Excerpts from the original text:
Therefore, when the sky falls, people must first suffer their minds, their bones and muscles, starve their bodies, empty their bodies, and mess around. Therefore, patience has benefited them a lot.
Translation:
Therefore, if God wants to put the heavy responsibility on a person, he should first make him upset, tired, hungry, poor and unhappy, so as to inspire his mind, make him patient and increase his abilities that he does not have.
Text interpretation
The most prominent highlight of Mencius' sense of hardship is that Mencius profoundly revealed the great significance of his sense of hardship to human survival, national survival and human progress and development.
In the article "Chivalrous Man, Born in Suffering, Died in Happiness", Mencius first listed the fact that the most praised sages in history all rose from disasters and sought development in suffering with gorgeous parallelism sentences.
Then it discusses the great significance of suffering from two aspects: the necessity of suffering for human development and the possibility of people struggling in suffering, and then infers the role of suffering in governing the country from the opposite side. Finally, the famous saying "born in sorrow, died in happiness" as the conclusion is enough to warn future generations.