Tuesday, June 27, 2006 @8:57 PM
Did you know back in the Jin Dynasty, there was a rich man called Yue Guang? This guy loved drinking. So one day, he invited a friend to his house for a drink. Suddenly, his friend saw a reflection of a snake swimming in his goblet. But he did not dare to say anything and just guzzled down the wine. He was frightened to death after taking the drink. He fell sick shortly after he reached home. He was treated by many different physicians with different remedies and medications, yet none was effective. On the other side, Yue Guang was getting worried for not hearing from his drinking buddy for a long while. So he decided to visit his friend to check out what he was up to. He was shocked to hear that his friend who was healthy all along was lying on the bed after returning from his invitation.
He asked, “What happened to you?!”
The friend laying on the bed hardly managed to open his mouth to talk. He weakly told Yue Guang about the snake in the goblet that he swallowed.
Yue Guang immediately pulled his friend out of the bed and brought him back to his house. He made his friend sit at where he used to, pouring him another goblet of wine and asked, “Did you see any snake in your goblet now?”
“Yeah, I saw another snake again!”
“Look at it carefully. Are you sure it is really a snake?”
“Errr, well, it looks like a snake reflection…"
Yue Guang got up from his seat and walked to the wall and brought down a bow that was hanging there. He asked again, “Can you see the snake in your goblet?”
This time, his friend did not manage to see anything in the goblet, not even a snake reflection. Since then, this story has become really well-known and spread from one generation to another until now. "An illusory snake in a goblet" 杯弓蛇影 is referred as feeling jittery due to one's imagination.
Let me tell you another real life story set in the 21stcentury. This is the sequel to the story I shared with you a fortnight ago (Refer: Hey I don’t mean it). Briefly my coworker who is generally a bit hypersensitive is still upset, or I should say, she is mad at another coworker, LC, just because of a joke. A joke that she initiated it in the beginning. A joke that was just those type of casual conversations during lunch, which no one would even remember later on. Yet, this coworker of mine is taking things to an extreme this time. She carried someone’s casual remark on her and magnified it zillion folds and perceived it as an offensive remark against her. Anyway, after her fussing to me about LC and others, I decided to leave her alone to cool down. It is really helpless to try stopping a burning fire with just a few drops of water.
While hoping my coworker would become better once she stopped thinking and thinking, in fact she became worse. She keeps thinking how bad others view about her; how LC and another coworker she recently having a cold war with were going around telling bad things behind her and thus others giving her a weird look at work whenever she sees them… But she still doesn’t stop there. This time, out of no where, she just suddenly turned to me angrily and said, “I know you have been going around telling bad things about me!!” I was utterly shocked by her accusation. I have never gone around telling things about her to others, let alone those bad “things” she was referring that I know are not true at all!
I wasn’t angry with her. Really. But I was very shocked and disappointed. Had she not realized that no one was actually going around talking bad about her? If only she could calm herself down and stop overanalyzing and perceiving wrongly about what others’ said and gesture, she would realize she is too sensitive. And if only she realize these past few weeks, I have been stuck in my office combating very hard to write up my manuscript, I wouldn’t even have time to go stop by to say hello to the rest. If only she knows me well, she would realize how much I dislike about gossiping, especially gossiping about stuff that is not real.
“Oh, are you in a bad mood? Ok, then I better leave you alone for the time being.” So I walked away hoping she would feel better later. However, it seems that she is still thinking and overanalyzing about everyone including me after so many days.
I’m sure this coworker is not the only one. Many of us are like that; we just imagine things too much and become attached to those unreal imaginations. What makes it worse is we started generating negative feelings from those unreal imaginations. We feel fear, angry, upset and stuff. It could get a lot worse if we remain clinging on those fake imaginations and perceptions. Look at the friend of Yue Guang! He nearly died from that disease caused by the “snake” that he gulped down. How ridiculous was that?! There was no snake and his “disease” was just purely psychological.
How I wish that coworker of mine could read and understand the meaning of "an illusory snake of a goblet"! If she continues her imagination and behaves like this, it is very likely that she'll be chasing away more friends and coworkers. She has already lost one close friend of a 4-year friendship at work and now LC doesn't even dare to share the same table with her for lunch. I could show her this entry. Yet since she is still clinging tightly to her "imagination", it is really futile in doing so. I'll just leave her alone until she has finally cool down and gain some senses.
