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We may not get to choose our family, but we certainly get to choose our friends, employer, mentors, and spouse, and these decisions have a huge impact on our lives. As Jim Rohn said,
"You are the average of the five people you spend most time with."
The big question is, are we thoughtfully choosing the people we spend time with?
I recently heard an insightful story related to choosing friends and associates. This story comes from The Mencius, Book 4B, Chapter 24. I'll share the story in English below.
Around 4000 years ago, during the Xia Dynasty (c. 2070–1600 BCE), there was a king named Hou Yi (后羿) (c. 1998–1940 BCE). He had a minister named Pang Meng (逄蒙). Pang Meng learned archery from King Yi, who was the greatest archer in the world at that time. When Pang Meng had fully mastered what King Yi had taught him, he thought to himself, "The only person better than me now is King Yi." Thus, Pang Meng killed King Yi.
Nearly 1600 years later, when Mencius (c. 372–289 B.C.E.) talked about this story to his students, he said that King Yi is also responsible for his own demise.
Hearing this, Mencius's student Gongming Yi (公明儀) said, "Really? It's hard for me to see how King Yi is at fault here."
Mencius replied, "Perhaps his part of the responsibility is smaller, but how can you say he has no fault whatsoever?" Mencius then went on to tell another story.
During the Spring and Autumn period (c. 770–476 BCE), in the state of Zheng, there was a person named Zizhuo Ruzi (子濯孺子). He was sent on a mission to do a sneak attack on the state of Wei. The state of Wei found out about this and sent Yugong Zhisi (庾公之斯) to chase after him.
Zizhuo Ruzi knew his mission was too dangerous, so he fled back to his state. On the way, he got sick and had to rest. He told his carriage driver, "Today I am sick and cannot even wield my bow. Looks like I will die today. By the way, who is the person pursuing us?"
His driver said, "It's Yugong Zhisi."
Zizhuo Ruzi said, "Looks like I shall live then."
The driver was surprised and asked, "Yugong Zhisi is a renowned archer from Wei. How can you say that you shall live?"
Zizhuo Ruzi said, "Yugong Zhisi learned archery from Yingong To, and Yingong To learned archery from me. Yingong To is a morally principled person, so the people whom he chooses to associate with must be morally principled as well."
When Yugong Zhisi caught up with them, he noticed Zizhuo Ruzi wasn't holding his bow, so he asked, "Why are you not holding your bow?"
Zizhuo Ruzi said, "Today I am sick and cannot hold my bow."
Yugong Zhisi said, "I learned archery from Yingong To, and Yingong To learned it from you. As you are my master's master, I cannot bear to harm you using the archery that you've imparted. Still, I have orders from my king, which I dare not to violate."
Yugong Zhisi then took out some arrows, knocked the metal tips off against the wheel of the carriage, thereby making those arrows mostly harmless, and then shot four arrows at Zizhuo Ruzi. Then he left.
Commentary and Reflection
This chapter from The Mencius has many great insights. Below are a couple that came to my mind.
1: The Auspicious Associate With The Virtuous
King Yi encountered disaster because he associated with Pang Meng, who was a selfish and competitive person. On the other hand, Zizhuo Ruzi had his life saved because he associated with morally principled and virtuous people. We might think, "I wouldn't associate with bad people. My friends are good people." But how can we be so confident in our judgment?
I imagine King Yi also thought, "I only choose good ministers to serve me." He probably never imagined that Pang Meng would betray him. So what went wrong? He didn't know the true standards for good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and sin.
I would assert that King Yi himself was probably selfish and competitive, so he naturally attracted and liked other people who are selfish and competitive. As the saying goes,
"Birds of a feather, flock together."
If a really humble and kind person wanted to learn archery from King Yi, King Yi would probably think this student has no future prospects, and the student probably wouldn't want to learn from King Yi after realizing the big difference in their values.
So we really need to learn the standards for good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and sin, and these standards come from the teachings of ancient philosophers, which have been passed down for thousands of years. If these teachings weren't timeless truths, if they didn't benefit people generation after generation, there's no way these teachings would be passed down for so long. People wouldn't waste their time and resources.
It doesn't matter if it's ancient Chinese philosophy like Confucianism, or ancient Indian philosophy like Buddhism, or ancient western philosophy like Stoicism, most of their teachings are very similar and resonate with each other.
A lot of people think that talent, power, winning, wealth, fame etc. are good, and that seeking these things is right (just to be clear, these things aren't bad per se; they are simply tools that amplify a person's character). But the wise philosophers of the past taught us to seek virtues such as kindness, respect, humility, fairness, and wisdom. For example, Confucius was praised by one of his students as gentle, good-natured, respectful, frugal, and yielding. Confucius also frowned up arrogance, stinginess, liking beauty, and clever-mouthed people, meaning these qualities are vices.
In Book 4B, Chapter 28 of The Mencius, Mencius said,
"The difference between Exemplary people and normal folk lies in their intentions. Exemplary people hold the intentions of humaneness and courtesy. A humane person loves others, and a courteous person respects others. One who loves others will always be loved by others. One who respects others will always be respected by others."
