Summer is a nightmare with me, for my stomach always gives a lot of trouble, making me slimmer than slim. This year is even worse---- I began to feel dizzy from time to time. That was a bad sign that I could not ignore, so I decided to consult a doctor in Hangzhou, the capital city of Zhejiang province.

After doing some search on the Internet, I finally found an expert in Chinese medicine, who is a professor of Zhejiang Chinese Medicine University. The hospital is very small but completely different from other hospitals we usually see. No x-ray, no blood test, no B scan, and even no computer on a doctor’s desk----everything is old-fashioned. The doctors diagnose by traditional methods: observing listening asking and feeling patient’s pulse.

When it was my turn, the doctor asked, “You’re constantly under pressure, aren’t you?” My first reaction was No, so I replied, “I usually keep myself busy with this or that, but I never feel I am under a lot of pressure.” From his face I can see he was sort of skeptical. On my way back home I asked myself whether it was possible that I was actually under pressure but I was just unaware of it.

Needless to say, there can be many reasons for an illness. For a chronic stomach disorder like mine, one’s mental factor surely plays a very important role. There must be something wrong with my living habits or possibly attitudes towards life. Looking back upon the years I went through, I do have a tendency to make everything as perfect as possible. To some extent, I am a perfectionist. Sometimes I just can’t stand anything that is not up to my standards. I don’t think it has reached the degree of being morbid. However, little by little this mental self-demand will definitely do harm to my health.

Objectively speaking, there’s no such thing as perfect. Just as people often say, “Each man has his limitations.” If we pay too much attention to pursuing perfection, we may get into the trap of only seeing the downside of things. The more downsides we see, the more difficult it would be to lead a happy life. It should be reasonable to say it’s unwise to be too hard on ourselves!

Life itself is imperfect, and it’s unnecessary to be perfect. We just have to face and accept this reality honestly and bravely. Actually defects are part of our life. Just because there is imperfection, we human beings have dreams and hopes. The point is that we should never go to extremes. Life is not an examination where we must get full marks. As long as we’ve tried, no matter what the result, we should be content, at least in most cases.

One’s happiness depends largely on whether one's heart is really happy. Actually, when we feel tired, it could be mental or emotional, not just physical, as we normally believe. Learning to “untie” the heart is something everybody should attach great importance to. Only when our heart has no burden can our soul become relaxed and lively. Instead of focusing only on the defects, let’s try to find nice pleasant things. That way our life is sure to be filled with sunshine.