兴趣真的那么重要么？

Is Interest Really That Important?

> By Li Xiaolai · 2007-10-09 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20110926104405/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/160.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

Students often tell me that she isn't interested in her current major, and that what she is really interested in is such-and-such a major.—As we often see, these people are not happy. Because they (feel that they) are doing something they don't like doing.

But is it really as they think? In 99% of cases it isn't. First of all, these people aren't uninterested in what they are doing; rather, they lack the ability to do what they are currently doing well. No one likes doing things they don't do well. Everyone unconsciously tries to avoid their own weak points: people who sing off-key usually don't much like going to KTV with friends; people who are poor at cards are often very reluctant when friends call them in to make up the numbers; people who are bad at dealing with others usually sit in a corner of the room at meetings…… Of course, some people don't know themselves: they sing off-key yet, of all things, hog the microphone; they're terrible at cards yet are always organizing card games and have no card-table manners; they're not likable yet love the limelight. But in any case, you must ask yourself this question clearly: **is it possible that I don't like doing this thing merely because I haven't done it well?** If you dislike it because you haven't done it well, then you have to sort out another matter: does doing this thing well actually have any concrete meaning for you? If it does, then you must work hard at it until you do it well—there is no other choice.

Conversely, if you do it quite well but just don't like it, purely because the thing really has no concrete meaning for you—in fact such cases are few and far between—then simply switch to doing something else and that's that. In fact, who has the power to force you to do something you really don't like doing? And if you really were forced to do it, how hateful can it be to do something you can do well?

Now to the other side. People always say that what they are really interested in is something else. But in fact, that should be merely because they haven't started doing that thing yet, and so haven't yet met with setbacks in it. Because they haven't met setbacks yet, and it hasn't yet been proven that they can't do it well, that thing does indeed hold a great attraction for them. [Translator's note: the original writes 与他们来讲 ("with them speaking"), a slip for 对他们来讲, "for them"; translated by the intended sense] In fact, when many people really do give up what they were doing and go to do something new that they are supposedly really interested in, they eventually find that doing this thing well is just as full of difficulties and constant setbacks. Before long, these people lose interest because they can't do it well, and start fantasizing about doing something else, and the line after "rationalization" (rationalization) is: what I'm really interested in isn't this…… [Translator's note: the original writes 而事情兴趣 ("and thing interest"), a slip for 而失去兴趣, "and lose interest"; translated by the intended sense]

So I don't think interest is very important. As long as you can do something well, and do it better than anyone, or at least better than most people, you can't help being interested in it. Sometimes, when I see the way some parents educate their children and they say it's to cultivate the child's interests, I quickly shut my eyes—I don't want to see a child harmed like this; but with my eyes shut I see even more clearly, because it is all too easy to imagine the result, which takes many years to finally show itself, and whose cause has been forgotten because many years have long since passed. Cultivating a child's interest isn't just a matter of getting a piano, or buying the child a book. In fact, you have to choose, according to the child's situation, the thing the child is most likely to do better than others (this alone may already be extremely time-consuming and laborious); and then you have to rack your brains to work out how to get the child to learn it and get to doing it well, doing it better than average people, doing it better than anyone—and then interest appears naturally.

When all is said and done, it is again the order that has gone wrong—it is not that you can do something well only once you're interested, but that you become interested only once you do it well. People always get the order wrong and are totally unaware of the error.

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