The more I experience life and grow, the more I feel that nearly all the wisdom in this world was already captured by our ancestors long ago.
Take the two-thousand-year-old classic, the Discourses on Salt and Iron. One line in particular strikes me as profoundly true:
Wealth lies in mastery of patterns, not in the toil of the body; Advantage lies in reading the situation, not in the brute force of the plow.
The meaning: if a person truly wants to build real wealth, the key is mastering the underlying logic and trajectory of how things move — not simply grinding away through sheer physical effort.
Likewise, great advantage comes from reading the currents of the times with clarity, and positioning yourself again and again to catch the wave of each new era — not from suffering through meaningless hardship.
This single line — how many people have lived an entire lifetime without ever hearing it? Let alone the even smaller number fortunate enough to truly internalize it.
Yet this one line may well be the very thing that determines the staggering, almost absurd gap between one person’s fate and another’s.
If you ask me now: what are the patterns and the prevailing situation at this moment?
The only thing I can say openly is this: the short term remains uncertain. There are too many uncontrollable variables in play, and the negative pressures have not yet fully run their course. In fact, there may still be a fair number of ugly problems surfacing in the near term.
But looking at the medium and long term — the situation is genuinely not dire. Whether we’re talking about real estate, equities, or precious metals, once each finds its true floor, consolidates, and gathers its energy again, another cycle of flourishing will follow.
I’ve said it again and again: cycles, macro trends, the great turning of fortune’s wheel — these things require an extraordinarily long time to build real momentum. So when they fall, they crash like an avalanche; when they rise, they surge with unstoppable force.
Wait a little longer. Don’t rush into decisions. Don’t rush to get rich. Don’t exhaust yourself fighting tooth and nail for your own point of view.
If you’re holding cards right now, with pieces already on the board — why not simply settle your mind, pour yourself a cup of clear tea, and watch how things unfold? Use this time to cultivate yourself.
That is what it truly means to have depth and quiet strength.