Harmony Breeds Prosperity...

以合为贵

An event recently made me thought of these 4 very important words...

In our life, we have to deal with all kind of relations. Relations between friends, between boss and employees, between colleagues, between husband and wife, between siblings, etc...

Sometimes, it can be extremely difficult to deal with such relations, especially when there are more than 1 kind of connection between the 2 persons. For example, what if your wife is also your boss? What if your friend is also your teacher?

When you have more than a single kind of relationship with a person, it becomes sort of confusing, even troublesome.

In this case, should you treat the 2 types of relation as "separate entity", or as a whole? It can be a real pain in the neck.

Let me give you a more concrete example.

Let's say you have 2 friends, A & B. Both of them are your friends as well as work colleagues. You like working with A, because his working style fits you. When you work with him, you 2 are able to complement each other and thus finish the project faster and better.

On the other hand, you simply can't work well with B. He has his own style of doing things, and you can't accept his style. He doesn't approve your methods as well. Both of you will probably screw up the project real bad (or make each other unhappy) when placed together.

However, does the above means that A is a better personal friend to you than B? Obviously not.

You value both of them as your friends, and your "working relations" is IN NO WAY an indication of your "personal relations". They are entirely 2 separate entity.

Now, let's say the company assigned you a project to complete. You definitely want to work with A, even in the case that A isn't as close a friend to you as B.

If you can't get along well (in terms of work) with each other, then the solution is simple: Simply don't work with each other.

This is a simple philosophy - At work, we stay clear of each other path. After work, we're friends and we have fun together. Don't let some working relations affect your friendship with each other.

This is the essence of "Harmony Breeds Prosperity" (以合为贵).