(Minghui.org) Greetings, Master! Greetings, fellow practitioners!
I am a reporter for the lifestyle section of Dajiyuan, the Chinese version of the Epoch Times. I came to New York to work full-time as a reporter in June 2015. One of my main duties is to interview clients and write articles to promote their businesses. I have been doing this for three years now. Looking back on these three years, I am very honored to have had the opportunity to work for the media in New York. In terms of cooperating with other practitioners, there have been many bumps on the road. But looking back, I greatly cherish every step along the way.
Before coming to New York in 2015, I left my parents in China and had already worked in the United States for 5 years. I started working part-time for the Philadelphia Epoch Times in 2012 as a reporter. As time passed, my sense of responsibility for doing Dafa projects increased. I also came to realize that there were different ways to assist Master in rectifying the Fa outside of China. News media is one of these important projects.
Arriving in New York
There were not many young practitioners in Philadelphia. The few that were there eventually moved to places like New York or Los Angeles. I also wanted to move to New York. In 2015, an NTD reporter came to Philadelphia to report on Shen Yun. She urged me to go to New York and train for a month. Later, the trial period went by smoothly and I stayed in New York. I told my mother, who was surprised that I could find a job in New York so easily. In fact, a disciple’s path is all arranged by Master.
In New York it was quickly arranged for me to do business news. My major in college was in the medical field, and nobody in my family was in business. In Chinese society, businessmen are often viewed negatively, as ruthless competitors who are out to scam people. Some conservative older fellow practitioners also do not have a good impression of the sales work at Dajiyuan. Due to my penchant for being a bookworm, I never in my wildest dreams would have thought I would have ended up working in a business-related field.
The path Master arranged for me at first appeared to be a coincidence. Before coming to New York, I came across two practitioners with business and sales backgrounds. I had a chance to talk with one of them on a deeper level. After learning more of the specifics of doing sales, I came to see that it was a decent job, just like any other profession. A truly good salesperson has a firm will, can bear hardships, considers the interests of his or her team members and clients, and is not attached to personal gain, but at the same time is able to bring in revenue.
Master said in Zhuan Falun:
“There was a saying in the old days: “Nine out of ten merchants are fraudulent.” That is a saying made by everyday people. I would say that it is a matter of the human heart. As long as your heart is righteous and you trade fairly, you deserve to earn more money if you make more effort. That is because you are rewarded for the effort you have put in among everyday people. No loss, no gain. You have worked for it.”
As a Dafa disciple, we should apply righteous Fa principles to our work. Sales is an important part of our media, and many Dafa disciples are doing it. If a large number of practitioners harbor negative views about this profession, then I think this is a probably a big gap in terms of both personal and Fa-rectification cultivation. After being enlightened to this, I started to think: “If I get the opportunity, I hope to be of help to our sales team.”
Passing Tests at Work
When I was asked to interview doctors and to write advertisements for their practices, I was mentally prepared and appreciated that my knowledge of the medical field would be put to use. My literary bent also pushed me to write articles that met the requirements of our media. I would need to provide true and objective information, because this information would concern people’s health and well being.
But after a while, the tests that I came across in my work began to pile up.
For example, I wanted to get the best out of every interview. But in reality, things were not that simple. Some of the doctors I interviewed were not well prepared or their attitude was lackadaisical. To me, this attitude showed that they saw salespeople and reporters as just providing a service. I also thought that this showed a lack of respect for our media. Although most doctors were not like that, in my heart I felt it was really unfair. I thought, “I put in so much effort to prepare interview questions for you; an article published in our newspaper is then read by the entire Chinese community. Shouldn’t you be more serious about this?” At the same time, I had notions about our salespeople; I thought that they were too submissive, thereby causing this type of situation. I was constantly confounded by this feeling of unfairness.
Another problem was that, after writing articles for clients for a long time, a lot of content gets repeated over and over again. For example, many of clients are dentists. And many of them do dental implants, which they wish to promote. I probably wrote at least six articles on dental implants. There was a period of time when, if someone asked me what I was writing on, I would always reply, “Dental implants.” That caused me to develop even more notions about the salespeople. The reason implant dentists are willing to place ads is because implants make money. So do we just go after them to advertise? These dentists only talk about the positive aspects of dental implants, and we are continuously writing articles for them. Is this really a responsible way to do things?
Another problem was, before or after the interview, many salespeople would tell me how the article should be written. This also bothered me. I thought, “I have my own guidelines for writing. Meeting my own requirements is already taxing enough, yet you guys still want to complicate things.” I didn’t say this to the salespeople directly, but I would complain to my coworkers and supervisors.
