Once when Confucius was travelling with his disciples, he heard of a very intelligent boy living in a particular village. Confucius went to see and talk to him and he jokingly asked:
'How would you like to help me do away with all the irregularities and inequalities in the world?'
'But why?' asked the boy. 'If we flattened the mountains, the birds would have no shelter. If we filled up the deep rivers and the sea, the fish would die. If the head of the village had as much authority as the madman, no one would know where they were. The world is vast enough to cope with differences.'
The disciples left feeling greatly impressed by the boy's wisdom, and as they journeyed towards the next town, one of them commented that all children should be like that.
Confucius said: 'I've known many children who, instead of playing and doing the things appropriate to their age, were busy trying to understand the world. Not one of those precocious children did anything of any great significance later in life because they had never experienced the innocence and healthy irresponsibility of childhood.'
One doesn’t have to look far into history to realize what Confucius said in the above story was both confused and wrong. The following two examples can testify:
ReplyDelete1) Seven-year-old Charlie Simpson raised over 50,000 pounds for Haiti in one day
--> http://bit.ly/8Y7hHA
2) Hanna Taylor was 8 years old when she started The Ladybug Foundation to help the homeless --> http://www.ladybugfoundation.ca/
The issue here isn’t so much about the absence of the innocence and healthy irresponsibility of childhood, but rather the absence and the failure of surrounding adults to be proper guides and role models to help nurture and develop precocious
children. Confucius commented on what he observed about these precocious children but not what he did or failed to do for them. I wonder why.
So the confounding factor to the relationship between precocious children and failing to achieve significant things later in life could very well be delinquent adults.
Moreover, who can be a rightful judge as to what is significant and what is insignificant? Where is the point of reference for this kind of measuring? Every child is born for significance and just because Confucius couldn’t see it or didn’t think what some have achieved is significant doesn’t mean it is true.
A more constructive instruction would go along these lines… “Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” (St Paul encouraging his young associates; 1 Timothy 4:12 NKJV)