Therefore, I often comfort myself or warn myself that I am just an amateur writer, with a formal job and salary, and I don't rely on writing to earn a living and support my family, so I can write as much as I can, and I can write as well as I can, and there is no need to make myself too miserable and push myself too hard. Sometimes when I see others succeeding and winning awards, I will also lament that I am intellectually sparse, lack of talent and talent, and sometimes I feel that my level is too poor, my skills are too shallow, and I even feel that I am not a person in that circle, and it is impossible to become famous and start a family like those celebrities.

Perhaps a person, whether successful or not, will find many reasons for himself. In fact, almost all people who do not succeed or do not achieve their dreams are blamed on not working hard enough and not fully developing their potential. If we can persist like Yuan Cunquan, break the cauldron and fight against the odds, we should be much higher than his achievements. Because after all, we are normal people who are in good health, not only can we write hard with our hands, but also can use computers, and our work efficiency is many times higher than his. I once saw a young man with no arms at all writing on the ground on the streets of Huaibei, and the writing was so good that even people of culture like me were ashamed. and Yang Li from the No. 2 Middle School in Wuhe County, Anhui Province, who was injured by high-voltage electric shock when she was four years old and had both arms amputated shoulder-to-shoulder. Yang Li, who is so strong, exercises to write and draw with her feet, and her academic performance has been very good from elementary school to high school. and Helen Keller, who was blind in both eyes and deaf in both ears at 19 months due to cerebral congestion and stomach congestion. However, she completed a series of works, among which "If You Give Me Three Days of Light", which has been hailed as "an unparalleled masterpiece in the history of world literature". She also worked for the benefit of people with disabilities, established charities, and was named one of the top 10 American heroes of the twentieth century by Time magazine in 1965. There is also the famous British physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking, a patient with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, paralyzed and unable to pronounce. He studied cosmology and black holes, proved the singularity theorem of general relativity and the black hole area theorem, proposed the phenomenon of black hole evaporation and the borderless Hawking model of the universe, and was one of the most outstanding physicists after Newton and Einstein, and was known as the "king of the universe".

Judging from the miracles of life created by these disabled people, the human potential is often astonishing. Scientists have pointed out that there are 200 billion brain cells in the human brain, which can store 100 billion pieces of information, and that thoughts travel more than 300 miles per hour, have more than 100 trillion staggered lines, and generate 4,000 thoughts every 24 hours on average, making it the most sophisticated and sensitive machine in the world. Studies have found that there are countless untapped resources in the brain, and the average person uses less than 5% of brain power, and Einstein is so smart that he only uses about 2% more brain power than ordinary people. Therefore, the human brain still has at least 90% more potential, and if these potentials are developed and used, that ability will be immeasurable.

The human body also has a lot of potential. According to a survey, the normal reading speed of a person is 30-40 pages per hour, but a trained person can reach 300 pages per hour, and the bearing capacity of human bones, such as the femoral joint, is 3-4 times that of body weight, the knee joint is 5-6 times that of the knee joint, the calf bone can withstand 700 kg of force, and the twisting load capacity is 300 kg. It can be seen that by unearthing the hidden power in the human body, human beings can overcome many hereditary weaknesses and challenge the limits.

I've watched "Challenge the Impossible", which covers the ultimate challenges of skills, physical fitness, brain power and other items. Someone can see three E-shaped signs with a size of two centimeters on the front of the car in the distance at the starting point of 0 meters. Someone can dive in the water for more than 19 minutes without any protective measures. Someone can drive a tractor and walk a tightrope. Someone can open a bottle in a helicopter. Someone was able to carry a large rock weighing 461 kilograms and walk 8.84 meters. Someone can cut a steel wire on a light bulb. Someone can draw the face of a criminal by impression. Someone can do mental arithmetic faster than a computer. These human miracles, which are considered "impossible", are in fact examples of beyond conventional potential. Dr. Zhang Lan of the Mental Health Center of West China Hospital of Sichuan University once encountered such an incident: an old lady who was nearly 70 years old pushed the piano out of the house when her home caught fire. After the fire passed, no matter how hard she tried, the piano did not move. Because in times of crisis, mental strength and the will to survive can significantly improve physical strength and endurance.

We may have had similar experiences, such as when we were trying to become a writer, we could stay up for three days and three nights without eating or sleeping, writing day and night. However, when our dream could not be realized, we collapsed all at once, and we could no longer lift that kind of energy. Another example is that we often play games, and when we are in good shape, we can take down the opponent who we usually can't beat. When you're not in good shape, you'll lose to an opponent who is much worse than you. Because of the influence and influence of physical and mental factors, when we participate in exams, competitions, performances or normal work, our state will always be good and bad, and our grades will fluctuate. And this state of ours is actually the most normal reflection of our inner potential.

Perhaps it is because our ordinary life and work do not exist at all, so we have to give full play to the kind of blockbuster potential, large-scale development and release, so that the "possible" potential in our body slowly becomes "impossible". We could have become a writer, a top student in the college entrance examination, a world champion, an actor or singer, but now we are just ordinary workers, cadres or retirees. It's not that we don't work hard, it's just that we haven't been able to tap and give full play to our potential for various reasons, and there are subjective reasons and objective reasons. As the old saying goes: If you lose the east, you will reap the mulberry. This is the mystery of all things in the world. In other words, no matter what you do, you will lose and gain, and you can't have both. You didn't become a writer, but you didn't suffer from chronic gastrointestinal problems. You didn't become a World Champion, and you didn't leave a body hurt. You didn't get the top spot in the college entrance examination, but you got a lot of other pleasures. You didn't become an actor or singer, but you did a lot of things you loved. Moreover, the world does not need so many writers, world champions, college entrance examination champions, and actors and singers.

Yes, we don't need to exert our potential beyond the norm or overload, but we should continue to study and work with concentration, and do a good job in our study and work with that tenacious and persistent spirit, so that our study and work can be improved and our life can be perfected.