“Other things coming in”—“oppression”, “distraction”, and “temptation”.

1. One of the reasons we give up a project, a course, a calling is we allow our original intentions to fall away; soon, other ideas or actions come in to replace them; in some cases, the new things forcibly push out the old.  Note these four words: “other”—not what you had originally intended; “things”—abstract or concrete, they can be conceptualized and itemized; “coming”—they approach you, either intentionally or (it seems to you) by chance; “in”—they penetrate you, and once inside you they poison you.  This section will discuss this kind of threat to your plans to study English on the go, on your own, without a foreign teacher.  These threats are dangerous because they try to replace your way with something else. 
2. Load of work.  Many people carry a heavy workload, but some have insane levels of responsibility.  It does not matter where it comes from—whether from the boss or from the needs of your students or from your own pet projects—the more deeply buried you are in your work, the less time you will have to study English.  In extreme cases it will affect your health. 
3. Commuting to and from work.  Many people must sacrifice up to two or four hours of every day, traveling to and from their work site.  Over one year, this amount of time adds up to many hundreds of hours of lost time.  For many people there is no choice.  Crowded busses often make reading a book difficult; besides, the way out to work is often fraught with anxiety, and the return home is a draining experience for one who is already tired. 
4. Your school is too remote from centers of culture, such as concert halls, museums, well-stocked libraries and good bookstores.  We all need cultural (and mental/emotional/social) stimulation.  They refresh us and enable us to do a better job the next day.  If you live in Beijing or Shanghai, you are very fortunate in this regard.  If you live in a provincial capital you have something—but a little less.  And so on, down the line.  Of course, TV’s, VCD’s, and the above-mentioned centers of culture can be found all over the country to varying degrees, but external, “higher” culture (Chinese, of course, and other) allows you to leave, transcend and forget for a while your current surroundings, your present condition, your all too familiar colleagues.  This is very refreshing.  In the absence of such diversions, all you have is—more of the same.  For some, this is very stunting, for others it is bearable.  What about you? 
5. You only do your “same old lesson plans”.  We all know it is degenerating, we have suffered under it—and we do it all the same.  When you were a new teacher, a new worker, you slaved over your preparations, worked hard, and loved your students.  Now you don’t.  Laziness, complacency, burnout, as well as other dreams have caused you to use these “recycled” lesson plans.  These are “other things coming in”!  They are symptoms of a problem that also affects your ability to study English: it leads your life into a rut, and leads you into more laziness.  When you feel and act this way, how well will you study English?
6. Getting married.  There is nothing wrong with getting married, but it will seriously take up your time, making English studies much more difficult. 
7. Having children.  This one will certainly take up your time!  It will drive your entire life. 
8. Competing projects.  Many people measure the productivity or success of their life not by what they did “on the job” but by what they did when they got home after work each evening.  This is a sad commentary on society and human nature: we are free to be ourselves only when everyone else has been “paid off” and the scraps that remain are given to us.  We therefore guard those “windows of time” jealously.  This means that every time (every evening between 8:00 and 9:00 p.m.) we do something else, our investment in English suffers considerably.
9. Becoming a leader or an administrator.  Many classroom teachers dislike becoming administrators, for this change of fortune takes them out of the classroom and away from their students, their “babies”.  It also removes them from that inspiring scent coming from the “kitchens” of education.  There are meetings to attend (many meetings to attend!), committees to run, and parents to placate.  Naturally, this affects your ability to follow your own ventures, such as studying English.  As for becoming a leader, beware!  The “golden birdcage”, if it doesn’t destroy you, will constantly stunt your personal or private goals if you are not careful. 
10. It is no longer necessary to survive the rigorous, challenging demands of college.  Do you remember those crazy days of college, when you ate “liang pi zi” (and homework) for breakfast, lunch, and supper?  You read enough to fill a suitcase and wrote enough to fill a telephone book…at least, you said you did.  Well, when you began to work, you had a new round of labors to perform.  In time, you came to understand, then manage, and finally master your responsibilities in the classroom and in the office.  You made an elaborate, minimally managed system to cope with your work, then shut down most of your generating capacity.  Today, you just exist.  The students smell it, and in the back of your mind, you know what you are doing.  Under such conditions, it is very, very hard to persevere in your original calling, your “Long March”—of being a lifelong learner of English! 
11. Failure.  Life is hard, and so is society.  Some other people come into conflict with you.  At times, you fall down.  When “in crisis”, you tend to “streamline”, “evict”, “cut out”, or “reassess” your priorities—or, put another way, you give up.  Those things which are not deemed “essential to survival, family or job” are the first to go when you face failure…such as your English studies.  At this point you wonder, “Can I hold on?”.  Failure is not when you are dead, but when your dreams are dead. 
12. Success.  Perhaps this is even more dangerous than failure, because it rots you through complacent feelings of pride.  Either that, or it buries you under a snowstorm of new work and responsibilities. 
13. Ambition.  In some ways, ambition is useful, in that it drives you onwards and upwards.  However, if English is not your driving ambition, influencing everything you plan, think or do…something else will be.  Like heirs to a throne, ambitions do not tolerate rivals.  If ambition does not harm you, it will certainly harm your cherished dreams of mastering English on the go, on your own, with no foreigner to teach you. 
14. The result.  What is the result of all these “other things coming in”?  Do you die?  Do you lose your job?  Will your children get up and walk out on you?  Not necessarily.  The result, in short, is that you will become unfruitful—that is, unfruitful to your “first dream”.  The seed you planted will (perhaps) become a plant, and it may live a typical length of time, but it will bear no seeds—it will be empty and fruitless.  No fruit, not future; no seed, no sowing; no harvest, no satisfaction; no gratitude, no meaning; no conclusion, no fulfillment.  The older you get, the more painful such a revelation becomes.  After all, isn’t “fruit”, the result, the “bottom-line”, the product, the reason for all this, the “name of the game”? 

