To Order a Household, First Cultivate Yourself

answered by The Great Learning

기원전 편찬(유가 사서의 하나)

🎬 TODAY'S FILM — IT ASKS THIS

Kramer vs. Kramer (1979)

dir. Robert Benton · USA

A person once absorbed only in work is left to raise a child alone, and faces for the first time the clumsiness of parenting. The path to being a good parent lay not in tricks for handling the child, but in changing oneself first. In the course of becoming a parent, how does a person grow?

THE QUESTION THE FILM ASKS

Before striving to be a good parent, am I skipping the work of maturing as a person first?

THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER · ORIGINAL

欲齊其家者先修其身

📜 THE CLASSIC'S ANSWER

One who would set his household in order must first cultivate his own person.

💡 TL;DR

This line from the Great Learning says that harmony in a household springs not from technique but from character.

📝The Classic Answers

This line from the Great Learning says that harmony in a household springs not from technique but from character. To set a household in order, first cultivate yourself. I search outside for how to be a good parent or child, but the root lies in what kind of person I am becoming. Even a parent who began clumsily grows, little by little, by looking honestly at himself. Before trying to change the child, I govern myself; before blaming the spouse, I see my own share. A family is not a gathering of finished people but a place where people grow through one another.

— ONGO · Curator

🌱Apply It Today

Before blaming a family problem on the other, find one point within it where you yourself need to grow.

📖 Classic Source: The Great Learning. Ancient text in the public domain; rendered and interpreted independently by ONGO.
The film is honored as an equal questioner; its plot is rendered only as a universal dilemma. The classic source is an ancient text (Public Domain), and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.