1. The story of Sun Jing’s provocation. From "Book of Han" 2. Song Lian liked reading when he was a child, but his family was very poor and had no money to buy books, so he had to borrow books from others. The more he read, the more he couldn't put it down, so he decided to copy it down. But the deadline for returning the books was coming soon, so he had to copy the books overnight. From "Song Lian's Study" 3. The story of Meng's mother's three moves. Flexibility means making non-principled changes based on different situations; not sticking to rules. In case of special circumstances, adjustments may be made as appropriate. From "Meng Mu's Three Moves".
Examples of learning to be flexible and achieving success
1. Shen Kuo's "Mengxi Bi Tan" of the Song Dynasty records: In the eighth year of Dazhong Xiangfu's reign in the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, There was a fire in the palace of King Rong Yuanyan, which affected the inner treasury of the palace. Zhenzong asked the Chief Minister (Prime Minister) to organize the restoration and ordered him to complete it as soon as possible. Building the palace requires soil, bricks, and wood. The transportation from other places to the imperial palace in the capital is a long way, and the transportation alone costs a lot of time and money.
After some planning, Ding Wei ordered the craftsmen to dig trenches on the capital street to collect soil and transport the soil to the palace. The original avenue turned into a wide and deep ditch. So Ding Wei issued another order to divert the water from the Bian River outside the city into the deep trench that had just been dug. The river flows into the ditch, and the wood, stones, bricks, etc. from the distant mountains are transported by boat directly to the entrance of the palace.
The palace was quickly repaired, and the burnt bricks, rotten tiles, and waste soil were backfilled into the ditch. According to this plan, soil extraction, material transportation, and waste disposal are completed at the same time, which not only shortens the construction period, but also saves hundreds of millions in costs.
2. In the mid-19th century, a large number of gold diggers came to California, USA. As the number of gold diggers increased, gold became more and more difficult to find. The local climate is very hot and dry, and water sources are extremely scarce. Many people die of thirst due to lack of water.
A seventeen-year-old boy, Yamer, had an idea and gave up the idea of ??gold mining and sold water instead. His action caused confusion and ridicule from many people. However, when many gold diggers returned empty-handed, Yamer had become a small rich man.
3. A donkey fell into a deep, abandoned trap. The owner weighed it up and decided that it was not worthwhile to save it, so he left, leaving him alone. Every day, people still dumped garbage into the trap. The donkey was very angry: He was so unlucky that he fell into the trap. The owner didn't want him anymore, and he wouldn't even let him die comfortably. There was still so much garbage thrown next to him every day. .
But one day, its thinking changed. It decided to change its attitude towards life (to be precise, it should be the attitude of a donkey). It stepped on the garbage under its feet every day instead of being overwhelmed by the garbage, and found some leftovers from the garbage to maintain its physical fitness. Finally one day, garbage became its stepping stone and it returned to the ground.
4. When Napoleon was fighting against the enemy, he encountered stubborn resistance. His team suffered heavy losses and the situation was very dangerous. Napoleon also accidentally fell into the quagmire and was covered in mud and embarrassed. But at this time, Napoleon didn't care. He only had one belief in his heart, that is, he must win this battle no matter what. He just heard him yell, "Come on!"
His soldiers couldn't help laughing when they saw his funny look, but at the same time they were inspired by Napoleon's optimism and confidence. For a time, the soldiers were passionate and brave, and finally won the final victory of the battle. No matter in any critical predicament, we must maintain an optimistic and positive attitude and turn difficulties into good times.
5. Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu jointly formulated a plan to attack Cao Ying with fire. However, the northwest wind has been blowing on the river for the past few days. Attacking with fire will not only fail to burn Cao's soldiers on the north bank, but will burn himself. Zhou Yu was depressed about Dongfeng's affairs and fell ill in bed. After Zhuge Liang found out, he wrote a prescription for Zhou Yu. Zhou Yu opened it and saw that it read: If you want to defeat Cao's soldiers, you should attack with fire. Everything is ready, all we need is the east wind.
Zhou Yu admitted that Zhuge Liang had guessed what he was thinking, and asked Zhuge Liang what he could do. Zhuge Liang said that he could borrow the east wind. He asked Zhou Yu to build a seven-star altar nine feet high for him, and then he performed the ritual on the altar.
In fact, Zhuge Liang himself did not know how to "borrow" the wind, but he was familiar with astronomy and geography. By observing changes in landforms and organisms, he had already calculated that there would be a southeasterly wind on November 20th. Therefore, He went to the Seven Star Altar and made some pretentious gestures.
On November 20th, a southeasterly wind blew.