Don't be too down-to-earth.

Author: Wang Zhigang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-06-01
Features: Dealing with sincere people has too many benefits: Sincere people are warm-hearted and easily willing to stand up for you; Sincere people don’t calculate others arbitrarily, are full of compassion and a sense of justice. If you make friends with sincere people, once you are in trouble, they will come forward to help. When everyone around you leaves, the last one to stay will definitely be a sincere person. Sincere people also have a great advantage: they rarely cause trouble for their friends. If you achieve success, they will quietly distance themselves and secretly rejoice for you. After a long separation, they might occasionally call you, but they always tell you that they are doing well.
This book argues that one shouldn’t be too sincere, not to encourage people to learn cunningness or become more deceitful, but to help those who are overly sincere to change their rigid thinking and inflexible ways of handling things. It suggests that one must be flexible when the situation calls for it and proactive when necessary, rather than stubbornly clinging to a single approach like waiting by a tree for a rabbit, relying solely on "waiting passively" on one tree.