PureInsight | October 23, 2014
[PureInsight.org] It was a very nice arrangement for me to work for Epochtimes. I once attended a training session on “Sales and Marketing for Shenyun”, the session went very well. It was my first time to run into fellow practitioners who had studied sales and marketing strategies. I had been doing research works on sales and marketing for years as my graduate program research, so I was hoping that I could use my knowledge to help on sales and marketing. After the training session, I approached the presenter and told him that I was interested in doing sales and marketing. The presenter immediately said to me, “Ok, that’s great, come joining our team of digital sales and marketing.”
I learnt that it was a full time job for Epochtimes and one had to put in full effort. I immediately faced this tough decision: Should I work for Epochtimes from now on? I was about to graduate from my university studies and the job requirements matched very well with what I had learnt. It was also a job that I liked and the office was very close to where I lived; moreover, if I decided to work for Epochtimes, it would help my cultivation. I said to myself: “Well, this must be an arrangement made by Master.” However, deep in my heart, I was also struggling. Many of my classmates had gone to work for those famous multi-national companies, they had very attractive titles, and their salaries were very handsome. Once I decided to work for Epochtimes, I knew I won’t get paid too much and others may misunderstand me. As a matter of fact, I was struggling within myself for personal gains and fames. I didn’t feel like losing out to my classmates. My jealousy and competitive mentality made it hard for me to accept this job at Epochtimes.
In the article of “Wealth with Virtue” from the book of “Essentials for Further Advancement”, Master Li says, “The ancients said, ‘Money is something external to this physical body.’ Everyone knows it, yet everyone pursues it. A young man seeks it to satisfy his desires; a young woman wants it for glamour and luxury; an elderly person goes after it to take care of himself in his old age; a learned person desires it for his reputation; a public official fulfills his duty for it, and so on. Thus, everybody pursues it.” After studying this article, I felt as if Master was directly speaking to me. I had already understood that working for Epochtimes was good for me to get rid of attachments. Yet when it was a decision that I myself had to make, it became so difficult to handle.
Eventually, I made up my mind to accept this job at Epochtimes. The day when I was on my way to the Epochtimes office to work, I kept crying. I had been brought up by my parents and school teachers with a sole aim to find a decent job after all my hardworking school years. Now I had to give up on all those seemingly meaningful things in one’s life.
I understood that every life on earth for destined for Falun Dafa and every Falun Dafa practitioner was supposed to help validating the Fa. I said to myself, “If one can spend all his/her times helping validating the Fa, isn’t it the ultimate goal of one’s life? Why am I so reluctant then?”
Epochtimes was not like a normal company and the department of sales and marketing was also quite different from the other Epochtimes departments. There were two supervisors in the sales and marketing department and there were also two employees at the time and one of them not a practitioner. Furthermore, this department was sharing the same office with another company. I was a little bit disappointed as I had thought that I had given up my attachments to fame and gain to do a grand work for Epochtimes. This employee simply regarded his work as an ordinary people’s job and he also kept complaining about Epochtimes. The other fellow practitioner didn’t behave like a Falun Gong practitioner and conflicts kept coming. The supervisors didn’t show up most of the times and there was no formal training whatsoever. I had already given up on my dream of working for a famous company and now I felt my grand hopes for working for Epochtimes were also gone. What a double blow to me.
Later I decided to seek inwards and found that my heart was not peaceful at all. Whenever I ran into troubles, the first thing that came into my mind was to escape from the scene; I was always hoping that I could find a better job and a better project to work on. Furthermore, I kept looking outside for help as I thought that the supervisors should train me for this job. After seeking inwards myself, I understood that I should proactively help myself. Yes, I won’t be trained formally but I could go ahead myself looking for training materials online to train myself. Yes, no one was telling me what to do, but I could just go ahead and find things to do. I then came up with a plan for the team, and it turned out that the plan helped quite a lot for the development of the website. My plan also helped others to be more professional in the field of sales and marketing and so the whole team got improved. I felt that I had learnt things without any help from a teacher and later I realized that it was Master that was helping me all the times. Just like what Master mentioned in the poem of “No Obstacles” from “Hong Yin Volume II”: “With no attachment to anything, the path underfoot is naturally clear.” I gradually came to understand what I needed to do. It was actually very simple and straightforward and I just needed to think about others first. If I put myself first inside other’s shoes, it would be very natural for me to come up with ideas to do a better job. For every transaction, I would first study the product thoroughly; I would search online for detailed information. I would compare different manufacturers and used my heart to try to feel the benefits of those products. I would then come up with certain groups of people who would benefit the most from such products and direct those products to such people. I ended up with many successful deals.