(Original Text: 君子所以異於人者，以其存心也。君子以仁存心，以禮存心。仁者愛人，有禮者敬人。愛人者人恆愛之，敬人者人恆敬之。)
From this, we can see Mencius' emphasis on love and respect, and that practicing these virtues brings good fortune (others loving and respecting us back). Elsewhere in the book, Mencius also mentions appropriateness and wisdom as other important virtues to cultivate.
Confucianism also teaches that of all virtues, filial piety comes first and is the most fundamental. Filial piety is about loving, respecting, and feeling grateful to our parents. After all, of all the people in our lives, our parents gave the most to us and love us most unconditionally. If we cannot even love and respect our own parents, how can we truly love and respect others? If our parents still complain about us, how would others not find fault with us once they get to know us well?
Another very important quality of virtuous people is that they say what needs to be said, even if it might hurt our feelings, because it is truly for our long-term benefit. Of course, our feelings get hurt because our ego is too big, so we really need to work on our humility to attract honest friends. If we argue with people who give us honest advice and prefer people who flatter us, then we will attract immoral people and misfortune into our lives.
The above are all correct standards of goodness and virtue, and associating with these kinds of people will bring us good fortune. Of course, if we want these types of people to want to be our friends, we have to cultivate these virtues in ourselves first.
An Important Note:
Some people might read this and think, "Oh my god, I have bad friends! I'm going to cut ties with them!". Let's not be too rash and judgmental…
If you're referring to cutting out social media and negative news, then sure, their feelings won't be hurt. But actual people have feelings, and if you just suddenly cut them off, you'll hurt their feelings! Doing unkind things like that won't help us attract kind people into our lives.
The Analects of Confucius mentions,
"Exemplary people are respectful towards the worthy and tolerant towards the masses (common folk); they praise the virtuous and sympathize with the incapable."
(Original Text: 君子尊賢而容眾，嘉善而矜不能。)
So even if someone is not as virtuous as we'd like, we shouldn't be judgmental. Instead, we ought to be understanding and tolerant. After all, they most likely never had good role models, and like everyone, they are just doing what they think is right and good, or they try doing their best to cope in their difficult situations.
It's also important to remember that people can change. Mencius taught that everyone has innate goodness, so if we role model good behavior for others, others will subconsciously learn that good behavior over time. Surely, our friends have helped us in the past, so it would be quite ungrateful to just cut off ties with them. We should at least try to advise them to join us on this journey to correcting faults and improving ourselves. If they're not interested in the path we want to go on, then over time, your paths will naturally start to distance away without any forcing needed.
2: Taking Responsibility For Our Lives And Results
Like most people, when I heard how Pang Meng betrayed King Yi, the first thing that came to my mind was, "Wow that Pang Meng is such an ungrateful traitor!"
But the goal of learning philosophy is to improve ourselves, not to become more judgmental towards others. Thus, Mencius seized this teaching opportunity to tell us that King Yi is also at fault for his own demise. This greatly shocked his students (and me), which then leaves a deep impression in our memory. If King Yi has responsibility for his student betraying him, then how do we not have responsibility for the various "unfair" treatment that we get from those around us?
In Book 4A, Chapter 4 of The Mencius, there is a famous quote that says,
"If you love others yet do not receive affection in return, reflect on your kindness. If you govern people yet do not attain order, reflect on your wisdom. If you are courteous to others yet they do not respond with courtesy, reflect on your respect. Whenever you don't get your intended results, reflect on yourself. When you correct yourself, the rest of the world will follow."
(Original Text: 愛人不親反其仁，治人不治反其智，禮人不答反其敬。行有不得者，皆反求諸己，其身正而天下歸之.)
From this quote arose the Chinese idiom, "When you don't get the results you want, reflect on yourself."
This reminds me of a quote from Jerry Colonna:
"How have I been complicit in creating the conditions I say I don’t want?"
For example, I get annoyed when someone jumps to conclusions and wrongfully accuses me of something I didn't do, or at least I didn't have those intentions. Instead of blaming them for jumping to conclusions, I really should blame myself, because there's no way it's 100% their fault. I must've done something, or must've not done something (e.g., timely communication) to enable them to have that misunderstanding.
Moreover, we are surrounded by negative role models of people always pushing blame to other people or the outside world. If we want others to stop that, to reflect on themselves instead, then we have to be a role model first and plant those seeds of good behavior into their subconsciousness. Once those seeds are strong enough, their behavior will change without us having to directly tell them to change. But if we keep telling them to blame themselves instead, yet we don't even do it ourselves, they'll think, "Who are you to talk? You don't even walk your talk."
Conclusion
What kind of people do we associate with? Are their values aligned with virtues and good fortune? Or are they aligned with vices and misfortune? Whatever we want to attract, we have to embody first.
Also, the next time we think, "How could you treat me like that!", we can pause and think about King Yi, and then ask ourselves, "But seriously. How could that person treat me like that? What is my portion of the fault here? How could I have prevented this?"
Weekly Wisdom #325
Check out part 2 here: https://www.weeklywisdomblog.com/post/the-auspicious-associate-with-the-virtuous-part-2