志: That Innate Purpose and Determination

What means the determined will and the noble integrity of a person? Does a scholar, or a gentleman or a soldier acting on behalf of their true hearts describe any meaning of a person’s determined will and noble integrity?

I think it does, and so did our ancestors. They created the character 志 to present a person’s innate purpose and determinate will, to describe a person’s noble integrity.

志 with 士- scholar, gentleman, or soldier on top of a 心-heart, it vividly draws a picture of a determined person with strong self-awareness and wills.

There is a tough guy in my life who deserves this tough character 志.

China’s most beautiful landscape avenue, Sichuan-Tibet Line 318 National Road, is the best choice for cyclists to challenge the limit:

1) A total length of 2,142 kilometers, 14 mountains, with an average altitude of more than 4,000 meters and about 100 kilometers distance cycling a day.

2) Snowy mountains, hail, exposure to the burning sun, and high temperatures happen in one day;

3) Altitude sickness because of riding uphill and downhill in a single day’s attitude ranging from 2600 meters to 5130 meters extremely requires and challenges human body physical limit.

Every year, there are countless groups of cyclists cycling there to taste the limits of life.

He was a member of one cyclist team there years ago. When he told me how his days looked like to him, this was his words with tears and laughter: “问坡何时止，坡曰骑到死！” — “When asked the uphill road when it would end, it says: Until you ride to your death!”

When the uphill road never ends, when the body physical limit is constantly being broken, when you seem to be the only one on this world on that never-ending cycling road, when you have very limited water and food in your back bag to save energy, when your whole body is completely exhausted and in massive muscle soreness…, your innate determined will to not give up is the only thing that drives you towards your daily purpose,..., and your life purpose.

This applies to everyone in everyday life, as well as career and business. It is just that we need to get a chance to discover our deep innate purpose and our strong will in reaching it and never giving up.

When the 14-year-old girl Quan Hongchan won the gold medal in the Tokyo Olympic Women’s 10-meter diving platform with a world record high score, her strong will is to earn money for mom’s illness treatments. Nothing could move her from her strongest will to perfectly complete each of her dives.

In the end, strong wills and determinations are coming from human hearts: love. A person with 志- innate purpose, determinate will, and noble integrity is a person of love.