Einstein did not find a good job when he graduated from university, and his colleague asked his father to help Einstein get a job as a patent technician at the Swiss Patent Office. Einstein created his miracle year here. If Einstein hadn’t had a job that would have allowed him to settle down and distract him from the pressure of providing for his family, would he have been able to do so in his most creative and energetic years? During the revolutionary war years, Chairman Mao developed the habit of working at night, so that he could better ensure a quiet desk at night.
I think back to my years of work on the go, and a few years I was caught up in the whirlpool of work, and I couldn’t have a quiet desk in my rented home. I felt that I had become vulgar, my sense of purpose had disappeared, I had become impetuous, I had no passion for my work, and I had no progress in my career. “Poor couples mourn”, their income is not good, there are many family conflicts, and their spleen has become irritable. Life is caught in a vicious cycle, and although you feel it, it is difficult to reverse it. My career has entered a period of exhaustion, the work is very tiring, the income is not high, the sense of insecurity about the future, the sense of uncontrollability and unpredictability hit from time to time.
I received a call from the deputy leader of my former unit and returned to work. I ended my wandering life as a part-time worker and returned to the unit I had left for more than ten years. It’s a job with a small workload, a medium income, and a lot of free time. The unit was newly built after demolition, with a total area of 90 acres. The new office building was not occupied, we worked in the old office building. The old office building is a two-story Soviet-style building, followed by a large factory building, which is a witness of the national third-line planning. I finally had my own separate office, on the second floor near the side of the road. In front of me is a 450-acre lake. The office is newly air-conditioned and equipped with laptops and printers, just no new desks. I put together three old desks into one big desk.
The corner of the desk was full of old books bought from Pinduoduo, from university language, university physics, advanced mathematics, cost accounting, economic principles, to Mao Zedong’s anthology, professional books, and Chinese English editions, I finally fulfilled my dream, I have my own independent study time.
I integrate learning with work, work is a kind of learning, and learning is for better work. My transformation from an angry youth to an adult seemed to be completed in an instant, and I seriously put into my work, writing summaries, writing papers, writing reports, writing materials, and my work attitude became positive. After years of social struggle, I have discovered the difficulty of survival and recognized myself more clearly. I am an ordinary person, and undergraduate and graduate diplomas are not enough for me to live a good life. This quiet desk allows me to quietly stick to my dreams.
A quiet desk makes my work full of planning and autonomy, no longer suffering from being disturbed by others, not suffering from lack of time. After eating in the cafeteria at noon, I closed the office door, took out a book on the desk to read, waited for sleepiness to come, and then lay down on the chair, slept for twenty or thirty minutes, woke up and it was still early for work, I went back to the desk, made a plan for the work to do, felt that there was no problem, I would continue to read the book I was interested in. At work, I read professional books or work papers.
This quiet desk allows me not to worry about the troubles of raising my family, not worrying about being abandoned by the times, and not worrying about becoming bad and vulgar. I have a lot of time to figure out what the unit needs? What does leadership need? What can I do? What kind of framework do I need? How to do what you can. After my career was energetic, my family conflicts were resolved, allowing me to devote more time to my studies and work.
During the holidays, I have to accompany my son to study, accompany my daughter to play, accompany my wife to do housework, and from time to time I want to return to my desk, where I can arrange myself autonomously.