Looking further

Coming out of the meeting, Trường grabs Huy by the collar and asks angrily:

"Why did you vote for the other side to become director?"

Huy answers:

"Because I thought it would be beneficial."

"What benefit? If their side gets the directorship, our side loses a lot. What a strange thing to say."

"I think this time will be different. Mr. Vũ, the one they put up for director, has talent and integrity. He'll act fairly and things will go well."

"Who knows about talent and integrity. If their side comes to power, we're at a big disadvantage."

"I guess we will be at a disadvantage too. But our children will benefit. A person who acts impartially will put an end to our factionalism, so we will lose out. But in our children's generation, they'll enjoy the good results of that fairness."

"Nonsense. We have to hold everything in our own hands to be safe."

"You keep wanting to hold everything to be safe, and that's why our side has been losing credibility one thing after another. The other side has reform, foresight and integrity, so their credibility has shot up."

The world tends to hate people of talent and virtue. At bottom it is because we fear that others will surpass us. That state of mind is called envy. Pushing down the talented and virtuous may seem to win us a round, but it makes the whole society lose. Society needs so many more talented and virtuous people to build and develop, and if we keep watch and wipe out everyone who has talent and virtue, are we not harming society?

An envious mind is petty, narrow and cruel. Just from fear that others will outdo us, we drag them down and waste a good resource of the community. The law of cause and effect will surely bring envious people a very unpleasant result: they become untalented, keep missing lucky chances, and end up in a faraway, lonely place.

The opposite of envy is a generous mind. If someone has talent and virtue and can contribute to building the community, we back them, support them and help them. Even if our support lets that person rise above us, we are glad to give it. We put the common good above our personal honor, above our personal gain, above our pride. Supporting the talented may even cost us something now, but our descendants will enjoy the sweet fruit.

A country with many envious people finds it hard to develop, because they wipe each other out. A country whose people can see far enough to open their hearts to each other, and to the talented and virtuous, will soar.

We often hear the story of two cases in which three people fall into a deep pit. In the first case the three work together. One lifts another onto his head so that someone can reach the rim and grab something to climb out. Once up, he runs for help or finds a rope and comes back to pull up his friends. In the end all of them escape.

In the second case the three are jealous of each other. Whenever one grips the ground or a root to climb, the others wreck it by grabbing his legs and pulling him down. In the end they all die in the pit.

Seeing a talented, virtuous person and feeling glad and fond is the mark of a very high morality. Even though we have done nothing yet, that generous mind alone is already a big contribution to society. We must resolve in ourselves always to support the talented and virtuous. We sincerely hope there will be many people better than us to build a better society. Clearly we have not contributed much, so if someone can contribute more, they must be better than we are. Always wishing for many people better than ourselves is a noble morality. The result for a generous person is that a person of rare talent will appear among their descendants.