[On Success] Clean your slate[关于成功] — 抹去过往，重新开始

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I’ve recently taken to collecting quotes on a large virtual sticky note on my computer screen. I find them comforting and inspiring to look at. One quote that I collected was from a conversation I had this past summer with a colleague.

We were at a cocktail event, chatting about our work experiences, and as the oldest among us (he was about 30 among us 20-somethings), he talked about his best pieces of advice for us, looking back on his years in our positions. One quote that really resonated with me was his advice to take every day as a clean slate. Life happens — and life happens at work. You make mistakes. You’re grumpy. You didn’t finish the work you meant to finish the day before. You made a bad impression on your friends or colleagues at work because you were having a bad day. The point is, everyone has bad days, and you can’t let those one or two bad days carry over. Oftentimes, people feel that they have been “dug into a rut” so to speak, in which they keep digging themselves deeper and deeper, and at some point, there is no way out.

My friend’s point, however, was that no matter how deeply you think you’ve dug yourself into a rut, when you come into work—or school—or life for that matter, the next day, think of it like you have gotten a brand new slate, all wiped clean. It seems like a trivial piece of advice, but I’ve found that just thinking of each day like a clean slate helps me to view the day optimistically. Having that optimism is a wonderful medicine to any troubles.

在之前的博客中提到过，我最近喜好收集各种格言警句并把它们贴在我的电脑屏幕前面。我觉得看看这些句子非常受鼓舞和启迪。其中有一句令我印象深刻的是我今年夏天和一位同事聊天时获得的。

我们当时在一个鸡尾酒会聊着我们的工作经历。他大概30岁，在我们一群20几岁的同事中年纪是最大的。他与我们分享着自己在这个职位上多年的工作经验，同时向我们提出了他觉得最有用的建议。其中有一条最能引起我的共鸣：他要我们把每一天都当做一个全新的开始。人生中经常会出现这样那样的差错，在工作中也同样如此。你会出错，你会情绪不好，你会无法按时完成工作。你因为心情不好而给同事和朋友留下坏印象。事实上，每个人的生活都会时好时坏，但你不能让那几天的坏日子占了上风。人们总是会觉得自己有时陷入了低谷，在同一个地方越陷越深，无路可逃。

但我的朋友却认为，无论你认为自己陷得多深，当你第二天开始参加工作或学习这些重要的事情时，想象你的人生是一个全新的开始，所有之前的一切都被抹去。这虽然听起来像是一条很不起眼的建议，但却让我可以乐观的看待每一天。有这样一种乐观的心境在我看来是解决一切问题的良药。