专心致志

孟子说：“下棋，在技艺是比较容易的，可是如果不专心致志地学，也是学不好的。”

弈秋是古代有名的棋手，有两个人慕名而来，同时拜他为师。弈秋一心想把自己的棋艺传授给他们，讲课特别认真。一个学生专心致志地听他讲课。另一个学生表面上也在认真地听课，而实际上思想很不集中。他看到大雁从窗外飞过，联想到要吃天鹅肉……

弈秋讲完课，就叫两人对弈。学生根据老师的要求，就对弈起来。开局不久，就见分晓：一个从容不迫地能攻能守，一个手忙脚乱地应付。弈秋一看，两人的棋艺相差悬殊。他对棋艺差的学生说：“你们两个人一起听我讲课，他能专心致志，而你呢，心不在焉。”

成语“专心致志“由此而来，形容一心一意，聚精会神。

Wholly absorbed in, or devoted to, something — To devote oneself to something wholeheartedly and exclusively

Long ago there lived a famous chess-player named Qiu.  He had two students learning to play chess from him. One of them concentrated very hard on learning the game. But the other wasn’t very interested, and didn’t think he should study very hard, and often daydreamed during class.  So when the teacher explained the chess manuals to them, the absent-minded student, though still sitting there and looking at the chess board, allowed his fancy to run wild.  “Now, there might be some geese flying in the sky.  It would be wonderful if I could shoot the geese and eat them.”  Since he always went off into wild flights of fancy like that, he didn’t hear a thing the teacher said.

As a result, though the two students studied together under the same very good teacher, one of them became a famous chess-player, but nothing became of the other.

From the phrase describing the manner in which the good student learnt the game, people drew the idiom Zhuan Xin Zhi Zhi.  We use it for those who do things with single-hearted devotion.  And in many cases, that’s the key to success.

(Source:english.cri.cn)