Because you were conditioned to be too obedient from childhood. Every hardship you endure doesn’t become the nourishment that strengthens you — instead, it becomes the capital that fuels someone else’s rise.
That kind of suffering? Better not to suffer it at all.
Let me explain this clearly so you can sit with it.
The truth is, many people are destined to become society’s weak the moment they’re born — not because they lack talent, not because they’re slow to learn, not because their destiny chart is poor. None of that.
The hottest topic of the past couple of days is, of course, the gossip surrounding Zhang the Gambler and Miss Jing.
The story blew up so completely that even someone like me — someone who hasn’t paid attention to the entertainment world in years — was forced to learn the full picture. That tells you just how wild it got.
Honestly though, I don’t think this topic deserves much more discussion. What’s out there now isn’t even the real story. The truly damning material hasn’t surfaced yet.
Hey, dear one — today is your day.
I know that what we share is, for the most part, a pure friendship. But friendship is its own kind of deep feeling, and it deserves to be expressed.
So on this special day, I want to take this chance to say a few things I’ve kept close to my heart.
First, I want you to know — you matter to me.
There is one secret to life: never scramble for answers just because you see others turning in their papers.
Because each person carries their own life pattern (格局) and its own cycle — entirely their own.
Some find success at twenty and show their decline by fifty. Others wander lost at twenty and achieve greatness late in life.
There’s nothing more to say about it — everything is fate, a script written for you by the heavens.
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.
The greatest tragedy in life is toiling your entire existence only to find you never enjoyed a single moment of it.
Don’t wait until your final years, looking back on everything, only to realize the only thing you can remember is relentless struggle — not one sweet memory to show for it. That would truly be pitiful.
So my life philosophy has always been this: know how to strive, but also know how to live.
At work, we often encounter good fortune in our daily professional and personal lives.
For example, your manager, in high spirits at a dinner gathering, leans over and quietly tells you: “Son, keep up the good work — I’m saving that supervisor position for you.”
Or perhaps you’ve just arrived in an unfamiliar city, and a close friend, seeing you without a place to stay, says: “I’ve got a one-bedroom unit sitting empty — just move in.”
First, a reader’s letter:
Dear Master Chi, I am a young person who has been following you for two years. I’m reaching out because I’ve noticed that nearly every article you write about life touches on the topic of marriage.
I can’t help but wonder — is marriage really that important for a person?
To be honest, I’m a girl from Jiangxi making my way in Shanghai, and I’m absolutely the hardworking type. Beyond my day job, I’ve taken your guidance to heart: in the evenings I work on building my personal brand and take on small interior design projects. Life feels full and satisfying.
First things first: arrange your time wisely.
Don’t throw great chunks of your life at things with negligible returns.
There’s an old saying: in your first thirty years, you can’t get enough sleep; in the next thirty, you can’t fall asleep. But it’s not really insomnia, is it? It’s that after thirty years, you’ve realized how precious time is. You simply don’t want to waste it in bed.
We only have this one life. Make it count — do things that matter, things that genuinely excite you.
Student Question:
Hello, Master. I’d like your guidance on a negotiation situation. Our company is looking to purchase a batch of Japanese-imported soybean harvesters from another company. Their opening price was 5.99 million — far above the actual market value.
We made our position clear: this figure cannot serve as the basis for negotiation.
Their representative didn’t answer directly. Instead, he changed the subject and went to great lengths to highlight the product’s quality and superiority. So we asked: “How many companies manufacture this type of product in total? And on what grounds does your company claim your product is superior to American soybean harvesters?”