Among the traditional Chinese virtues, there is a valuable idea called step-by-step. This thought originated from "Laozi", which said: "The tree that hugs each other is born from the smallest moth; the nine-story platform is born from tired soil; a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. ... Be careful to the end as you began, and you will not be defeated. ""

This passage means that everything in the world has an evolution process of occurrence and development, and no matter what we do, we cannot achieve it overnight. Only by consistently maintaining a conscientious attitude can we remain invincible.

Confucius advocated "learn and practice from time to time" and "review the past and learn the new", which is the same principle. Xunzi collected the theories of other schools and modified them, then turned them into his own words: "If you don't accumulate steps, you can't reach a thousand miles; if you don't accumulate small streams, you can't build a river or a sea. ... If you persevere, you can carve metal and stone." It developed into the Southern Song Dynasty, and then Zhu Xi's creative summary became the wise saying of "step by step".

Doing something without fighting is another valuable thought contained in traditional Chinese virtues. If we look into its origin, this idea can also be traced back to Laozi. The last chapter of the book says: "The sage does not accumulate. Since he thinks that others have more for himself, he has given more to others and himself. The way of heaven is to benefit without harm; the way of the sage is to do without fighting."

The "non-fight" mentioned here is based on the premise of "for". The so-called "wei" has two meanings. The first level is the preceding words "weiren" and "with others", which means benefiting others and giving to others. The second level is the four "not self-conscious" mentioned in Chapter 22 of the book, namely "not self-seeing", "not self-righteous", "not self-defeating" and "not self-respecting". In other words, in life, you should not only do things that are beneficial to others, but also do what you should do first. This is called "doing without fighting."

Confucius also advocated that "a gentleman has no contention", but his approach was slightly different from Laozi, and what he said was "respect and no contention". In other words, the indisputable premise is "Zhen". The same word "睜" is used by Laozi to boast and respect others, advocating "not to be proud of oneself", while Confucius uses it to be respectful and uphold oneself. Although the teaching methods are different, they all start from strict self-discipline. Only in this way can we have Confucius's "If you want to establish yourself, you can establish others; if you want to achieve yourself, you can achieve others"; "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do to you." It is precisely to carry forward the thoughts of the sages that Mencius advocated: "Old people are like the old people, and young people are like the young people."