What does ten years mean for a person? Recently I often think that those who have left China are likely to lose the sensitivity to time. They tend to think of China as it was when they left it. Only after they have paid a visit home will they see the great changes. Eight of my ten years in the States were spent in California, a place without four seasons. In such a place, the sense of time becomes blurred even more. Once at an open-air music show celebrating the birthday of the U.S., I while listening to a girl singing blues, regretfully thought that I had wasted ten years. Had I had a child ten years ago with a woman, he would being helping with house chores now.
What suprises me most is that I did not make a single commitment during these ten years. No matter in what: family, career or wealth, I never seriously tried to build something solid, something that I can rely on for life.
一个人，特别是一个男人，怎么可以这样生活？我对自己百思不解。
I am puzzled: how can a person, a man, live this way?
How did I fill the blank of these ten years? In deed, I wrote more than one hundred articles. But these articles have no substantial use for me, much less to say quite some of them were posted online to kill time. It would have been better if I could have published a book with them, but I did not .
In 1996 I went to see an old classmate in Washington DC. When we brought up the subject of future plans, her husband said:" it depends on what you plan to do ten years from now." I understand his meaning. One should plan here and now even for a result that won't show up until ten years later.
I cannot tell now if I ever planned. My major in my MA program was selected simply because there was a TA for it. It did not help a lot in my searching for a job. I got my job using my experience and degree from China. In finance, had I bought funds or stocks with money saved in the bank, my finance condition might be better, but I did not. I just put the money in the bank.As for the so called personal issue ( the Chinese pet word for marriage), I did not even give it a thought.Maybe it is because my life has been too easy and I am too happy to think of having a woman. Not until now did I realized the truth of the words said by a senior family member: without a woman, a house is not a home. I see couples here and there when I go out. I understand in Bible study class that God thinks man should not live alone, yet I cannot imagine a women under my roof. I do not know what do to with her. So I simply give it up. In career development, as you can see, I gave my time to writing online and as a result, I could produce nothing when rank advancement came. I could only watch others being promoted.
中国话说“未雨绸缪”。这样的成语包含了既浅显又深刻的人生道理。我怎么就没有认真领会，贯彻执行？
The Chinese have a saying: " Prepare for the rain that has not come". Such a simple statement contains obvious yet profound truth of life. How come I never learned it seriously and live up to it?
虽然现在写文章谈这个问题， 但是要让我现在开始一个承诺，我还真不知道承诺什么好。
Yet now if you want me to make a commitment, I still do not know what to make.
