I’ve attempted to publish this article multiple times, only to have it blocked each time for “sensitive content.” After spending an entire afternoon carefully weighing every word and revising several passages, it finally went through — and it wasn’t easy. Consider this a warm-up piece for the new journey ahead. Please read it carefully and treasure it, my friends.
1
After this holiday ends, stop squandering yourself. Immediately audit and clean up what you consume. Delete all the mindless gossip, celebrity scandals, entertainment, and joke content — and start following finance, real estate, politics, and in-depth analysis instead.
This Golden Week, I attended countless banquets and met all kinds of people. What struck me deeply was how the intelligence gap between social tiers has grown to an almost unimaginable scale.
Class distinctions will no longer be determined by the family you were born into — they’ll be determined by the quality of knowledge you consume as an adult.
One line sums it up: eat premium protein regularly and you’ll evolve to the top of the food chain. Survive on nothing but empty roughage, and deterioration becomes your destiny.
2
For ordinary people, the word “wait” is truly deadly — especially in today’s environment, where many things have already been sealed in stone, including but not limited to: the gap between Tier 1 and Tier 2/3 real estate will widen at an accelerating pace over the next few years; to smooth out their balance sheets, the value of cash will erode rapidly; and the transition from old industries to new will complete its full restructuring within three to five years.
Every single one of these developments leaves even someone at my level feeling that time is never enough — I’m constantly moving, without pause. And even when I’m not actively pushing, I’m testing the waters and studying the market carefully.
Meanwhile, look at the masses. They call it “watching and waiting.” In reality, they’re just sitting there like fools. I can only say — pitiable, and sad.
3
Over the past few years, the trend toward removing English from standardized exams has grown increasingly clear.
And yet, precisely because of this, I’m more determined than ever to encourage the young people around me to seize this opportunity — to develop genuinely solid conversational English and reading ability. Even if you’re already in your forties, more skills never hurt.
Your accent doesn’t have to be perfect — aim to be understood. Your reading doesn’t have to be fluent — aim to grasp the basics.
Some people don’t understand why I push this so strongly. I can cut to the core in one sentence: over the past two years, the nobility, the powerful, and the elite have been placing greater and greater emphasis on second languages.
What’s a “second language”? I mean that beyond English, they’re also studying French, Spanish, German, Japanese, and more.
So: don’t watch what your role models say — watch what they do.
4
If you’re an ordinary person currently living entirely off a single salary, don’t let reading my articles fill you with anxiety.
Living an ordinary life is just one phase of experience. Everyone goes through it. Don’t feel like you’ve missed your moment and need to bet everything on a single move to flip your situation overnight — that’s the most dangerous approach of all.
Because your foundational skills and understanding aren’t yet sharp enough to execute wealth-building well. The desperation to turn things around fast is exactly how you end up tipping over.
Don’t just sit and wait. But don’t charge in blindly either. Here’s a better path, followed step by step:
First, hold onto your basic job — but be clear-eyed: it’s just a means to keep food on the table. There’s no grand future there.
Then, start moving. Use sheer volume — of footsteps, of effort — to compensate for what you currently lack in quality of capability.
Start with real estate. Look at 50 properties, 100, even 200. Then draw your own conclusions from their differences — about location, neighborhood, and the value gap between cities.
After that, thicken your skin, bring genuinely worthwhile gifts, and go — again and again — to visit people of real substance who’ve built something in their careers. Friends. Friends of friends. Friends of friends of friends.
For ordinary people, these are the most direct paths to awakening your social and business instincts.
I’ll say something blunt: 99% of ordinary people are genuinely failing students when it comes to human connection and mutual benefit.
Their problems can be summed up in four words: fear, timidity, obtuseness, and waiting.
How can you ever expect someone with zero experience in any of these things to make anything happen?
5
There’s not a trace of foreign worship in what I’m about to say — this is simply something I’ve felt more and more deeply over the past two years, as someone who has traveled widely across the world.
The poorer, harder-pressed, and more marginalized a group is, the more narrow and one-dimensional their worldview tends to be.
Their words are filled with cramped, petty prejudice — and the arrogance of someone who has never left their own backyard.
And yet they’ll never understand: the prejudice binds them. The arrogance blinds them.
I won’t say more on this. I simply want to suggest, my friends — if circumstances allow, truly make the effort to travel more widely in the world. Look at those who are more advanced than us, and ask yourself how they got there. Look at those who are further behind, and ask yourself how they failed.
Only when you’ve truly witnessed the world can you develop a genuinely mature and complete worldview.
6
The many things unfolding recently have made me increasingly reverent of the natural order.
What is the natural order? “Heaven and Earth are not benevolent — they regard all things as straw dogs.”
In other words: never cultivate a savior mentality. Never try to enlighten or awaken others. Never.
All that’s required of you and me is this: do not harm others. That is enough. As for the masses — don’t meddle.
Those among them who have ambition will naturally strive upward on their own. Those who belong in the middle-lower tiers of the food chain — they naturally belong there.
Nature has its own laws. Human society has its natural order. Don’t act against it.
Take this moment as an example: even now, among a flock of sheep, you’ll still find one or two “clever sheep” telling the others to liquidate all their assets into cash. I used to want to intervene — to correct them, to set things right.
These days? I’m fine letting it be. No need to get involved.
Sheep can’t evolve into wolves, no matter what. Just eat your lamb in peace — that itself is a form of honoring the natural order.
7
For many people, the path to prosperity has been quite natural — and it almost always begins the moment they find their way into a new circle.
It’s remarkable: when you work your way into a higher-tier circle, the biggest change isn’t that you suddenly start making a lot of money.
It’s that you discover the people in this circle are not distracted by games, short videos, or entertainment gossip.
They treat reading, learning, and self-improvement as naturally as breathing. And so, gradually, you begin treating those things the same way.
Your behaviors and thinking integrate into this circle. Eventually, your wealth integrates into it too.
Simple, isn’t it?
The reason I can share this so effortlessly is that I’ve witnessed far too many people reach prosperous lives by exactly this path.
And within my own community, these transformations are still happening right now. In this community, there’s no mystifying nonsense or empty promises — only grounded, practical guidance on how to make life incrementally better, step by step. Along with investment, spiritual cultivation (xiūxíng), and growth philosophies shared by prosperous readers.