Today a student’s parent came to me with a question: their child has been attempting the graduate school entrance exam as a cross-discipline applicant (跨考) — now facing a fourth attempt. Should they keep going?
I asked: Do you know what the hardest problem they’re actually facing right now?
She said: I know — it’s that they had no undergraduate foundation in this field, so their studying has been directionless.
Frankly speaking: if you read what I write and seriously put it into practice, getting promoted and earning more is an inevitable result.
But how many people can actually do this? Very few.
Because most people aren’t even willing to try.
Some people’s poverty may genuinely be due to bad fortune (命理). But most people’s poverty is a problem of their own making.
To reach 90 out of 100, you need birth circumstances, natural talent, and luck. To reach 60 out of 100, all you need is diligence and a sound method.
Over the past couple of days, I’ve had brothers and sisters coming to me with the same complaint.
They say that since entering the second half of the year, nothing has been going right. Not only are they constantly running into obstacles and losing small amounts of money here and there — they’re also finding themselves blindsided by underhanded people working against them behind the scenes.
Everything just feels tangled up and miserable.
Being single in a big city is stressful — what do you do about it? This one’s for anyone wrestling with whether to stay or go home. Applies to men and women alike.
There’s an old saying: If your clan has standing, stay in your homeland; if your family is poor, venture out to distant places. Whether you stay in the big city or return home comes down to two key indicators:
Almost everyone who asks me to analyze their life pattern (格局) has one burning question: “When am I finally going to get wealthy?”
Fair enough. It’s a shallow question, but it still deserves a proper answer.
I don’t expect you to grasp this in a single read — but go through it a few times, and something will click.
If I’m right about this, what follows is the highest-level insight on this subject you’re going to find anywhere.
When it comes to marriage pressure from parents, it turns out to be a perfect litmus test for personal maturity and communication ability.
If someone finds it especially painful and distressing whenever their parents push them to get married, that person is not yet mature enough, and their communication skills are likely average as well.
Reading this, you’re probably feeling indignant: “My parents are clearly the ones in the wrong — I haven’t done anything — so why are you criticizing me?”
If you’ve already reached middle age, yet your career, your prospects, and your family life still show no signs of improvement — or worse, things seem to be getting harder by the day — then you need to read this article carefully.
This is a deeply restorative prescription, written to help you rebuild from the root up.
Drink it slowly. There’s no rush.
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After the economic turbulence of the past two years, I hope you’ve come to understand: those who once took shortcuts, back-alley deals, and risky paths have overwhelmingly come away with nothing to show for it. The wealth accumulated through shadowy means has, for the most part, proven impossible to keep.
Student Question: I’m currently a senior undergraduate student, interning at an internet company in an operations role. I’ve been at it for a while now, but I feel like I haven’t grown much during this time. My own thinking is that I’d like to get more exposure to the product side of things, but I’ve been stuck doing new media operations work. I’ve talked to the project team leader about it, and he told me that how much I gain from the internship is entirely up to me. If I want to break into more core work, should my first step be figuring out how to optimize the work I already have in my hands?
1 - If you belong to any of the three generations — the 80s, 90s, or the 00–05 cohort — there is a very, very high probability that you will face at least two major career upheavals in your lifetime. The reason: a new wave of technological disruption is already knocking at the door.
Simply put, within the next ten years, the vast majority of repetitive white-collar work — writing reports, managing spreadsheets, data analysis, building PowerPoint decks and project plans — will be replaced by AI that never tires and is always available on demand.
Tonight’s piece is a lighter read — it doesn’t require complex, brain-burning analysis. Just sit with it quietly.
That said, if you don’t have any real ambition, you’ll find this hard to get through. Don’t force it. Close the tab, go to sleep. A quiet, ordinary life may suit you just fine.
But if you carry that restless feeling — the sense that you’re no less capable than anyone else, yet can’t figure out why your efforts keep coming up short — then what follows is worth your late-night attention.