When it comes to life pattern (ge ju), I want to start by sharing a real — and rather pointed — little story.
This story happened three years ago, when I had just launched my own knowledge community. Readers poured in — people eager to elevate their thinking and move up in life.
And then, in the community, I received this question:
“Hello, dear Master, I’m so glad to be among the first members to join. Your teachings have meant so much to me — I only wish I had found you sooner.
I’ve run into a problem and hope you can give me some guidance. I’m a mid-level employee at a foreign company in Shanghai. My annual income hovers between 250,000 and 280,000 RMB depending on my yearly performance review — honestly, not bad at all. I’m a Shanghai native, I live with my parents, the family owns one apartment, and I have about 500,000 RMB in savings. Life is pretty comfortable and easygoing.
The issue is my direct supervisor. I always get the sense that he’s a little psychologically twisted. For one thing, he’s gay — which isn’t exactly unusual in a foreign company like ours — but he holds my work to an extremely harsh standard: document formatting, print layout, handoff timing… everything must be done with pinpoint precision. Not a single character off, not a second late. Otherwise, he hits me with these cutting, passive-aggressive remarks.
So I’d like to ask for your advice: what should I do in this situation? I don’t ask for much — just to maintain this kind of income every year and have a fairly relaxed life.”
After reading this, my answer was clean and direct:
Young lady, if you’re hoping I’ll give you advice on how to manage your relationship with your boss, you’re going to be disappointed.
Here’s what you need to remember: a person’s character is essentially fixed. With a boss like this, you have two options — either adapt to his rhythm and change yourself, or simply jump ship and change your environment.
Any other approach is pointless. Getting into a covert power struggle with your direct supervisor will only drain you completely over time, and your situation won’t improve in any meaningful way.
But that same energy, invested anywhere else, would yield enormous returns.
Take property, for example.
As you said yourself, you currently have about 500,000 RMB saved, your annual income is 250,000–280,000 RMB, and your goal is simply to maintain that income while living a relaxed life.
My suggestion: take your savings, combine them with a mortgage, and buy a small-unit new-build apartment in Jiading New City, Shanghai.
Yes, you’ll feel a bit of financial pressure at first. But as inflation rises and property values increase, you’ll find that your real estate practically earns you 300,000 RMB a year on its own — plus steadily growing rental income year after year.
Just this one move, and all your needs and goals are met. It’s worth it.
Honestly, I didn’t expect her to actually follow through on my advice.
Because I know full well: in most cases, young white-collar workers are the most conservative — and the most timid. Tell them to play office politics and they’re game. Give them life-changing advice that’s beyond their current life pattern, and they suddenly lose their nerve.
But what surprised me was this: just yesterday, she added me as a contact, and without a word sent me a five-figure red envelope. I didn’t even know how to react.
It wasn’t until she sent me a voice message, slowly walking me through the three years of events, that I understood the whole story.
It turns out that when she first saw my response, her initial reaction was that I’d dodged her question. She’d asked about office warfare — why was I talking about buying assets? She was a little annoyed.
But when she calmed down and thought it through, she realized my answer had gone straight to the heart of the matter.
Right — what she actually wanted was that income, a relaxed lifestyle, and to get away from that boss. So just jumping ship and properly managing her assets made complete sense. It was entirely logical.
So she started reading through the community’s discussions between me and other members about property and location, and slowly, step by step, she put the plan into action.
In the end, she used a down payment of over 600,000 RMB and a mortgage of over 2 million RMB to purchase a small single-unit apartment in Jiading New City, Shanghai.
Three years later — if you’re also in Shanghai, you know exactly how much that kind of small-unit property has appreciated. In plain terms: she absolutely cleaned up.
And that goal she had — a steady secondary income and a relaxed life — is now fully within reach, even without going to work.
As for her boss’s temper? Does it even matter anymore?
If she’s unhappy, she changes jobs. If she feels like it, she takes six months off. Either way, her total net worth keeps rising, and she earns a modest but entirely effortless rental income every month.
She came to express her gratitude, and I accepted it without hesitation.
Now, the reason I’m sharing this story with you today isn’t to brag about my foresight or my eye for property. That doesn’t need any self-promotion on my part.
Especially the Jiading New City recommendation — over the past three years, anyone with even a basic grasp of the real estate market would have known to make that move.
What I really want to convey is this: in this life, you absolutely must cultivate a life pattern (ge ju) that rises above the ordinary. Do that, and you’ll find life becomes both easier and far more abundant.
Had I focused on giving her advice for office battles, even if she’d won every skirmish with her boss, the result would have been a slightly more tolerable work environment at best — or possibly an even more inflamed situation.
And yet so many people — especially female white-collar workers — love going down that road. So the outcome is predictable: no matter how skilled the maneuvering, no matter how sharp the wit, it’s still chickens pecking at each other, both sides doing damage.
Fight for ten years. Wildly entertaining, perhaps — but with essentially nothing to show for it. Both combatants end up looking like clowns.
That is the price of a small life pattern.
So what does a high-pattern mindset actually look like?
First: recognize reality. You must find a way — by any means necessary — to pull yourself out of this filthy, stinking swamp. Because no matter how hard you work or how much you hustle, if your environment and social tier don’t change, the same toxic situations and toxic people will drag you right back down in an instant.
And many of life’s problems don’t actually need to be solved. They’re like trash on the sidewalk — you can’t pick it all up. Just walk away from it.
Getting entangled with them is the stupidest choice you can make.
Second: see through the situation. Know what your skills are, know how much capital you have, and then — in line with reality and your own principles — keep moving forward in small, steady steps. Either get promoted or jump ship. Along the way, keep building mutually beneficial connections with quality people.
And cultivate the habit of challenging yourself every single day. Never develop some baseless self-confidence that convinces you you’re always right and need no reflection.
Treat yourself like an unpolished piece of jade — constantly refining, always improving. Be both rational and caring toward yourself.
Get these two points straight, and you’ll find it very hard for petty nonsense and toxic people to get their hooks into you again.
Your mind opens up. Because you understand clearly: all these people are just brief passersby in your life. Once you’ve moved past this stage, even if you pass each other on the street someday, you won’t even nod.
This is precisely why, inside my community, many readers undergo a profound personality shift after just a few months.
At the start, most of them are decent-earning white-collar workers with a rather narrow life pattern — asking questions about office drama and minor relationship headaches.
But after three or four months, the same people seem to have completely changed. They start paying attention to long-term life planning and how to structure their assets. The petty stuff they used to fixate on? Not even worth mentioning. They can’t be bothered.
This is what it looks like to start maturing — and more than that, to have your vision and life pattern genuinely cracked open.
And that is exactly the kind of change I hope to see in you too.