Working in the field of sales and marketing, one has to contact the everyday people all the times. One also has to study hard on people’s needs to make sure what people really want. It was a little bit tough for me at the very beginning to spend so much time studying everyday people’s needs. They are attached to many things; one would also easily get attached to those things when one tries to study everyday people. If one doesn’t study the Fa seriously, or if one doesn’t pay attention to such interferences from the world outside, one would gradually become an ordinary people as well. As a result, one would find that one is not doing any contributions to Epochtimes, as if one is not helping validating the Fa. Whenever I run into such a problem, I would talk to fellow practitioners who are also working for Epochtimes. Fellow practitioners have also told me not to pay too much attention to superficial achievements. What I am doing is not directly tied to concrete business transactions where one can see the number of deals, the number of customers and so on. Sometimes, I would feel that I am nothing, my mind is empty, but then, it doesn’t mean that I am useless. Whenever I feel like I am nothing, I would read the following Fa from the lecture titled “What is a Dafa Disciple”: “The more hopeless things may seem, it’s possible hope will appear right before your eyes. Especially during those times when you are feeling so bored, perhaps you are in fact establishing your mighty virtue.”
Among all the colleagues at Epochtimes, I was the youngest one. I sometimes fear that people would look down upon me if I didn’t do a good job, or, people would envy me if I did a superb job. As a matter of fact, all such thoughts were ordinary people’s concerns. So, I would always tell myself that, as long as I was working for Dafa projects, there was no need for me to worry about how others thought about me. Occasionally, I also thought that I was capable and want to use my ability to earn some extra money; or I could work for some other company so that I could double my salary. However, whenever I thought about such things, I would always feel very awkward as if I had lost something. In a few months, I eventually realized that I didn’t need to pay attention to such thoughts and I just needed to do my best for Epochtimes. No matter what happened, I just needed to remember my initial decision on why I wanted to work for Epochtimes. No matter how much ability I might have, everything I did was to help validating the Fa. I won’t regret in my whole life doing the job for Epochtimes.
Later, my supervisor was so busy that he didn’t even come to the office to manage us. We were basically left without any schedules. I decided that I would just cooperate with others and I would take the responsibility as a supervisor. Just like what Master says in the lecture titled: “Teaching the Fa at the Assistants’ Fa Conference in Changchun”, “You should just make sure that you conduct yourself well. What we require is that we act well, starting with ourselves. If everyone made sure that he conducted himself well, then everything in society would be good. Whereas if everybody tries to police others, then the more people try, the worse things will get, and more and more friction will arise. If people don’t conduct themselves well but instead police others, then they’ll bicker among themselves about how ‘you’re not good,’ ‘she’s not good,’ or ‘he’s not good.’ Tensions among people will get more and more intense. It’s bound to be that way.”
I once complained to the supervisor on the lack of his management, “How can you expect others to finish their job if they don’t know what to do in the first place?” Now, I just needed to talk to the supervisor for a few minutes, I would understand what I needed to do. My supervisor was very happy with me and said, “Can you find another person just like you to come to work in here?” I told him it was very difficult to find a person like me. In the ordinary people’s world, people regard one’s capabilities as very important in helping one complete one tasks, now, in reality, one’s attitude is even more important. It is usually the case where a very capable person doesn’t want to cooperate with others or be supervised by others. Therefore only those who are cooperative can easily turn their abilities into the productivity for the company. I was willing to cooperate with others because I was practicing Falun Gong.
I’ve still got many things to do even better with many attachments to get rid of. I hope everyone can point out my problems. Let’s hope that we improve together, let’s hope that Epochtimes will become the number one newspaper in the world soon.
Translated from: http://www.zhengjian.org/node/135137
