Fortune keeps turning. If you want to strengthen your own luck, there is one simple method: every year, three or four days before the new year, reach out to as many of your old colleagues as you can — especially the younger ones. Send them early new year greetings.
Don’t use those hollow, copy-pasted messages that carry no feeling. Use your own words. Lower your posture just a little. Chances are, they’ll write back. Take the opportunity to ask what they’re up to these days. I’d also recommend that everyone does a yearly audit of their social circle — so you always have a clear picture of where your people stand.
I know some people who have climbed to higher positions and no longer want to contact friends who are still in the lower rungs. Someone gets posted to the city, for instance, and suddenly has no interest in the old colleagues back at the county or township level.
But when I look at this purely from a self-interest perspective, I’ve come to see it differently. Those senior colleagues may be fine to let go — at this point, most of them are simply waiting out their years until retirement. Their ceiling is visible and predictable. Young people, however, are a different story entirely.
No matter how little you think of a young colleague — no matter how much you feel they’re a lost cause — you truly cannot know where they’ll end up. There is a saying: the bird that doesn’t sing stays silent, then stuns the world. Young people carry enormous variables. Even if someone looks unremarkable today, what if they wake up tomorrow?
So build your good connections (善缘) now. Wait until someone has already made it big and then try to forge a bond — that’s already too late. When people are still struggling, still buried in the trenches, giving them a moment of genuine regard costs almost nothing. For minimal investment, you plant a seed that may serve you well in the future. The math is simply good.
Make it a habit to stay in contact with them each year. And don’t let your current success make you look down on where you all started — because in most cases, while you’ve been moving forward, so have they.
Keep those connections alive. This matters especially for people in their forties, who are the true backbone of this society. Even setting aside your own interests, you have children and grandchildren — and when will they never need to ask someone for help?
Wise people think ahead. That’s what gives you true foresight. Whether in business or at work, take one step while already reading three moves ahead. It is always a good habit.