1965年，一位韩国学生到剑桥大学主修心理学。在喝下午茶的时候，他常到学校的咖啡厅或茶座听一些成功人士聊天。这些成功人士包括诺贝尔奖获得者、某一领域的学术权威和一些创造了经济神话的人，这些人幽默风趣，举重若轻，把自己的成功都看得非常自然和顺理成章。时间长了，他发现，在国力内时，他又被一些成功人士欺骗了。那些人为了让正在创业的人知难而退，普遍把自己的创业艰辛夸大了，也就是说，他们在用自己的成功经历吓唬那些还没有取得成功的人。
作为心理学系的学生，他认为很有必要对韩国成功人士的心态加以研究。1970年，他把《成功并不是你想像的那么难》作为毕业论文，提交给现代经济心理学的创始人威尔·布雷登教授。布雷登教授读后，大为惊喜，他认为这是一个新发现，这种现象虽然在东方甚至在世界个地普遍存在，但此前还没有一个人大胆地提出来并加以研究。
惊喜之余，他写信给他的剑桥校友——当时正坐在韩国政坛第一把交椅上的朴正熙。他在信中说，我不敢说这部著作对你有多大的帮助，但我敢肯定它比你的任何一个政令都能产生震动。
后来本书果然伴随着韩国的经济起飞了。这本书鼓舞了许多人，因为它从一个新的角度告诉人们，成功与“劳其筋骨，饿其体肤”、“三更灯火五更鸡”、“头悬梁，锥刺股”没有必然的联系。只要你对某一事业感兴趣，长久地坚持下去就会成功，因为上帝赋予你的时间和智慧够你圆满做完一件事情。后来，这位青年也获得了成功，他成了韩国泛亚汽车公司的总裁。
我没有读过这本在韩国曾引起轰动的书，我也没想过去找这本书读，凭我的人生经历，我已经感知到了它要说的一些道理：人生中的许多事，只要想做，都能做到；该克服的困难，也都能自己克服，用不着什么钢铁般的意志，更用不着什么技巧或谋略。只要一个人还在朴实而饶有兴趣地生活着，他终究会发现，造物主对世事的安排，都是水到渠成的。
[PureInsight.org] In 1965, a Korean student was studying psychology at Cambridge University. At afternoon tea time, he always went to coffee shops or salons to listen to conversations between successful people. Those people were scholars who won the Nobel Prize, academic authorities in various fields or people who had created economic legends. They were all humorous and easy-going and thought that their successes came naturally and logically. With time, he realized that he had been misled by some successful people in Korea because they exaggerated the difficulties in building up their careers so as to make those just starting out give up. That also meant that they were scaring off those who had not been successful yet.
As a student who was studying psychology, he thought it was very necessary to do some research on the mental states of successful people in Korea. In 1970, he handed his thesis, "Success Is Not as Hard as You Thought," to Professor Will Bladen, who was the founder of modern economic psychology. Professor Bladen was very excited when he read the paper and noted that it presented a new discovery. Though the phenomenon was actually common in the eastern countries and even all over the world, no one had ever brought it up and done research on it.
Then Professor Bladen wrote to his schoolmate, Park Chung Hee, who was President of South Korea at the time. In his letter he said, "I dare not say that how much this work will be helpful to you, but I can ensure that it will be more influential than any of your policies.:
Later, this book did take off, together with the economy of South Korea. It encouraged many people because it told people from a new angle that living though extreme hardship was not necessarily relevant to success. It showed people that painful experiences that were often described in success stories, like "exhausting and starving yourself," "getting up early and going to bed late," and "hanging your hair and stinging your leg to keep yourself awake." were not prerequisites for success. If you are interested in a career, you will be successful if you keep on doing it because time and the intelligence given by God are sufficient for you to accomplish the task. The young student also became successful. Later, he was the president of KIA Motors Corp. in Korea.
I have never read the book that created a great sensation in Korea, nor did I even want to look for it. From to my own life experience, I had already realized the principle indicated in the book: many things in life can be achieved if one wants to. Difficulties can be overcome without iron wills or techniques or strategies. If one is just down-to-earth and passionate about life, he will find that success will come when conditions are ripe, just like it was all being arranged by the great creator of the universe.
Translated from:
http://xinsheng.net/xs/gb/da4print.asp?ID=42537