 
Materials/Resources—“slow starvation”.
 

1. Local bookstore has nothing.  Every gun needs bullets, and this dream of English needs books and other materials.  If you live far from a big city or in the mountains and the local bookstore had nothing (of current value, or in your area of need), then you have a problem. 
2. Bookstore is too far away.  If you live far from the nearest local bookstore (I am thinking of all you people living in the mountains), you cannot get what you need—easily, or at all.  You are dependent on those rare journeys out on Spring Festival, or for someone’s wedding.  Finally, you cannot always count on others bringing in your books; they cannot always know what is in your heart. 
3. Lack of materials.  Look around your school, house, or worksite. There are not enough materials to fill your mind, let alone that of your students. 
4. Lack of money.  Why is it that many country villages are well stocked with 4WD vehicles, but there is often not enough money to pay for school books and other materials?  If there is not enough money for such things, young brains starve.  The same is true in the small bookstores and libraries. 
5. Local materials are out of date.  This may be caused by lack of money to buy materials, knowledge about what to order, or “inertia” (i.e., laziness and stubbornness) on the part of the older, entrenched staff that usually hold the levers of power.  Just try to be a new teacher in a village school!  The effects are catastrophic, when you think of the children who use such materials. 
6. Local materials are too controlled by the librarian.  To some extent, you can’t blame the poor librarian; if she were not rigorous, the shelves would be very quickly stripped.  Nevertheless, restricted information stunts the growth of knowledge, and also generates a certain problem of “learned helplessness” on the part of the school children—and you too, perhaps.  I should think that the more remote the library, the more controlled the books are. 
7. Materials passed to students “disappear”, are hoarded, or not circulated.  This is one of my major complaints with my own students!  They are a bottomless hole—materials given to them are never seen again.  In a sense, this is understandable, as certain materials—especially foreign-printed materials—are so rare or in demand, and the students are hungry (nay, ravenous) for more, new, interesting knowledge.  However, there is a serious consequence to this “culture of keeping” among the students, as well as many of their teachers.  It stunts sharing and cooperation, the shy or weaker students are shut out, and education takes one step closer to the “survival of the fittest”.  How ironic for a humanistic pursuit such as education.