Among those who come to me for a destiny reading (格局), one question comes up again and again: “Master Chi, why do I keep making the wrong choices in my destiny, career, and relationships?”
Honestly? That’s a great question.
From the perspective of your life pattern, the heights you ultimately reach depend on the sum total of the choices you make at every crossroads. And the root cause of why someone keeps stumbling through life is actually simple: because they don’t know what they truly need, they don’t know why they’re choosing.
Look at the people who’ve taken a perfectly good hand and played it into the ground — the trust-fund wastrels whose parents handed them a solid foundation, the gold-diggers blessed with good looks and a fine figure. Was their problem a bad starting point? No. Their starting points were fine. They lost because they made their life choices on pure impulse, without intention.
The same applies to many ordinary people. What you’re missing isn’t some grand opportunity to catapult you to the top, or a storybook romance worth holding up as a model. What you need is a process — complete and thorough — that drives you to the very bottom, where you experience every hardship and grief life has to offer.
That process is what I call the abyss (绝境).
Understand this: the true abyss is not losing a job. It’s not losing a sum of money. It’s not being betrayed by someone you loved and trusted.
The true abyss — its power lies in that character jué (绝): complete severance. It means you’ve been pushed, for whatever reason, to the absolute end of your rope. You’re penniless, at a total loss, and even those who once swore they’d go through fire and water for you — they’ve quietly stepped back. You’re trapped in a place with no connections, no support, no hope. If you scream yourself hoarse for help, not a single person will stick their head out to look your way.
If that’s where you are right now — hey, don’t feel sorry for yourself.
The men and women who go on to achieve remarkable things almost universally share this kind of experience. Because it’s only in this phase that you truly see human nature stripped bare of all decency and pretense. After that, it becomes very hard for the pious facades and hollow affections of others to deceive you again.
And it’s only in this phase that you’ll truly reflect, at a profound level, on what actually matters in your life. You’ll understand more clearly than anyone else what to hold onto and what to let go.
This is why those who have truly been beaten down by fate rarely make the same mistakes again. Compared to those who spend their days wrapped in comfort and small pleasures, they understand far too well what choices are truly valuable and worthwhile. But most importantly, you’ll naturally develop a capacity for endurance and resilience that others simply don’t have.
Because you can see it more clearly than anyone: the rough and painful obstacles that feel so overwhelming right now are, in the full length of a life, nothing more than a short chapter of a few pages.
So you’ll learn from your pain, taste every last drop of bitterness, and ultimately turn over every stone to find the one leverage you have to negotiate with fate. You won’t be like those greedy, lazy, spineless types who do nothing but whine and blame the heavens for their misfortune.
And speaking of which — haven’t you always wondered how some people reach heights you can’t even imagine?
There’s no secret. It comes down to one thing: the ability to bear it.
The higher a person rises, it is absolutely not because their fortune cycle is simply smoother — and certainly not because they’ve sailed through life on good news alone. Among all the people I’ve encountered, every single one who built something of their own — their capacity to bear hardship is directly linked to the heights they’ve reached.
Many people mistakenly believe that those at the top are formidable because of their sharp tactics and clear thinking.
That’s not it. Their true secret weapon is unbending resolve.
Because they don’t bend, they don’t break, don’t run, don’t flee.
And in the end, those who have touched the lowest point of their destiny become precisely the people most favored by capital and opportunity in this world.
So why am I writing this today?
In just a few weeks, another year draws to a close — and a new one begins. At this point in the year, I’m certain you’ve had your share of pressures and setbacks. Some of you may be in your own abyss right now.
Don’t flee, don’t dodge, don’t retreat. Face it squarely, and choose the best approach you can to deal with it. Rest assured: even if you don’t succeed, the failure is nothing more than a minor episode in the story of your life. Whatever you do, don’t let fear and anxiety push you into avoidance — that is, without question, the worst possible choice, and it only makes everything worse.
Perhaps Master Chi hasn’t read your life pattern (格局) or your fortune cycle (运势). But I want to tell you this: every rise and fall in life has its own cycle. The most important thing we can do is, in each cycle, fully experience the bitter and the sweet, and cherish every moment of joy and every test it brings.
Only then can you grow stronger with each turn of fortune’s wheel — and become ever more skilled at holding the helm of your own destiny.