At the same time, every day new articles are published on the health website. Seeing how other practitioners didn’t have to go through the trouble of writing business articles, I started to become jealous.
You can imagine how taxing this work was for me. I felt that this job caused me to hit my breaking point. Every day, only during morning Fa study would my mind be clean. The energy produced when fellow practitioners read the Fa together is simple and pure, and Master’s every sentence is able to enter into my mind. But as soon as I returned to work, my heart would be stirred up again.
Cherishing Sentient Beings and Fellow Practitioners
Here, I want to thank the practitioners on my team. They recognize that each person’s working habits and styles of writing are different, but they also remind me that I shouldn’t emphasize myself too much. Although the clients are not perfect, they signed a vow in prehistory to support this truth-clarifying Dafa media. Our involvement is helping them fulfill their vow.
Through working and cultivating day after day, I began to understand one point. I realized that, although these clients have a vow to support Dafa media, they are unable to fulfill it perfectly at the moment. They may even come across as arrogant or unprepared for their interviews. But that is why we need salespeople to clarify the truth. We need to work together well to harmonize all of this.
After I enlightened to this, I cherished these sentient beings and fellow practitioners more. I also saw that I needed to correct some of the problems in my work. I tried to prepare the interview questions for the doctors ahead of time so that they could be prepared. On the way to the interview, I would send righteous thoughts, but not in the manner as before, where I would worry that something might go wrong during the interview. At the interview, aside from asking my questions, I would observe to see if there was anything else the doctor wanted to add. I would conduct the interview without pursuit and let it go naturally. I also believed that the doctor was doing the best job that he or she could.
Even if the doctor was talking about dental implants to make money, I would look at things from a positive perspective and think that the doctor had studied for many years to make it in this profession. I did my best not to add negative thoughts to the doctor.
I once held a prejudice against one of our salespeople. I felt that she was way too cautious in front of clients and only tried to please them. Whenever I thought of her, I would get very angry and think that she was too much like an everyday person. I thought about why her actions affected me so much. Looking inside, I found that it was because I lacked compassion for my fellow practitioners. I didn’t think that she was trying her best to do well. At a deeper level, this practitioner also reflected my own shortcoming, since I also wished to look good in front of clients, which conceals the attachment of fawning over others.
This attachment of being overly careful and fawning over others was also reflected in my work. From the article outline to what details to include, I would often weigh if the clients or salespeople would like it better if I wrote in a certain way. Sometimes it was as if I was playing tug of war between what the client wanted to see and what the reader wanted to see, wasting huge amounts of time. Actually, if an article can truly be written that truly considers the reader, even if it doesn’t excessively praise the client, it still highlights the client, and the client will accept it. However, if we restrict our thinking before we do anything, then we won’t be able to achieve our full impact as Dafa disciples.
I remember a salesperson practitioner said, “I don’t care how you write. We have to produce content that our readers find useful.” This practitioner’s open attitude greatly encouraged me. Maybe this is my predestined relationship with fellow practitioners who do sales. Their assessments and attitudes made me think a lot. When I am able to cherish fellow practitioners while cooperating with them, the suggestions they make are often exactly what I need. And if it isn’t what I need, I can also explain to them.
I just mentioned feeling jealous of fellow practitioners who do not need to write business articles. In fact, every type of work has its difficulties. To be jealous of others leaves one feeling dissatisfied.
Master said in “20th Anniversary Fa Teaching:”
“With all of this, a god will not have anything like the sense of an unsatisfied desire that a human might. Gods don’t have a human state of being. A god, no matter which realm he’s in, actually wouldn’t be happy if you offered to switch him to a higher realm. He would think that that place has nothing to do with him. He wouldn’t be thinking in a human way.”
Although I’m not certain if I will always be writing business articles, what I was doing is akin to “eating from the bowl, while eying what’s in the pot”—a jealous mentality. The work of fellow practitioners is what makes the content on our health website so rich. I should be happy for them, not jealous. Although I started cultivating at a young age, I still haven’t been able to let go of jealousy. Thus, I must still be very careful in this regard.
Having worked in the media for three years, I’ve improved in many aspects of my cultivation. It used to be difficult for me to enter tranquility during the sitting exercise. Gradually, I was able to enter tranquility. Later, I could achieve a calm mind while doing the standing exercises.
I’m also really thankful for the work environment here in the New York headquarters. I’ve seen from my colleagues that if one has a pure heart, they can write articles much faster and can improve their professional skills very quickly.
Because my abilities are limited, I often submit my articles at the last minute. I ask my fellow disciples to please forgive me. Please point out any other issues I may have. Thank you.
(Presented at the 2018 NTD and Epoch Times Fa Conference)
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